The reputation of public service broadcasting in the UK has taken a knock in the past few months; be it the BBC's Ross/Brand fiasco or Channel 4's recent willingness to provide a platform for a man who believes Israel "must be wiped off the map" and sanctions the execution of gay teenagers.
As their broadcasts become more and more removed from the fundamental principle of 'public service broadcasting', the future of the BBC and Channel 4 must be seriously reconsidered.
Proponents of the continuation of the BBC's present charter arrangements frequently argue that specialist local and cultural broadcasting would suffer at the hands of a part-privatised BBC. This needn't be so. Indeed, the reverse could well be true.
Surely it is now time, with channels such as Sky News, Fox News, CNN and even more peripheral players like Al Jazeera providing the type of national and international news coverage which could once only be provided by Auntie Beeb, for the organisation to withdraw from the crowded field of 24 hour national and international news provision? Existing - and in parts outstanding - elements of the BBC's national and international news services such as the corporation's website could be legitimately privatised.
Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay made an interesting intervention into a Commons debate back in November, arguing that there are "millions of people who live in the counties in the M25 ring around London are much more numerous than all the people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together, yet they are badly served by BBC news gathering and provision", further suggesting that the BBC focus more on "provide proper news reporting facilities and proper news programmes" for areas like his Essex constituency. For what it's worth, I think he has a point.
At present, the quality of regional programming in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is relatively high. For the rest of the country, local programming is appalling. Half of the Southern England, for example, is annexed inside the BBC London region for the purposes of 'local' broadcasting. With the BBC divested of its distracting obligations to provide national and international news coverage, the organisation would be free to pursue its obligations towards localised, 'public service' broadcasting; be it the strengthening of Gaelic language broadcasting in Scotland or more county-specific broadcasts in the English counties.
This returns the BBC to focus on the "need for quality and distinctiveness in public service programmes" as defined in the Royal Charter. At present S4C, the state-owned Welsh language channel which would undoubtedly struggle to survive in the open market is the UK's only example of true 'public service broadcasting'.
Whilst a case can still be made for the retention of the BBC as a publicly-owned broadcaster, I fail to understand the argument for retaining Channel 4 in state ownership. To my mind, the schedules of Channel 4 and its associated channels appear to be largely populated by America sitcoms and tawdry documentaries that in no way satisfy the original principle of 'public service broadcasting'. Is it now time that Conservatives revisited this 2001 manifesto pledge?
"We will privatise Channel 4 and give the money to cultural institutions like museums and galleries so they are more independent of the state... This will dramatically extend freedom from state dependency and political control".
