Spinning the World Service

The spinning of the licence fee deal continues, as you might expect, in the Guardian today.

DG Mark Thompson points to a longer time period for the World Service to get on with things, moving from the traditional (though lapsed-under-Labour) three-year Spending Review deal, to a six-year licence fee deal, 

"From now on, the funding of World Service and Monitoring will be agreed in separate licence fee negotiations which will give them longer settlements and greater security than they have enjoyed before. Just as now, the foreign secretary will have to agree BBC proposals to open or close services. But the BBC will have complete editorial and operational independence over these services and, for the first time ever, international audiences will know that the services are funded not by the UK government, but directly by the British public."

However the Guardian Editorial Team has had time to read Thommo's copy, and their writer (Mr Rusbridger ?) takes a somewhat different view:  "The World Service, although it is editorially independent, remains a vehicle for foreign policy. The Foreign Office retains control over where and in what languages it broadcasts. The government now has a foothold in Broadcasting House. Moreover, the licence payers have not been consulted; no one knows what they think about their money being used to pay for, say, foreign language broadcasts to Kurdistan. Arguing that this is the least bad option may be true but does nothing for the claims of an autonomy protected.


Maybe there is a more subtle truth: the BBC's independence has always been a convenient myth. There have been many moments when the BBC's managers have decided discretion is wiser than valour. Yet, like the British constitution, it is an important myth. Any injury is slow to heal. And it has been injured".