Then, variously, Lord Patten is increasing the World Service budget by £6.5m in 2014/15 or by £5m in 2014/15. I'm sure he knows the right answer.
More interestingly (I hope), we still don't have sight of a World Service operating licence from the good Lord. Why £5m - what for ? Taken overall, some 1.7m licence fees are required to support the planned £245m spend in 2014/15. Of course, this figure might be offset by advertising income - there are ads on BBC World Service sites in Arabic, Spanish and Russian; and an experiment with ads underway on a Berlin FM transmitter. I've no doubt this will grow - but, philosophically, that puts World Service in the same "boat" as the ad-funded BBC World - and yet tied to a double signature-deal with the Foreign Secretary and BBC Trust chairman if it wants to make any "significant change" to its output. The Operating Licence is supposed to define "significant change".
What really needs to be written down is an easily-understood rationale for BBC to be broadcasting in any foreign language, now it requires licence-fee support. The FCO motives are clear - soft power, influence, correcting a perceived democratic deficit etc. Frankly, I'm not sure any licence-fee payer has been properly prepared for helping to correct a democratic deficit from 1st April 2014. Mark Thompson said "the licence fee should provide more secure and more politically independent funding for the World Service"; bravo, but you can't start or cut a language service without FCO approval - and the current list is an odd mixture of the strategic and historic.
I'd prefer a rationale that says the BBC should be concerned about global languages - bring back French, for example - and languages that link to the UK's major communities. Let the Government fund directly output deemed "strategic", or allow the BBC to cut it from the list. And it now looks too late to retreat from the move to ad-funding; acknowledge that, and put a five-year plan in place, so I can stop worrying about defining "democratic deficits" and "significant change".
- Does advertising follow the agenda for BBC World ? It's pretty clear here.
As a World Service (languages) employee, I agree and have been saying for some time now that, as 2014 approaches, the license payer needs to better understand what they are about to start paying for, and what they get in return in terms of soft power and national reputation overseas.
ReplyDeleteIf you are suggesting that strategic languages (for example Farsi (Persian)?) should be FCO funded, while others where less political sway is required (e.g. Bengali/Sinhala) would be supported by license payers if there is a link to a British community... well, that's an interesting possibility which I quite like, provided we are allowed to continue without excessive editorial interference from the FCO, because without trust, the whole effort suddenly becomes pointless.
One thing though - we're under the impression that there is in fact *less* money in the budget, not more, and were informed of this recently in an email from Peter Horrocks. I wonder where the discrepancy is?