Image: Flickr / Lis Ferla
The BBC’s response to the Government’s Charter Review Green Paper expected within weeks, is slated to include a radical plan from the Director General, Tony Hall to open up “the BBC to more competition”. There are fears it could become a prelude to privatisation of much of the BBC’s programme-making, leaving a shrunken BBC.
Hall wants to sweep away the existing quota system which reserves 50% of drama, entertainment and features for the BBC’s in-house programme makers. In future all programmes would be opened up competition from private independent producers with the exception of News, Sport, Current Affairs and Children’s programming which will be exempt. The quid pro quo for the BBC’s beleaguered producers is that some two thousand of them will become part of a new “arms length”, “more commercial” outfit, BBC Studios which would be free to compete for work in the open market in the UK and globally.
