What the licence fee funds currently. Credit: DCMSLast week the government released its white paper on the forthcoming renewal of the BBC Charter. Prior to that event, many viewed the Corporation as under threat from a disapproving government and, in the person of John Whittingdale, a hostile Secretary of State. Only a week earlier footballer and national treasure Gary Lineker had tweeted how Whittingdale was a ‘chump’ after it was reported he had joked about privatising the BBC to a Tory student society. And yet, despite all that, the reforms it will now be subject to are relatively minor.
Despite Whittingdale’s politics, that should come as little surprise. Over two hundred thousand people responded to last year’s green paper ahead of the main event, showing that the BBC – along with the NHS – is a much-loved national institution. While not universally admired, its defenders are sufficiently numerous to mean that comprehensive change, such as privatisation or the introduction of advertising, would be a battle few governments would choose to pick.
Yet despite the fact that many of the reforms will be agreeable to Tony Hall and the BBC’s supporters alike, there are elements which Whittingdale has clearly driven through. While the former political secretary to Margaret Thatcher has not torn, he has certainly tinkered.
