Patten v. Thompson

[amateur51]

Bit naive to think she was off duty.

Oh, you were there too?

[scottycelt]

Your antipathy to Margaret Hodge has been aired often scotty. She's a powerful woman (as presumably was Miss Dow), could that be it?

I have the very faintest recollection of perhaps mentioning the lady once before on this Forum and describing her manner as being rather 'schoolmistressly', amsey. Well, at least that has the merit of no little consistency, don't you think?

Apart from a similarity in lecturing manner I'd imagine that Ms Hodge and Miss Dow shared very little else in common. One is a multi-millionairess socialist MP and the other was a comparatively impoverished primary school teacher who actually was very popular with her all-boy class as she had a very keen interest in association football, if I remember correctly.

However, we must return to the main topic, amsey ... we certainly don't want to be sent down in disgrace to the cellar again, do we?

[Beef Oven!]

Oh, you were there too?

No, the several encounters I've had with the woman (who I respect very much) have not been at funerals. But that wasn't the point. The point is that politicians are always 'on stage'.

[french frank]

And this is why I disagree with those who think that there is nothing wrong with the idea of the Trust, only the shortcomings of its members. The Trust replicates the same problems that led to the disbandment of the BBC Governors, a too-cosy relationship between those supposedly overseeing the BBC and the BBC management.

Someone (Hodge, perhaps?) mentioned the impossible expectation that the Trust could be a BBC "watchdog and cheerleader" at the same time. I distinctly remember those identical terms being used about the Board of Governors - hence 'the need' for the Trust.

I could never see the, in essence, difference between Governors and Trustees. I never studied the regulatory framework which the Governors had to comply with. The Trustees had wideranging powers and they certainly engaged marketing agencies to carry out their research. I could see no evidence that they engaged any other kind of specialists to advise them.

For a couple of decades, Radio 3 hasn't focused on what it is and what it should do; rather it embraces marketing concepts: how can we get more listeners? how can we persuade listeners to stay tuned in for longer? what kind of audiences are we 'underserving'? In short, how must we change to meet the requirements of people who we would like to persuade to listen? All the concerns of the commercial broadcaster.

[edashtav]

S

For a couple of decades, Radio 3 hasn't focused on what it is and what it should do; rather it embraces marketing concepts: how can we get more listeners? how can we persuade listeners to stay tuned in for longer? what kind of audiences are we 'underserving'? In short, how must we change to meet the requirements of people who we would like to persuade to listen? All the concerns of the commercial broadcaster.

I warm to that analysis, ff! ( I nearly wrote "like" instead of "warm to" and then remembered that ff and fb are not coincident.)

[zoomy]

Most people, like it or not enjoy populist programming and since it is the people who pay for it through their licence fee they would not support the BBC if it only had elitist programming - but I totally agree that Radio Three should be unashamedly elitist and high brow in order to provide some decent programming for the rest of us and I regret the populist trend of the past twenty or so years.

[french frank]

Most people, like it or not enjoy populist programming and since it is the people who pay for it through their licence fee they would not support the BBC if it only had elitist programming - but I totally agree that Radio Three should be unashamedly elitist and high brow in order to provide some decent programming for the rest of us and I regret the populist trend of the past twenty or so years.

This was quoted to me by my favourite radio critic in Aug 2003:

"The Governors are, by definition, on your side. Their sole purpose is to protect the public service remit of the BBC. They do not have anything to do with the day to day running: they have everything to do with the PSB remit." [Not so, the Trust, apparently.]

Another comment from the same source:

"Bear in mind all the time that the arguments for licence fee are unsustainable without BBC radio, therefore BBC radio is more important than ever [...] This is a direct quote from Sir C. Bland when [BBC] chairman - their programme record on TV just not strong enough on arts and intellect, the great premises of public service broadcasting, without Radios 3 & 4." [For which, nowadays, read 'without Radio 4' whose budget has been largely ring fenced while Radio 3's has been slashed.

And again:

"Don't be intimidated by the "tiny, unrepresentative..." thing. He would say that, wouldn't he?"

[Russ]

And this is why I disagree with those who think that there is nothing wrong with the idea of the Trust, only the shortcomings of its members. The Trust replicates the same problems that led to the disbandment of the BBC Governors, a too-cosy relationship between those supposedly overseeing the BBC and the BBC management. The Trust did not concern itself with salaries or the bloated management structure and does not seem to have had any effective system for dealing with complaints. One of its roles was to stand up for the independence of the BBC but why? That was guaranteed by Royal Charter. And the service level agreements which the Trust negotiated with the BBC management seemed to a large extent to reflect what the BBC was already doing, or what it had decided to do, and they were framed in such general terms that it was difficult for the BBC to 'fail' on any of them.

The Trust is an irreparably broken institution imo and should be replaced by one that is wholly independent of the BBC and of government.

Incompetence and failings within the Trust are not in themselves reasons to get rid of it, although I don't think we would disagree over the need for an overseeing body to direct and restrain the Executive, which is often similarly incompetent or devious. What I'm struggling with is the notion that a replacement body could or should be 'wholly independent' of the BBC and the government. I can't see OFCOM being able to handle 'overall content' decisions on which BBC service should get what amount of money from the licence fee cake, nor can I see OFCOM being able to manage the detail content of the Service Licences, which are, to use Lord Patten's own words, "probably the most important part of the governance system". OFCOM is a decent enough regulator but it is not set up to be a governor, and all the problems at the moment are about governance and not regulation. There is also the question whether OFCOM could do an impartial PVT for deciding new services or services that are planned to be closed. (Not that the Trust is particularly great at this either, look at the 6Music episode.) In my view, OFCOM would be poked too heavily by competitor broadcasters, with stalemate the inevitable result.

In all the current debate about whether the BBC Governors should be resurrected, and whether there should be a new unitary or two-tier board system, and with the vultures of the NAO joining the bun fight and trying to get their claws into the BBC financial system, we are losing sight of the main issue from a licence-fee payers point of view, namely who gets what of the licence fee cake and what the content of the Service Licences should be.

The Trust does currently have 'authority' for the Service Licences. I agree with you completely over the deficiencies of the current Service Licence mechanism, as we have discussed here many times here before, but my worry is that if control over them went to the Executive, there is a real danger Station Controllers could act unilaterally and will cease to become accountable, both to the Trust (or whatever body might supersede it) and the licence-payer. Currently, there is a degree of transparency and public consultation over proposed changes to Service Licences. That transparency and consultation is imperfect, and could be a lot better, but at least it's something.

I don't know what the answers to all this could be, but I feel FoR3's position should be based on the following principles:

• that licence fee payers are given a better voice in deciding budgets for BBC Services;
• that Service Licences should remain;
• that Service Licences should continue to remain in the public domain;
• that Service Licences improve the clarity over the remit of each Service;
• that Service Licences should continue to specify objectives, quotas and targets;
• that any proposed changes to Service Licences should be transparent and open to public consultation and scrutiny.

Russ

[french frank]

This is a huge subject, and I don't disagree with anything Russ has said.

Services licences? One problem was that right from the start we (FoR3) maintained that Radio 3's remit wasn't clear or tight enough. An opinion ignored by the Trust. The problem for us then was that when we wanted to claim that targeting people with 'little knowledge of classical music' represented, in line with the BBC Charter, 'a significant change' in the service licence, from catering for an audience that was more educated in terms of classical music (a change which couldn't be done without public consultation and government agreement), we couldn't - or couldn't make it stick - because the service licence had never been clear about this: it had left it open for management, effectively, to do as they please. As they have done.

A body completely independent of management/Executive, whether inside or outside the BBC, is needed, which will recruit experts in every field to advise them. As it is, their 'advice' seems to come from the Trust Unit which is a kind of civil service support resource with not much relevant knowledge of anything.

As far as we can see, in the case of Radio 3, the Trust ignored all views (FoR3's, the radio industry's, general listeners') which didn't support the proposals that management had submitted. They swallowed the management line, hook, line and sinker. So much for their 'independence'.

[aeolium]

In all the current debate about whether the BBC Governors should be resurrected, and whether there should be a new unitary or two-tier board system, and with the vultures of the NAO joining the bun fight and trying to get their claws into the BBC financial system, we are losing sight of the main issue from a licence-fee payers point of view, namely who gets what of the licence fee cake and what the content of the Service Licences should be.

Yes, who gets what from the licence fee cake and what is in the Service Licences are both important issues, but surely by no means the only ones. What about the quality of what is delivered, irrespective of whether it meets the requirements of a particular Service Licence? What about the issue of the management structure, executive pay and bonuses, endemic waste (newsreaders sent out to distant places even though there is already a specialist correspondent there, 500 staff covering the Beijing Olympics , failed Digital Media projects etc). I have never thought that the size of the BBC budget, or even necessarily R3's budget, was the most important factor but how it is used. Even in the glut years of the early 2000s when the budget was getting real-terms increases (and Mark Thompson's salary was doubling) the same questions were being asked about BBC priorities as are asked now, which surely suggests that the main problem is not one of money. It is at least as much a culture of top-heavy management, editorial control over programme risk-taking, inoffensiveness over thought-provocation, all-embracing accessibility and interactivity over respect for a plurality of different audiences.

You mention the unsatisfactoriness of the present Service Licence system but still maintain there is a place for the Trust to have oversight of them. But the Trust has failed as surely as the Governors failed, and again it is being argued that the failure is not in the institution but its members. To me it wouldn't matter if all of the Trustees were replaced by new faces, the same problems would continue to arise. It needs a different regulatory body - I agree that Ofcom as currently set up is not the right one - which ideally includes proper representation of licence-fee payers, hopefully sufficiently diverse that the minority interests of viewers and listeners could be protected as well as those of the majority.

[Russ]

You mention the unsatisfactoriness of the present Service Licence system but still maintain there is a place for the Trust to have oversight of them.

I intentionally avoided the question of who would oversee the Service Licences in the principles I gave in my post above. I think For3's primary objective should be to fight for the continued existence of the Service Licences.

Russ

[french frank]

I intentionally avoided the question of who would oversee the Service Licences in the principles I gave in my post above. I think For3's primary objective should be to fight for the continued existence of the Service Licences.

Except at the moment, as far as FoR3 is concerned, they're pretty useless. Everything that has happened to Radio 3 since 2007 has been during the existence of its service licence. And the worst of it following its service licence review.

Right from the very beginning - in the time of the Governors - we said we didn't support a kind of one-size-fits-all framework. But that was pretty much what we got. When we objected to the lack of definition as regards Radio 3's remit, that was ignored. The independent report submitted to the Trust in 2010 said the remit should be tightened up so that Radio 3 couldn't poach from Classic FM and then use the BBC's huge cross-promotional methods to promote Radio 3 (as is precisely the case with the Sound of Cinema event. It would fit more properly on Radio 2, but they don't need to promote Radio 2. It looks as if about 80% of the "BBC Film Season" falls to Radio 3 - and that, I'm quite sure, was intentional).

Admittedly, there is more transparency regarding the service budget, but that is so colossally depressing, given the way the station has been treated vis-à-vis the popular stations, I'd really rather not know - since we can't do anything to redress the balance.