In 2020 Lisa Nandy argued for mutualisation of the BBC, saying that it had a duty to “be accountable to those who fund it”: “Instead of tokenistic consultation with the people who pay for it, and backroom negotiations with the government, the BBC should move to a model of being owned and directed by licence fee holders – who can help decide the trade-offs that the BBC must make to secure its future.”

Put aside the irony that Nandy herself has created another “tokenistic consultation”. The principles she expressed are pivotal to the BBC’s future – as a national public institution, the BBC depends on the trust of its audiences. Recent scandals and long-running systemic failures in how the BBC is governed – not least the Government’s direct control over appointments, the licence fee, and its constitution via the Royal Charter – have only enhanced the case for a truly radical transformation of how the BBC is run and held to account, as outlined by Nandy in 2020.

Bafflingly, none of these principles is present in the Green Paper. Its proposals on accountability and independence pay plenty of lip service to “the social contract between the BBC and licence fee payers”, but show no awareness of the essential democratic basis of this contract, which has been absent since the BBC’s foundation. The Government’s proposals default to worn-out distractions around enhancing transparency, new mechanisms to ensure “that everyone feels their voice has been heard“, or tinkering around the edges of the BBC’s current governance model – such as expanding Ofcom’s regulation of the BBC, or introducing a more formal role for parliament in holding the BBC to account.

These ideas have their merits, but would not deliver enhanced public trust, accountability or engagement with the BBC as a civic and democratic institution. It is particularly strange, given that the Government appears to understand current frustrations with the BBC’s lack of accountability, for example in its comments on how the BBC needs to address “declining engagement with, and trust in, the BBC” (pg. 22):

“Often the work undertaken is not widely promoted or understood, including low awareness from the public on how they can get involved and contribute their views. Engagement needs to happen in a way that is visible to audiences, ensuring that everyone feels that their voice has been heard.”

Again, ignore the irony that the Government has not applied this bold support for meaningful public engagement to its own Charter review process. Unless the public can meaningfully engage with and influence the BBC through mechanisms of democratic accountability that have longevity, accountability and genuine power, then the social contract the BBC holds with its audiences will not survive. The Green Paper’s unimaginative suggestions for bureaucratic reforms or requirements for more ‘listening exercises’ are a long way away from addressing what the Government clearly recognises as an existential threat to the BBC’s future.

The recent crisis around the leaked BBC Board memo, and the on-going allegations of entrenched political interference by serving BBC Board members, has helped bring greater public awareness to the antidemocratic and unjustifiable role of political appointees on the BBC Board. Only a few weeks ago, ending the government’s power to directly appoint the Chair of the BBC and non-executive members of the BBC Board seemed like the largest political open goal in the history of BBC reforms. Yet the Green Paper is at pains to avoid acknowledging the obvious political interference that stems from Board appointments. It offers only, in non-committal tones, to consider “whether there should be a change to the government’s role in appointing Board members”.

The consultation questions give further clues about the Government’s reluctance to surrender its power: Survey Question 8 on “enhancing the BBC’s accountability” provides an option “reducing the government’s role in board appointments to appointing the Chair only.” Like many of the consultation questions, this leading framing attempts to shut down any discussion of reforms that might go beyond what powerful political figures find acceptable. Even if the public wanted to see an end to political appointments entirely, it seems the Government has already decided for us that this simply isn’t within the scope of Charter review.

New Public Purposes: some good, some pointless, some ignored

The BBC’s Royal Charter details the Public Purposes of the BBC – the top-level requirements for the kinds of content, services and public benefits the BBC should provide. They serve as a foundational definition for what the BBC does and why it exists, as well as a regulatory benchmark for evaluating the BBC’s activities.

To some extent, the Green Paper explores debates on introducing new Public Purposes in the renewed 2028 Royal Charter. However, there is little evidence of a coherent philosophy behind the discussion, nor a consideration of how concise and clear the BBC’s mission may (not) be if all the Government’s new Purposes were adopted.

Accuracy – The section on ‘Trusted, impartial and accurate BBC news’ (pg. 35) includes a proposal to “give accuracy equal importance alongside impartiality” by updating the BBC’s Public Purposes. The word ‘accuracy’, however, features just 5 times in the entire 92-page document, so it is not at all clear what has motivated the Government to see this as a vital and urgent addition to the BBC’s headline objectives. The BBC already features requirements for accuracy as part of its editorial guidelines, which are not only the binding standards code for the BBC’s news content but are also subject to external regulation and complaints oversight by Ofcom. The Government will need to justify what is currently lacking in the BBC’s Mission and editorial principles that merits such a revision to the BBC’s Public Purposes.

Technology – The previous BBC Royal Charter (2006-2017), which first introduced the Public Purposes, included a requirement to “deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services”. The current Charter (2017-2028) relegated this objective to a separate clause, meaning that the BBC had no foundational priority for being a leading player in ‘delivering tech for public good’ during the most significant period of expansion, development and market consolidation in the areas of digital platforms, Big Tech and data.

The Green Paper’s section on BBC R&D suggests that the next Charter might put “research, development and innovation firmly back at the centre of the BBC’s public service activities, potentially as part of a new Public Purpose on driving growth” (pg. 55). Restoring the abandoned public purpose certainly has appeal, but the Green Paper’s discussions for this are limited to only the benefits of public innovation in an industrial sense, such as “shar[ing] best practice and support[ing] the wider sector in benefiting from any advances”. This is quite different from the motivation of “delivering to the public” that was foremost in the previous Public Purpose on tech. Nowhere in the Green Paper has the Government considered any scope for the BBC to be an innovative player in developing public social media, video-sharing or digital communications platforms, seemingly content to leave these spaces dominated by unaccountable, exploitative profit-maximalising Big Tech companies with no commitments to the public interest.

Growth – A glancing look at the BBC’s role in tech is nested within what the Government clearly feels is its winning addition to the BBC’s next Royal Charter – “a new BBC Public Purpose focused on driving economic growth” (pg. 52). The consultation survey features this upfront as Question 2, with DCMS (or more likely, the Labour government) perhaps hoping to record a high number of positive responses before the public get tired with the rest of the survey. The Green Paper devotes significant space (and unusual detail) to celebrating the BBC’s contributions to the UK’s creative industries, through econometric medals like Gross Value Added, £s created per £s spent, investment in the nations and regions, and so on.

Little of this analysis is under dispute – the BBC is a major (if not the most significant) economic contributor to the UK’s broadcasting, arts, culture and creative sectors. Yet adding this role as a Public Purpose risks encouraging the BBC to engage in activities that are geared towards serving consumers and businesses, rather than keeping to its foundational mission as a public service media institution serving audiences and citizens. As the Green Paper’s own analysis demonstrates, the BBC’s public investment already creates significant economic growth, industrial infrastructure and talent development for independent producers, media workers and businesses across the UK. This is the outcome of public investment, and the Government ought to focus more on how to sustain the funding needed to deliver what audiences expect from the BBC, rather than creating redundant new requirements that are in fact already being delivered.

There are also several key areas where the BBC should, in the MRC’s view have more formalised and updated Public Purposes. Some are mentioned in the Green Paper, while others are overlooked entirely:

Local media – the UK’s local media faces an existential crisis, driven by corporate consolidation, concentrated ownership and mass closures of local newspapers, radio stations and community media outlets. The Green Paper recognises this, but repeats the dominant narrative of the commercial sector that the BBC is ‘treading on the toes of the market’. It proposes expanding the Local Democracy Reporter Scheme – which in practice is a public subsidy for the largest regional news publishers, who chose to withdraw from local news provision for commercial reasons – and requiring the BBC to “explore partnerships with high quality local media outlets” (pg. 41). “The aim of this,” it continues, “would be to improve BBC access to local knowledge and insight, while providing other outlets with access to technology, skills and networks”.

This all sounds good in principle, but it is vulnerable to capture by dominant commercial players who have already demonstrated a lack of commitment to sustaining local public interest news provision across the UK’s towns and communities. Any new requirements about the BBC’s role in local media, including a Public Purpose, need to have the needs and interests of local communities at their heart – and not merely focus on protecting existing commercial players or addressing ‘market gaps’. A Public Purpose that establishes the BBC as an ‘anchor institution’ – grounded in communities as an independent, accountable and publicly-owned media organisation, that also partners with local civic institutions to make its resources available to the public – will not only reinvigorate local media, but also significantly enhance the public’s relationship with and power over the BBC.

International content – The 2017-2028 Royal Charter removed reference in the Public Purposes to “bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK“, implying that British audiences had nothing to benefit from having access to a wide range and diversity of content made outside, and sharing experiences from, outside the UK. This permitted the BBC to reduce investment in commissioning and acquiring content from around the world. The next BBC Royal Charter should reintroduce a Public Purpose commitment to ensuring high-quality international content covering global affairs is made widely available and accessible to UK audiences.

Media literacy and public empowerment – Most policy and industry conversations on media literacy appear concerned only with the harms and threats from mis- and dis-information, primarily “aiming to help individuals understand, evaluate and think critically about information” (pg. 33). This is an essential aim in our current information crisis, and something that the BBC should pay a leading role in seeking to tackle. However, this educational model of media literacy does not recognise the potential for public empowerment by promoting citizens’ ability and right to social, cultural and civic self-expression through media institutions. Too often ‘the media’ is treated as something that is ‘done to’ the public, rather than a process in which we all share and should play an equal and common part. A new Public Purpose on media literacy, enhancing the BBC’s role as an open and participatory institution, would be hugely valuable.

A hollow vision for the BBC in 2024

Many of the BBC’s most significant failures over the last decade stem from the misguided and ideological reforms put in place by the 2017-2028 Royal Charter. Its commercialised philosophy and politicised governance reforms, coupled with hugely damaging cuts to the licence fee, has left the BBC adrift at the moment of maximum vulnerability for its future – with inescapable consequences for the British public.

Despite this, the DCMS 2025 Green Paper expresses a hollow vision for the BBC and public media for the next BBC Royal Charter, which will see the BBC up to the 2040s and beyond. If some of the narratives we have critiqued are formally adopted in the renewed Charter, it will be a blueprint for permanent, perhaps irreversible decline. The BBC’s vital public services will become increasingly marginalised and commercial models will dominate more and more of what the BBC does, while the public remain passive audiences with no power to shape or influence how the BBC serves them.

This is a counterproductive and contradictory plan for the BBC. It asks for an effective public service without any of its essential foundations; a universal service that caters to the needs and interests of all nations and communities of the UK, while simultaneously providing popular content that brings the nation together.

This contradiction is captured in the Green Paper’s discussion on ‘delivering services for the public good’ (pg. 38). It talks about the BBC’s obligation to “act differently to other broadcasters”, and need to “make tough decisions” about what content to commission. Then, just a few sentences later, it says Charter review needs to address “how the BBC is able to provide a broad and deep range of content”.

These are not two awkward sides of the same unfortunate coin. They are completely opposite political choices about why the BBC exists and how it should serve its audiences. It is impossible to have a universal BBC that also restricts itself to market gaps and cuts away at services for expendable or commercially unviable audiences.

Without a coherent philosophy in support of public media, or any authentic and consequential mechanism for allowing the public to make this case themselves, it is difficult to see how a renewed Royal Charter will ensure the BBC survives the next decade, let alone sets it “on a path to thrive well until the latter half of this century” as the Culture Secretary wishes.

Part 1 of this post was published on 15 January 2025

Tom Chivers is the Vice Chair of the Media Reform Coalition.  This post originally appeared on the Media Reform Coalition website and is reproduced with permission and thanks.