A guest blog from Dr Tom Chivers of the Media Reform Coalition
Tom Chivers of the Media Reform Coalition sets out the MRC’s proposals to give the public a stake in the BBC’s future through the process of Charter review. This is one of an occasional series of guest blogs, in which we invite relevant experts to share their visions for the future of public interest news. The views of our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of PINF but are intended to stimulate informed debate.
This week’s official launch of the BBC Royal Charter review marks the most significant moment for UK media and journalism in a decade. This once-in-a-generation debate will determine the place and purpose of the BBC up to 2040, and possibly beyond, with huge knock-on effects for the rest of the UK media landscape.
The government’s ‘Green Paper’ has set the terms for what kinds of reforms are being considered, opening the path for major decisions about how the BBC is funded and governed, its commitments to independent, trusted news, and the scale and scope of services it provides as a national, local and global media organisation.
The deadline for agreeing the next BBC Charter is December 2027, meaning many more months of sensible, even-handed discussions on the BBC’s future that we’ve all enjoyed recently. Yet the process of Charter review – the tools and methods the government has picked to inform its decision-making – will be just as important for securing the legitimacy and sustainability of the BBC.
The BBC sits at the heart of British society, culture and democracy: a publicly-owned and publicly-funded institution with an explicit mission to serve the needs and interests of all. It follows that the British public, collectively as the BBC’s owners and individually as citizens, should have a democratic role in debating what the BBC is for and deciding the best models for fulfilling those aims.
Sadly, it appears that the government has opted to repeat many of the same opaque, exclusive practices that defined the last Charter review in 2015-2016. A 12-week consultation, stretching over the bleak midwinter and stacked with questions for which the government has already picked its answers, isn’t an inspiring start for a process that ought to be accessible, exciting and affords the public meaningful influence over subsequent decisions. The government’s over-reliance on ‘independent’ expert advice also raises serious questions about what issues or potential reforms DCMS has considered worthy of deeper study (like its highly secretive project on ‘monetising’ BBC services), and how this invariably prejudices public debate.
Crucially, the Royal Charter itself is an antidemocratic straightjacket which the government shows little interest in untying – ministers have exclusive power to determine the final wording of the Royal Charter via the Privy Council, with no means whatsoever for the public or even MPs to intervene. All of this seriously risks turning what should be a genuinely public, comprehensive and democratic debate about the BBC into a technocratic, unaccountable slog that privileges private lobbying and backroom negotiations.
None of this means there isn’t still an urgent need – and a huge opportunity – for alternative ways of decision-making that give the public a real stake in and power to shape the future of the BBC. That’s why the Media Reform Coalition and Sortition Foundation recently prepared an open letter to the Culture Secretary, calling on her to organise Charter review around citizens' assemblies. The letter has been co-signed by 20 leading media and democracy groups - including PINF, the Voice of the Listener and Viewer and Campaign for the Arts – alongside more than 30 UK academics, writers and broadcasters.
In the letter we make the case for hosting a series of these assemblies, hosted throughout the UK with participants selected by democratic lottery, that would give the public real power to debate and decide the most important questions about the BBC’s future. This would guarantee that the Charter review would be inclusive, comprehensive, evidence-led and provide a genuinely consequential forum for public involvement in policymaking.
In an ideal world, the government would formally extend the deadline for Charter renewal, and give itself the time to commission, recruit and run citizens’ assemblies to inform and shape its policies on BBC reform. More realistically, the BBC itself now has an obligation to empower its audiences and licence fee payers as active players in Charter review, as it has already shown signs of doing with its recent ‘Our BBC, Our Future’ survey of 872,000 BBC account holders.
Our media landscape is dominated – and often hijacked – by Big Tech platforms, powerful private interests and malign influencers who revel in polarising public debate. Tackling the many deep divisions and inequalities that distort public life requires an institution in which we all hold a common stake, and which empowers the public to collectively understand, debate and decide on what kind of country we want to live in.
The BBC is the best (and maybe only) candidate for this role. But unless debates on the BBC actually involve the people on whom it depends for its funding and its relevance, then even the most well-intentioned reforms will struggle to build democratic legitimacy. If it is truly ‘Our BBC’, then it has to be ‘Our Charter review’, too.
Dr Tom Chivers is a researcher and campaigner who runs the Media Reform Coalition’s policy and advocacy work. This is one of an occasional series of guest blogs, in which we invite relevant experts to share their visions for the future of public interest news. The views of our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of PINF but are intended to stimulate informed debate.
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