The Future of the BBC

The British Broadcasting Corp. is generally acknowledged to be the finest broadcasting organization in the world. Its future is important not only to its United Kingdom audience, but to tens of millions of people in this country and around the world who watch its programs and depend on its journalism. So it is distressing that when another fine journalistic institution tackles the future of the BBC (“A Slumping BBC Rallies for Ratings,” World Report, June 30), the result is riddled with inaccuracies and dependent on secondhand information. The piece fails to address the single most important issue facing the BBC as it prepares for the renewal of its charter; how to respond to the explosion of viewing and listening choices in the U.K.

Some specific points:

-- “Battered by falling ratings”; not true. From January to June of this year, BBC 1’s share was the same as the corresponding period last year. In addition, the year-on-year figures for 1988, 1989 and 1990 were record figures in BBC 1’s history.

-- It is not true that our new prime-time soap “Eldorado” is hugely expensive. It will cost $130,000 per episode, comparable to other U.K. soaps, and a fraction of the cost of U.S.-produced prime-time drama.

-- The World Service broadcasts in 37 languages, not 50.

-- To characterize BBC 2 as “devoting long hours to billiards and darts” is to ignore an extraordinarily rich mixture of arts programming, drama, comedy and documentary.

-- It is not true that the Chairman Duke Hussey refused to renew BBC Director General Michael Checkland’s contract; it was renewed for another year.

-- The annual conference of the Board of Governors and the Board of Management is the only opportunity the governors have to discuss, uninterrupted, long-term issues of policy together with the senior management of the BBC. It is simply not true to say that nothing was decided at this year’s conference. The two boards reached a clear consensus about how the BBC should make its arguments for the renewal of its charter and its future role and purpose. -- “Birt is said to favor the custom of ‘producer choice.’ ” Producer choice is official BBC policy, the planning and implementation of which John Birt is overseeing. It is an internal market system that aims to improve efficiency so that programming budgets can be enhanced. It is not true to say that talent and technique will go down the drain with producer choice; the BBC’s core values of high quality in program making, of craft excellence and of training will remain unchanged. To suggest that it will harm the news division is absurd; the BBC has spent the last five years expanding its news division into the world’s biggest, and regards news programming as a crucial core activity.

JONATHAN CRANE

Head of BBC, New York