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Mon 25 Aug, 2003 12:34 am
BBC launches public attack on Murdoch 'imperialism'
By Vincent Graff, Media and Culture Editor
25 August 2003
The controller of BBC1 launched an unprecedented attack on Rupert Murdoch yesterday, calling the media billionaire a "capital imperialist" who wants to destabilise the corporation because he "is against everything the BBC stands for".
Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch's continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people "have a National Health Service, a public education system" and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not driven by profit.
Her controversial comments, in an interview with The Independent, are believed to be the first time a senior BBC executive has publicly attacked the motives of the media tycoon. They follow an intensification of anti-BBC rhetoric from Mr Murdoch's side.
The BBC has been alarmed by the increasingly close relationship between the Government and Mr Murdoch's British newspapers, at a time when the BBC's relationship with New Labour is strained as never before. The frostiness of the relationship has raised speculation that the Government will consider abolishing the licence fee in its forthcoming review of the BBC's charter.
Ms Heggessey's remarks will cheer supporters of the corporation who fear the BBC has kept quiet for too long in the face of attack from Mr Murdoch and his most senior employees.
Her comments come in the wake of a speech to the country's senior broadcasting executives by Tony Ball, chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting, in which Mr Murdoch's News Corporation is the major shareholder.
Mr Ball told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that the BBC ought to be forced to sell its most successful programmes, such as EastEnders, Casualty and Have I Got News For You to its commercial rivals, who would screen all future episodes instead. The money raised by such sales should then be ploughed into experimental programming, he said.
Executives at the BBC and elsewhere see the plan as a Murdoch-inspired attempt to cripple the corporation by depriving it of its most popular shows - and the large audiences that go with them.
Mr Ball told a questioner at the festival that it "would not be such a disaster" if the BBC were eventually to become a marginal broadcaster.
But Ms Heggessey retorted: "It wouldn't be such a disaster for Sky because he hopes that the less successful we become, the more people will subscribe to Sky. It would be a disaster for the BBC."
Supporters of the BBC say Mr Ball's proposal, intended to influence the Government's hand as it considers the renewal of the BBC's charter, follows relentlessly negative reports in Mr Murdoch's British newspapers about the BBC's conduct in the David Kelly affair. The Times and The Sun, in particular, have come under attack for what is perceived as anti-BBC bias.
"I would suspect that everybody who works for Rupert Murdoch knows what he expects of them and they know that if they don't deliver they will be booted out," said Ms Heggessey. Newspaper readers "know when they are being peddled a line," she added.
In his speech, Mr Ball proposed two further restrictions to be placed on the BBC, which he argued would prevent the corporation it from straying too far into territory he regards as the sole domain of commercial broadcasters such as his own.
The BBC should be banned from buying any foreign-made material, he said. This would prevent the BBC from pushing up the price of American sitcoms, Hollywood movies and Australian soap operas, the staples of many commercial channels. "I really cannot see why public money is being diverted to those poor struggling Hollywood studios," he said.
Ms Heggessey said BBC1 did not run any overseas-originated programmes during peak time but "the audience expects us to run movies and we do".
AT LAST! BBC chief warns over Murdoch dominance
BBC chief warns over Murdoch dominance
Matt Wells, media correspondent
Monday August 25, 2003
The Guardian
The BBC will be left to fight a lone battle against Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB if the government does not intervene to prevent the collapse of ITV as a public service broadcaster, the corporation's director general Greg Dyke warned yesterday.
Mr Dyke warned of BSkyB's dominance of the digital TV world, and said five years of management failure at ITV had allowed the satellite broadcaster to forge ahead, opposed only by the BBC.
He expressed concern about Sky's position as simultaneously a provider of Britain's biggest satellite television system; provider of programmes on that system; and controller of the price paid by other broadcasters who want to use it.
"A healthy broadcasting market in the UK needs a third gorilla alongside the BBC and Sky," Mr Dyke told the Media Guardian Edinburgh international television festival.
Mr Dyke believes that, having seen off the threat of ITV Digital, BSkyB has the corporation in its sights. He believes the digital terrestrial TV service Freeview, launched out of the ashes of ITV Digital with the BBC's backing, will provide an important bulwark against BSkyB. But he is concerned that ITV's woes will strengthen Mr Murdoch's influence in the British media.
He catalogued the failings of ITV managers, listing the collapse of ITV Digital, the overpayment for Premiership football highlights rights and the axing of News at Ten. All had contributed to ITV's decline: "Some senior people in ITV have blamed the BBC for their plight. My answer to that is they should look much closer to home," he said.
Mr Dyke warned of a worst-case scenario in which ITV would be forced to slash its programme budget to stay afloat. He predicted that, when most viewers had switched to digital television, ITV could choose to give up its analogue television licences and broadcast on satellite and cable only.
Such a move would save ITV £300m a year in the cash it pays to the Treasury for its television licences. Giving up the licences would also free it of its obligations to show news, current affairs, arts, religion, regional programming and other public service commitments.
"ITV's traditional commitment to public service broadcasting, alongside that of the BBC and Channel 4, is one of the reasons why Britain's television output reflects our culture, our tastes and our values. If ITV chose to shed its public service commitments, this could all change. The government of the day would not be in a position to stop ITV from doing this," he said.
Mr Dyke said ITV number-crunchers were already working on financial models that envisaged cuts in the network programme budget of up to £300m. Coincidentally, the ITV director of programmes, Nigel Pickard, announced at the festival yesterday a standstill network budget next year of £835m - this compares with BBC1's budget of more than £1bn.
Mr Pickard said he was "comfortable" with the budget freeze, but Mr Dyke warned about the consequences of undermining the commercial network's future. "A weak ITV is not in the BBC's interest; it is not in the interests of the British broadcasting industry as a whole; and, above all, it is not in the interests of the people who matter most - the viewers."
To prevent the death of ITV's role as a public service broadcaster, Mr Dyke said the government should consider cutting or waiving its £300m licence fees.
"If governments and regulators want to preserve some of the best features of commercial broadcasting in this country they will have to change their approach. They will have to make it commercially attractive for ITV to remain a public service broadcaster. The days of doing it by decree are rapidly coming to an end, and the days of charging ITV hundreds of millions of pounds for the privilege of being a broadcaster are certainly numbered."
On Friday, BSkyB chief executive, Tony Ball, used the festival's keynote speech, the James MacTaggart memorial lecture, to call for the BBC to be forced to put its most popular programmes up for auction. Mr Dyke yesterday witheringly dismissed the speech as "less effective" than those of previous years, while Mr Pickard, dismissed Mr Ball's plan as "codswallop" and "unworkable".
Mr Dyke said that, when he delivered the MacTaggart lecture three years ago, the BBC faced predictions of terminal decline.
"Today, the accusation is that the BBC is too successful, too powerful and too competitive. As I have said on many occasions, this is one of the few jobs in the world when you get crap for losing and crap for doing well."
Get him, Beebs!!!!! - not, I am sure, that Rupert will mind a bit of free publicity of this type.
I would call it imperialistic counter-imperialism, though - the man id from Adelaide!
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