News that the BBC is to cut 450 jobs as part of an effort to make £80m worth of savings inspires little confidence about the future of the corporation. Over the last election cycle, the BBC slipped up on a number of occasions in its coverage, including repeating false claims a Conservative adviser was assaulted by Labour activists outside Leeds General Infirmary, and running an out-of-date clip of Boris Johnson laying a wreath in its Remembrance Day footage. The cracks are already beginning to show – how is the broadcaster expected to cope as resources are stretched even further?
Mistakes in coverage are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the BBC's problems, mind. Funding aside, the corporation's abject failure to engage younger audiences leaves its longevity seriously in doubt. Research conducted by Ofcom last year found one in eight young Britons don't use the BBC at all in a given week. And it isn't just streaming services to blame for the existential crisis at Broadcasting House: commercial stations and ITV are doing a comparatively better job at attracting young audiences. The eventual death of the license fee looks certain at this point. The question is, what will be left when it's finally gone?
It is worth reiterating at this point how out-of-touch the BBC is when it comes to young people in the UK. Laura Kuenssberg's attempt to define 'shitposting' – a term with its own Wikipedia page, for anyone doubting the extent to which it has been established – left viewers dumbfounded in an episode of Brexitcast in November. The corporation's news podcast aimed at younger listeners, 'The Next Episode', generates almost no buzz online. As Sarah Manavis notes, the BBC has made little effort to create a distinct social media identity, and what little is there is, in her words, tepid. When it comes to the future, you can roll with the punches, or get dragged there kicking and screaming. But the BBC is doing neither, preferring instead to ambivalently shrug as the rot sets further in.
I suspect much of the BBC's woes stem in large part from the fact it is still, by and large, dominated by elites and the upper classes. A 2017 analysis by the very talented Lewis Goodall found almost half of the BBC's highest-paid presenters were privately educated, compared with 7% of the British population. Further, the vast majority of the state-educated ones attended grammar schools. Indeed, Goodall said that the number of high-paid presenters who attended state comprehensives could be counted "on one hand". This problem is largely the same when it comes to BBC management. All this speaks volumes about the entrenched privilege at Broadcasting House. It also illustrates the fact this is not an organisation young people, free to choose from a huge variety of entertainment and media services, will relate to enough to pay for should the license fee disappear.
So: what to do? Sociologist Tom Mills, who authored a book entitled 'The BBC: Myth of a Public Service', argues that merely "defending" the corporation against funding cuts is not enough. Instead, the answer to the BBC's woes must come as part of a broader shift towards genuinely representative institutions, "accountable to citizens, not politicians", that is "democratic and truly representative of the society it serves in all its diversity".
Sounds great. There's just one problem: the clock's ticking. And right now, at least, neither the senior executives at the BBC nor the general public seem especially fussed about a democratic revolution at our prized public service broadcaster. You know what they say: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. At some point, the BBC might start to change – but at this rate it'll be long after people have stopped caring.
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