-BBC manifesto a welcome buttress against privatisation.

(From DMEurope)

DMEUROPE-30 June 2004-BBC manifesto a welcome buttress against privatisation (C)2004 DMeurope.com (http://www.dmeurope.com) & DME Ltd. All rights reserved. On the occasion of the release of the BBC's manifesto outlining its plans for the future of the corporation, it is useful to remind ourselves of the utility of public broadcasting and the threats to its continued existence. In Auntie's own coverage of the manifesto release, the BBC journalist quoted Kelvin Mackenzie, a former editor of the UK tabloid newspaper, The Sun, who called for the dismantling of the BBC. He is far from the only one who thinks this way. "We are now in a digital age. There are hundreds of TV channels and dozens of commercial radio channels, digital or otherwise,' he told BBC Radio One's Today programme. On the contrary. Because we are in a digital age, living in an era of not merely '57 channels' but thousands of media sources competing for our attention, the existence of a stable public broadcaster that exists above the fray of the market is ever more necessary. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the market, by its very nature, cannot overcome the digital divide without help from the public sector: there is no financial incentive. The public broadcaster fills this gap as its remit is public service, not private profit, hence we see in Britain the BBC's stonkingly successful roll-out of digital television following the private sector's abysmal failure in this regard. Digital TV penetration in the UK has increased from 1.2m homes to 4m in the last 20 months, making it the country's fastest-growing consumer electronics product in history. As the Guardian newspaper notes, this has been achieved from annual revenues of €4.2bn, on just two thirds of the €6.75bn BSkyB earns. Where commercial critics have something of a point is when they complain that part of the BBC's output is blatantly commercial and competes unfairly with for-profit broadcasters. The BBC should indeed steer clear of Lottery specials and soap operas. The new chairman, Michael Grade, in presenting the manifesto, has listened to this criticism and called for an end to this sort of "cynical, derivative, exploitative programming". But these corporate critics try to have it both ...