BBC boss: We won’t abandon our older viewers for youth

BBC director-general Tony Hall has promised not to abandon older audiences amid fears the corporation’s attempts to appeal to youngsters will leave them feeling ignored.

Writing on this page today, Lord Hall pledged said older Britons are ‘super-users’ of the broadcaster’s services and vowed they will always be ‘super-served’ by it.

He said the BBC, which has decided to strip millions of over-75s of their free TV licences, knows the elderly ‘are often the people who value and rely on us most’.

It comes as the BBC battles to stop younger audiences deserting its services in favour of streaming giants like Netflix,

Amazon Prime Video and Spotify. Lord Hall also announced that the corporation is to launch a major initiative, which he called a ‘big listening exercise’, aimed at asking the public to tell the broadcaster what they want it to produce.

Involving events throughout the country, the exercise is described as ‘one of the most significant pieces of public engagement the BBC has ever undertaken’.

The peer’s comments are a response to the criticism the corporation has faced across a range of issues, such as the TV licence reform. Ministers are currently consulting on whether to decriminalise nonpayment of the licence, a move which the BBC has said could cost it around £200million a year. The Government has also suggested the charge could be scrapped in 2027, with claims it could be replaced by a subscription service.

It emerged yesterday that Lord Hall and other senior executives have been called to give evidence to MPs on the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee about the proposed changes to the licence fee. In his article, Lord Hall welcomes a debate about the BBC’s future and funding model, saying it needs to ‘change with the times’ or will ‘fail its audiences’. And he said the BBC will need to make ‘more difficult cuts’ and ‘more tough choices’.

His comments come after BBC presenter Carrie Gracie launched a ferocious attack on the broadcaster’s overpaid bosses on Monday. The former BBC China editor, who has been a leading figure in rows over equal pay, said there were ‘too many managers’ who were ‘paid too much’, adding that she would ‘take them all out’.

She also revealed that, with 450 jobs being axed in news departments, she is preparing to walk away from the BBC. She said: ‘I’m an expensive person, I should go.’

‘More tough choices to come’