The BBC cannot avoid major change

The Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer struggled to give specific evidence of BBC bias when she was questioned about new Government regulatory requirements yesterday. She pointed to the perception among a growing number of viewers that the BBC was not entirely impartial as required under its Royal Charter.

She said 39 per cent of complaints last year concerned impartiality, up from 19 per cent in 2022, adding: “It’s really important that it maintains the public’s trust. And what we’ve been hearing is that some audiences think it’s biased.”

Ms Frazer was lambasted for failing to appreciate the difference between evidence and perception, yet this is a specious argument advanced by those who brook no criticism of the BBC. If an increasing number of viewers consider its news output to be parti pris then it has a problem in this regard that it needs to address and not ignore.

If viewers in this changed landscape are to be required to pay the licence fee then insisting that the BBC demonstrates impartiality is an absolute condition of its receipt. It is not one to be dismissed amid semantic arguments over what constitutes evidence since this is inevitably subjective.

As Ms Frazer wrote in this newspaper on Monday: “It strikes at the very core of the BBC’S remit and the public expects the organisation to embed this value in everything it does.”

Some reforms are under way, including a new legally binding responsibility on the Board to oversee the complaints process and the extension of Ofcom’s existing regulatory responsibilities to include the BBC’S online news output. But the key fight over the next few years will be over the licence fee. Should it continue in its present form? How can it be justified to ask people to pay what amounts to a tax if they never watch the BBC? Moreover, it still remains a criminal offence not to pay and an imprisonable one for persistent refusal to do so.

Past promises to decriminalise non-payment have come to nought. When it was threatened 10 years ago, the Government negotiated it away in return for the BBC taking on the payment of the concessional over-75 TV licences. Ms Frazer said it was being kept under review but there is no sign it is about to happen.

Since the last Royal Charter was agreed, the media world has changed almost beyond recognition. How the BBC adapts over the next few years will be crucial to its future.