The BBC’S cut-throat determination to rule the airwaves will hurt only its loyal listeners

DESPITE addressing many issues in his speech to the Royal Television Society, one that Tim Davie, the BBC director-general studiously avoided was the corporation’s intention to run advertisements. While Mr Davie categorically stated in the subsequent Q&A session that BBC television would not be awash with the Kellogg’s logo any time soon, he has not ruled out advertising across other media.

The idea of such ventures around BBC shows on third-party platforms such as Spotify has, unsurprisingly, caused anger among commercial rivals, which reasonably state that the BBC has a competitive advantage because of the licence fee. And while revenue from such advertising would prove negligible, the message is clear: here is another tanks-on-the-lawn moment as the corporation forges ahead to win the battle for audio.

To be clear, audio is an at-times overlooked section of the BBC’S output. But recent growth of the audio sector has been astonishing: podcasting in particular has increased its audience with global consumption up from 275 million in 2017 to nearly 505 million in 2023. It is cheap to produce, and its confessional, often meandering, style resonates with those who want their listening experience to be unfiltered and truthful.

Of course, the BBC has already had considerable success with shows such as Newscast and The Lazarus Heist, a true crime series. But spending money on series like these comes at the expense of rich Reithian fare, such as radio drama, which is often hard to market and costly to produce. Such terrific but unloved corners of BBC Radio should not be forfeited for the corporation’s commercial ambitions but, alas, it is already too late.

The other main area in which the BBC is becoming cut-throat is music. The news last month that BBC Radio is to launch four spin-off stations has sent commercial rivals such as Bauer and Global Media into a spin. For example, Radio 2’s new station which takes in music from the 60s, 70s and 80s is a definitive intervention to try to replicate the success of Bauer’s Greatest Hits Radio (home now, of course, to the corporation’s formerly most popular DJ, Ken Bruce) as well as other genre or decade-specific channels such as Absolute, Heart and Smooth.

The BBC’S stations should be distinctive in their output, not merely duplicating what is available elsewhere. Davie, in his speech, criticised the narrowness of algorithmic data and said, in fact, that it threatens social cohesion – yet it is hard to imagine that these additional stations are really offering anything that couldn’t be assembled by a bot.

The fact is that human creativity costs money and the BBC has to make £500 million in savings. Its battle to reign supreme in audio, however, must be won by ingenuity, not by aping the success (or indeed the commercial ventures) of others.