BBC ‘too tied up in red tape to compete with Netflix’

TOO much red tape is stopping the BBC from competing with on-demand rivals, its chairman will warn today.

Sir David Clementi is expected to say the broadcaster is no longer ‘the big beast in the jungle’ and is under threat from online streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

In a speech to the Oxford Media Convention, Sir David will call for an urgent debate on regulation of broadcasters to ensure the BBC ‘remains fit for the global, digital age’.

He will say: ‘The current regulatory system has its origins in an era where the BBC was seen as the big beast in the jungle.

‘But that view of the world has now passed. Increasingly, our major competitors are wellfunded, international giants – Netflix, Spotify, Facebook, YouTube – whose financial resources dwarf our own.’

The BBC wants to offer more box sets and make iPlayer programmes available for more than 30 days – where rivals offer them for at least three years.

But it has to submit any plans to rigorous public interest tests, which Sir David will say take months to process and mean the BBC risks ‘lagging even further behind audience needs’.