Call to liberate BBC from regulation to take on Netflix

REGULATION of the BBC must be relaxed if it is to have any chance of competing against the digital “big beasts” Netflix and Amazon, the corporation’s chairman has warned.

Sir David Clementi said it is unfair that the BBC cannot make changes to its services without putting them to a public interest test, while Us-based streaming giants can upgrade their offering overnight.

In a speech to the Oxford Media Convention today, Sir David will say rules that govern the BBC are outdated in the digital age.

The BBC’S desire to extend the iplayer window, making shows available for a year rather than the current 30 days, is a case in point. Audiences want this, Sir David will argue, yet the corporation must go through months of consultations and secure Ofcom approval before it can bring in the changes.

The length of time it is taking to make “important but straightforward” changes to iplayer leaves the BBC “lagging even further behind audience needs and expectations”, he will say, yet Netflix updates its app more than 50 times a year with no need for regulatory approval.

“We must be able to adapt and innovate

‘We need to look again at whether regulation… remains fit for the global, digital age’

in the digital world. We must be able to make the changes our audiences demand, in real time. Not by revolution, every few years, but by rapid, ongoing evolution,” he will say.

“We need to look again at whether regulation, born in a Uk-centric linear era, remains fit for the global, digital age.

“The current regulatory system has its origins in an era where the BBC was seen as the big beast in the jungle, the big beast against whom all others needed protection. But that view of the world has now passed.”

Sir David’s intervention follows a speech in September by Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC director-general, who warned that the corporation is fighting against US streaming services “with one hand tied behind its back”.