BBC acts as a gatekeeper to hold back British talent

Newcomers have proved as good as the state-blessed broadcasters – but the Tories fear that a private enterprise will be hard to control

TViewers repelled by this hectoring have no choice but to pay the tax

he BBC and ITV have let us know what they want British television to look like in the future. Let Oliver Twist sum it up for you: “Please sir, can I have some more?”. More from the Government, that is, and more from you, the taxpayer.

In a speech to the Royal Television Society last week, Tim Davie, the BBC director general, offered to surrender the precious airwaves that are granted to the corporation as a statesanctioned public service broadcaster, or PSB. We wouldn’t need these any more, Davie mused, for in a post-broadcast BBC, both radio and video would be delivered over the internet.

This is what he called an “IP BBC”. A couple of years ago Parliament reckoned that there wouldn’t be enough internet coverage to do this until 2038, so advancing this ambition to 2030, as Davie did, looks like a positive gesture.

It isn’t actually as generous as it appears, however. As this column has argued before, universal internet coverage is not a prerequisite to scrapping the licence fee and moving to a subscription BBC. Shifting to an internet-only BBC also excludes many of the corporation’s most trenchant critics, the over fifties.

When Davie argues, as he did last week, that the BBC has had a 30pc real-terms cut in income, we may wonder what that 30pc was actually doing. For its part, ITV has hinted that it may wriggle free from its own PSB obligations if it too does not get favourable regulatory treatment. For example, it might wish to dispense with its expensive news obligation.

We should not be surprised that both of these monopolies want to retain their privileges. They have enjoyed favour from governments for decades, benefiting from a unique set of indulgences that look ever more anachronistic in a world of on-demand streaming, smart TVS, smartphones and tablets.

That plump spectrum is one of them. The low frequency radio waves that carry Freeview are the most sought after in the world by telecommunications companies. The other great perk is premium placement at the top of the conventional Electronic Programme Guides (EPG), the channel menus which ensure BBC and ITV channels can take the top spots, and are therefore the most visible content.

This may become less relevant in the future as our smartphones and tablet screens become our EPGS, and we simply tap and beam what we want to watch to any device in the household. But for now, the regulated EPG placings ensure nimbler and smarter competitors are way down the channel list, and out of sight.

However, the greatest indulgence of all, of course, is the BBC’S state enforced TV tax. Newcomers have demonstrated that they can do the job that the state-blessed broadcasters thought was their unique preserve.

For example, the recent drama The Devil’s Hour saw British television take on high concept Hollywood auteurs such as Christopher Nolan, brilliantly using all-british talent. It wasn’t devised by the BBC or ITV – the backing came from Amazon. News can also be made more efficiently and more representatively by local private operations which genuinely care for, and speak for, their communities. The BBC’S response to this has been predictable: deploy a few more token regional accents, while cranking up the klaxon on issues it cares deeply about, such as climate change. Viewers repelled by this hectoring have no choice but to pay the tax if they wish to view any live television at all.

With each year that passes, the BBC’S tax comes more and more to resemble an ancient heraldic title that nobody can remember who bestowed. Was it created by William the Conqueror? If we look closely, is it written into the Bayeux Tapestry? Who knows? To the young, who evade it with ease, it may as well be.

Readers are entitled to be dismayed that by 2025, the Conservatives will have been in power for 15 years and demonstrated very little progress in scrapping the telly tax, or thrusting the BBC into reality. The reality is that it is a convenient arrangement that suits politicians of all hues. A state-sanctioned media goliath is more easily controlled than a private enterprise.

Celebrating its centenary this year, the BBC is selling us a sentimental creation myth of a deeply caring organisation that’s inclusive and impartial. What it doesn’t mention is that it owes its very existence to the politicians’ fear of a liberalised media marketplace.

In 1920, the General Post Office, at the time the licensing authority, had become very alarmed by an explosion of diversity as new voices could be heard over the new technology of radio – not unlike the early years of the internet. People could even build their own transmitters and receivers. It therefore proposed a monopoly, and every other broadcaster was compelled to shelter under the new monopoly’s umbrella. Over a few years, the organisation gradually became the British establishment’s mouthpiece.

“They can trust us not to be really impartial,” Lord Reith, Auntie’s first director general, wrote in his diaries in reference to government.

Since then, the exercise has been about convincing us to learn to love our captor, and “universality” is a big part of that myth. But no one gives a hoot for universality but the politicians. Ironically, Davie’s speech was titled “Leading the UK into digital”. I hate to break the news to Tim but we’ve been there for some time. The gatekeeper that holds back British talent and diversity is now the BBC itself.