BBC must review funding model, says content chief

THE BBC must “have the courage to look at new funding models” for its services, a corporation chief has said, as she welcomed offers of private money to run the BBC Singers.

The broadcaster is currently mulling over rival bids from outside organisations to take on the choir, effectively privatising it but with the option to keep the BBC branding.

Charlotte Moore, the BBC’S chief content officer, said that no part of the BBC is safe and all staff face “great jeopardy”.

Asked at a Voice of the Listener and Viewer conference about the fate of the BBC Singers, Ms Moore said: “It is fantastic that we are looking at what I hope will be very viable options.

“To be honest, we’ve only got a certain amount of money. We have to look at different models and that is what we’re doing.

“So of course it’s a difficult time for all of our staff, particularly for everyone in the performing groups – but, to be honest, I would say there is great jeopardy for all of our staff at the BBC at the moment, and for anybody who works in public service broadcasting.

“We all know that competition is enormous but it is for the BBC to have the courage to look at new models, to stand firm and to really think about ways that we might be able to do things in the future.”

Ms Moore said that the BBC had to keep convincing licence fee payers that the corporation added value to their lives. “It’s not our God-given right to exist,” she said.

At the same conference, the BBC was told to stop worrying about a Tory government and start focusing on Conservative licence fee payers.

Baroness Stowell of Beeston referred to “a growing body of people who feel less attached to the BBC”.

“I don’t think there is anybody in Government who is hostile to the BBC. I genuinely don’t think the Conservative Party is hostile either.

“But there are people who vote Conservative, and who are also licence fee payers, who feel that the BBC at the moment is not representing them in the way that they feel they deserve.

“And I think that’s what the BBC needs to focus on.”

The next BBC chairman must declare all dealings with senior politicians, an internal review has concluded, after finding that Richard Sharp failed to log three “social meetings” with Boris Johnson. Mr Sharp resigned from his role at the corporation last month over helping the former prime minister facilitate an £800,000 loan guarantee.