Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400-419)
MR GREG
DYKE
8 MAY 2007
Q400 Philip Davies: What do you think
they would drop if they could do?
Mr Dyke: Who?
Q401 Philip Davies: The commercial
broadcaster. If they did not have to, what would they drop?
Mr Dyke: You are already seeing
it—a lot of children's programming; religion; a lot of factual
programming. ITV was always a trade-off, was it not? It was a
trade-off brought about by different regulators that said, you
can have a monopoly of commercial income, and you can make quite
a good profit but in exchange you have got to do a whole range
of public service broadcasting. That was the ITV I joined but
that has gone; or it is going and it will be gone by 2012 unless
the carrot and stick changes. If you want them to do it, it could
well be that you are going to have to find ways of persuading
them to do it; whereas in the past it was very easy. The old regulatory
authorities could say, "The condition of getting your licence
is you do this, this and this". After 2012 that is gone.
Q402 Philip Davies: Do you think
they should have to do it and, if so, how would you go about doing
it? Would you give them some of the licence fee, for example,
to do it?
Mr Dyke: I do not think so. I
would ask them, "What could you do to help? What is the swap?"
They are still paying for licences, which seems pretty weird at
this time. I would not mind at this stage going to them and saying,
"Look, if we're going to let you off all the cost of your
licences, could you in exchange please assure us this is your
planning for public service broadcasting?" I suspect you
are going to have to find some other means of funding for innovative
things in public service.
Q403 Janet Anderson: Greg, you said
earlier you thought the BBC had not got a particularly good licence
fee settlement?
Mr Dyke: I thought the licence
fee settlement they got was about what I expected.
Q404 Janet Anderson: You thought
their negotiating strategy was okay?
Mr Dyke: I do not think it would
have made any difference. I sat down when I was in my last months
at the BBC with Gavin (not knowing it was my last months at the
BBC, I should tell you) and we said, "What do you think we're
going to get?" We both believed that if you could get inflation
plus household growth, which is just under 1%, that was not a
bad settlement. I thought you could manage on that.
Q405 Janet Anderson: You do not think
they will have to cut back?
Mr Dyke: They will, because I
do not quite understand how they are supposed to pay for digital
switchover—not their costs of digital switchover. I think
that was this bizarre part of the licence fee settlement. I think
the BBC made a mistake even contemplating it. They should have
said, "If as Parliament you want to switch off the analogue
signal and switch everybody to digital, it's your responsibility;
it cannot be the BBC's". I think the BBC made a real mistake
in discussing that at all. It looks like an open chequebook to
me.
Q406 Janet Anderson: You think it
should have come from the Treasury?
Mr Dyke: Yes, but of course the
Treasury did not want to pay it.
Q407 Janet Anderson: You have stated
that universality should remain one of the core principles of
public service broadcasting; but do you think there is a role
for subscription in the future?
Mr Dyke: This is a never-ending
debate really, is it not? I increasingly came to the view that
what mattered about the BBC was that it was universally available.
It was paid for by everybody (or by most people, because some
did not pay obviously) but the important thing was that it was
available to everybody; and once you turned it into a subscription
service—which you could have done, and probably got at least
as much money, if not more—you had lost what it was, which
was, available to all. It was part of the glue that bound a nation
together; and if everybody cannot receive it then I think you
are losing out. That was one of the reasons why we got into Freeview
in a big way, because we were doing five or six digital channels;
and I remember coming here on a number of occasions and getting
quite a lot of criticism about them saying, "How can you
justify paying off these with a licence fee that is funded by
everybody, and yet more than half can't receive it?" Freeview
has changed all of that.
Q408 Janet Anderson: Do you think
the licence fee is here to stay?
Mr Dyke: I recently made a documentary
about Lord Reith, and one of the great things about the BBC and
Lord Reith is that his portrait sits up there and everybody comes
into worship once a day to Lord Reith; I actually discovered he
did not think the licence fee would stay. The only problem with
the licence fee, it seems to me, is its quite high collection
cost. If someone could invent another way of getting that sum
of money to the BBC, that did not have the dangers of political
interference and all those things we know about, then you would
do it, because it is the collection costs which are so high. What
does it cost, about 8%, so that is £240 million a year to
collect the licence fee, which is quite high.
Q409 Mr Evans: Greg, what do you
think the BBC is for?
Mr Dyke: I think the point of
the BBC is to give us a radio, a television and an internet presence
which reflects our culture and our society and, by doing so, sometimes
in a very popular manner, means that others have to compete to
do the same thing. Why does ITV spend twice as much on original
programming as any other commercial channel in Europe? They do
it because they have to compete with the BBC. They would complain,
"Why should we do that?" I think that is the decision
we took in this society; that actually we wanted a broadcasting
system that reflected our culture. That, I think, is the purpose
of the BBC. At times that means doing popular programmes; at times
it means doing programmes that are aimed at minorities; at times
it obviously plays a part in the democratic process; bust-ups
that have gone on with all governments are probably quite healthy—that
is one of its roles.
Q410 Mr Evans: Bust-ups with you?
Mr Dyke: The bust-ups with me—I
did not see that as one of its roles, personally! The bust-up
with me was a set of governors who lost their nerve. I understand
exactly what they thought on the day, but it was the wrong decision.
What they were doing was to try to protect the long-term interests
of the BBC on that day. That was not their job that day. Their
job that day was to protect the integrity of the BBC's journalism,
but that has all past.
Q411 Mr Evans: I am glad you are
over it, Greg!
Mr Dyke: You clearly still remember
it!
Q412 Mr Evans: Looking at the BBC,
how much of it percentage-wise do you think is public service
content?
Mr Dyke: You have to define what
you mean by "public service content".
Q413 Mr Evans: Do you want to have
a go at it because you were in charge of it?
Mr Dyke: I think it has changed
over the years; but when you asked me what was the purpose of
the BBC, if you believe the purpose of the BBC is about reflecting
this culture and our society then quite a lot of the BBC comes
into the public service. Michael Grade promised not to do repeats,
which seemed a bizarre thing to promise because, firstly, you
cannot afford not to; and, secondly, in a world when, say, 20%
watch the first run as opposed to what it used to be, 60%, it
seems silly to say you are never going to repeat it; it does not
make sense to me. There was never enough money in BBC1 to run
a service about repeats. It is: what are the interests of the
British public? The danger of the definition of "public service"
is I get a slight feeling that the Trust is getting into "We'll
ask the public what they want and that's what we'll give them".
That is not public service broadcasting as far as I am concerned.
Public service broadcasting includes broadcasting programmes which
the public do not even know they would want or not want; and it
involves somebody making a judgment on broadcasting programmes
that ought to be broadcast; regardless of whether there is great
public demand they ought to be broadcast and matter in our society.
Q414 Mr Evans: If you had been in
charge, would you have perhaps struggled to have kept Neighbours,
for instance, on the BBC, or do you not care that it has lost
out in a bidding war?
Mr Dyke: Has it lost?
Q415 Mr Evans: I understand it is
losing.
Mr Dyke: I think negotiations
are still going on. I think it was exactly the same position as
we had with The Simpsons; there is a price at which you
will pay and there is a price at which you will not and you let
it go.
Q416 Mr Evans: Looking at it now
with a limited budget which you have just talked about, because
they have not got what they wanted (or maybe they did get what
they wanted), what do you think about that? Do you think they
are quite happy with the settlement that they have got—they
just asked for a lot more?
Mr Dyke: No, but I suspect they
got what they expected! It is not what they wanted and I think
there is a difference.
Q417 Mr Evans: Getting rid of channels,
for instance, which hardly anybody watches, both radio or TV?
Mr Dyke: The one that gets listened
to the least is Radio 3. Are you going to propose getting rid
of Radio 3?
Q418 Mr Evans: I am asking you what
you would do?
Mr Dyke: When I became Director-General
I knew there were certain things that you touched at your peril,
and one of them was Radio 3. Does the BBC need to have orchestras?
Probably not in this day and age; but is it a good thing that
the BBC has orchestras? Yes, it is. Did the BBC need to invent
the new channels? Everybody has done new channels in this world.
You had to realise what was happening. If I look back at the time
I was there, the thing I feel proudest of is CBeebies, which I
think is quite brilliant. I think it is a wonderful programme
for little kids; I think the website that goes with it is sensational;
but, more than that, I remember when we were proposing it, we
had all the commercial interests coming at us—the Disneys,
the Viacoms—saying, "You can't do this", and we
went to the Secretary of State and said, "It's your decision.
Are you going to say that the British parents shouldn't have the
right for their little kids to watch what they feel is safe television,
with the BBC's mark on it, without ads?" I thought it was
the easiest battle of them all because it was straightforward.
I think there are moments when you sit and make those sorts of
decisions. I am sorry, I have forgotten your question!
Q419 Mr Evans: I think the important
thing is now, as you look back over your four years when you were
there, is there anything you would have done differently, looking
back?
Mr Dyke: Yes, I am not sure I
would have dealt with Mr Campbell in quite the way we dealt with
him.
| 
