Select Committee on Communications
BBC Charter Review: Reith not revolution
1st Report - ordered to be printed 9 February 2016 - HL Paper 96
Contents
Summary of conclusions and recommendations
Table 1: Key events in the Charter Review process
Working methods and acknowledgements
Chapter 2: The BBC’s accountability framework
Importance of an independent regulator
How was the current accountability framework developed?
Box 1: Six Public Purposes of the BBC
Figure 1: BBC’s accountability framework
The ‘Reithian Principles’: Inform, Educate and Entertain
What are the merits of an accountability framework?
Public Service Broadcasting Purposes
Box 2: Ofcom PSB purposes and characteristics
Mission statement and purposes to be underpinned by a set of
values?
Our proposal for reform of the accountability framework
Other layers in the current accountability framework
Purpose Remits and Purpose Priorities
Chapter 3: Priorities for the BBC
Sustaining Citizenship and Civil Society
Changing habits of news consumption
Promoting education and learning
Current situation: is the genre of children’s television in crisis?
Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
Figure 2: BBC spend in the external creative economy 2014/15
Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities
Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK
Should the BBC play a role in digital technologies?
Should the BBC be smaller or larger than its current size?
Should the BBC enter into more partnerships with other institutions?
Should the BBC do anything beyond its Public Purposes?
Universality and market failure
BBC’s impact on the wider creative industry
Chapter 5: Process for setting the level of the licence fee
Process by which the licence fee was set in 2010
2015 proposed licence fee settlement
Reaction to the proposed 2015 licence fee settlement
Mechanisms for setting the level of the licence fee
Duration of Charter—how long should the BBC Royal Charter
last for?
Appendix 1: List of Members and Declarations of Interest
Appendix 4: Glossary of Acronyms
Appendix 5: Note of an informal meeting of the Communications Committee and young people
Appendix 6: Development of the Public Purposes of the BBC
Appendix 7: Public Purposes in detail
Evidence is published online at www.parliament.uk/hlcomms-charter-renewal and available for inspection at the Parliamentary Archives (020 7129 3074).
Q in footnotes refers to a question in oral evidence.