PANORAMA - WHAT'S THE POINT OF THE BBC?

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DATE: 4:03:04

ESLER: What is the point of the BBC at a time when you can receive more than 400 TV channels here in the UK does anyone need a British Broadcasting Corporation. Even before the crisis sparked off by Lord Hutton's report and Greg Dyke's resignation the BBC was being forced to defend its right to exist and benefit from what critics claim is Britain's most peculiar tax - the licence fee. Tonight, the acting Director General, Mark Byford, will hear from some of those who champion the BBC and from its critics, including those who like the idea of the BBC but dislike what it has become. We'll have the results of our own opinion poll on what viewers think of the BBC and our focus group panels in Edinburgh, in Nottingham, Belfast and here in London we use electronic pads to react to the debate here in the studio. For the rest of the month the government is carrying out its own public consultation exercise as it considers whether or not to renew the BBC's Royal Charter. And our first question to night goes to the very heart of the case for a publicly funded BBC. Do you think the BBC's programmes are distinctive or similar to those available elsewhere? To open the debate, someone who describes himself as a critical friend of the BBC – the Guardian's Emily Bell. Emily –

EMILY BELL: There's no point in defending the BBC unless it's going to provide programmes of high quality and distinctiveness on television and radio. At the time when the BBC has been richer and safer than any other broadcasting organisation in the UK, its distinctiveness has actually been eroded. It should have been setting programming standards and it hasn't. We all know about the BBC's successes. It makes many excellent programmes - The Blue Planet, The Office, State of Play, Lost Prince - and it might be churlish to say that the BBC isn't trying hard enough, but I think it could and should do better. In recent times it's abandoned much of its serious arts and science programming. It's allowed programmes like Celeb back, My Worst Week, Celebrity Sleepover into the schedules, programmes which arguably shouldn't be made by the BBC at all. The BBC recently announced that it had hired the very talented entertainer Graham Norton from Channel 4. Why and for how much? Surely the BBC should be nurturing new talent and growing it, not actually plundering other public service broadcasters for it at an unknown and no doubt high price. Those of us who believe in the BBC and believe it should be protected, what to see more specialness coming back into programmes to help us make our case, and not just at the time when they're renewing the charter.

ESLER: Emily, thank you. Mark Byford, the basic point there is mediocre, undistinguished isn't good enough.

MARK BYFORD: I would agree. I think the BBC is about high quality, it is about providing something special in the range of the services that we provide as well as the programmes.

ESLER: But that's one of your friends. That's somebody who likes the BBC but just thinks you're not doing that.

BYFORD: Well she's part of the people that own the BBC and she's got absolutely the right to her view as everybody else has. The key for the BBC is to provide programmes and services that enrich people's lives by informing, educating and entertaining. All that we do has to have ambition, innovation, stretching the audience, but that doesn't mean that it has to be only programmes that nobody else does, and put it into a narrow corner and just the things that nobody else does. What the licence payers want from the BBC is a broad range of programmes and services that are of high quality definitely, of ambition and of innovation and across a lot of different areas, whether it's documentaries, whether it's drama, sport, comedy, that's what they want from the BBC.

ESLER: David Attenborough, I just wonder what you thought was the role of the BBC in among these 400 channels in this 21st century digital age?

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: I think the BBC should judge its success by the width of the spectrum of interest which it covers, and the greater the width of the spectrum, the better it's doing. But there are forces which militate against that, and the BBC is constantly under attack, one side or another. Either it's too popular or it's not popular enough.

ESLER: Oh, you've seen this argument before?

ATTENBOROUGH: Always, and it seems to me that the pendulum swings according to a lot of political pressures put on the BBC wagging their fingers and saying if you don’t get a big enough audience we're not going to renew the licence fee. And so the BBC continually has to deal with these, and I think the pendulum swung in the last five years or so a bit towards the popular and away from the more specialised.

ESLER: Well I just wondered whether we… we're getting a lot of emails in to this programme and some of them, I just wondered if you had any sympathy for these. One says: "The BBC is betraying its core values and standards. It no longer broadcasts quality TV preferring to swamp the network with low grade soaps and lifestyle programmes." Another one: "Hardly any of the TV output appeals to me. It's all cooking, gardening, makeovers and celebrity gossip." I mean even if you don’t take it literally, do you think the pendulum has swung too far?

ATTENBOROUGH: I think myself that is so. I think that there's too much concentration on a few genres of programmes and that we can actually expand the spectrum we have done in the past and I'm sure we will do so again.

ESLER: Mark Byford –

BYFORD: Well I listened to David with care and take it on board, but I think if you look at the range of services and then even within BBC1, the range of services what we're offering today is really special. I mean BBC1 tonight is providing Michael Angelo for a fantastic family audience. My kids were watching last week. They'll be watching it again tonight. Tomorrow night, on BBC1, yes you have Ground Force because people love that. You have East Enders because it's a really high quality distinctive soap, but you also have Your Life in Their Hands, you have a major news programme that has flagship correspondence from around the whole world. There's radio as well coming from the licence fee as well, the range of services that we're providing is giving fantastic value.

ESLER: Let me tell you what the Financial Times said about the BBC just over a week ago. It said: "On BBC1, Britain's flagship channel, in order the corporation is screening Homes Under the Hammer, Garden Invaders, House Invaders, Bargain Hunt and Cash in the Attic". The implication is you should be slightly ashamed of that.

BYFORD: I've read that too, and the programmes that they quoted were from daytime alone, nothing in peak in the evenings from that schedule in their leader.

ESLER: True, but one after the other… one after the other.

BYFORD: In my view though, you have to look at it in the round. Those programmes are there for a day time audience that enjoy those programmes, it's giving them range. But as I said about what was on offer for tomorrow night and this evening on BBC1, what BBC1 is trying to offer is the biggest range of programmes, as David said, in terms of different subject areas, documentaries, comedy, debate, news, discussion programmes like this, this is going out on BBC1, the fact that the nation can come together and discuss the future of the BBC is a role for BBC1, that's its job, but it's complemented by a whole range of other channels on television and radio that are providing the audience that own the BBC something of value to them.

ESLER: I wonder David Attenborough, what is missing that would swing the pendulum back and keep you happier?

ATTENBOROUGH: Well there are a whole lot of things that we aren't doing at the moment. For example, I don’t think television treats music at all really seriously. I mean it does pop but it doesn't do serious music seriously, it doesn't do jazz seriously. I don’t… I think there are great areas of drama which it doesn't tackle, classical drama of one sort or another. Science has one programme on BBC but very little on BBC1 and science should be at the core of what people should be interested in and be learning about all the time. And so if you have three programmes on gardening, then I would suggest you drop one of them, or maybe even two of them and do some of these other things.

BYFORD: I would agree with David that a BBC1 that was full of makeover programmes that had no documentaries, that had no cultural programmes of challenge, that would not be the BBC1 that 1) the audience wanted and b) that we should be providing. But in science, you know.. the Human Body has had huge audiences. Your thing with dinosaurs, huge audiences and were committed to that kind of programme.

ESLER: So you can get huge audiences with the science so why don’t you do more of it?

BYFORD: David said he'd love jazz, I was only talking today about the Matching Arts programme making a programme about John Coltrane which you and I would love. That's the kind of programme that should be on the channel, as well as makeover programmes, but.. you know.. keep it in check, soaps, news, documentaries, comedy, a whole range of programmes that connects with a wide audience.

ESLER: Let me bring in Peter BAZALGETTE in here, you make some of the most popular TV programmes in Britain.

PETER BAZALGETTE: I'm to blame for everything.

ESLER: You are absolutely the devil in this. Fame Academy for example, why should that be on the BBC?

BAZALGETTE: I think there's something people forget and that is the BBC has always had very good entertaining programmes… Fame Academy in particular you mentioned, Fame Academy is a programme that has pushed forward the government's digital agenda by being a multi platform interactive programme. It's a programme that has brought forward new talent. The marvellous thing, it was a Brits Award winner only a couple of weeks ago. It's a programme that's raised a bursary of over £2 million to enable people who can't afford musical instruments to buy them. Yes, but it is a mass entertainment show, but it has many good elements about it and shows like that I would argue it wouldn't I, but I do believe they belong on the BBC.

ESLER: Emily Bell, do you agree?

BELL: Well actually, oddly, I do actually agree with Peter on Fame Academy and I thought the first series of Fame Academy was absolutely lamentable. It was a derivative of both Big Brother and Pop Idol, did neither as well, but you know the BBC has got to have the ability to fail in some of these genres as well, and I think it's failed with the first series of Fame Academy, I thought the second series was actually very, very good.

ESLER: But isn't the point though it was on ITV beforehand, that kind of format… not original, is that not so?

BELL: Well I mean…

BAZALGETTE: Listen, if the BBC is to do entertainment shows, it's going to do shows of a particular genre at the moment when you do a talent show you do it in that way, that's how.. what people want to watch. If you do.. you have soap operas, there's East Enders on BBC, there's Coronation Street on ITV. Nobody's saying don’t have East Enders because Coronation Street is on ITV.

ESLER: Heather Rabbatts you used to be a BBC governor. RABBATTS: Yes.

ESLER: Are there some of these things the BBC just shouldn't do, or is it the mix perhaps as David Attenborough was suggesting, too much of one thing which causes you concern?

RABBATTS: I think the challenge is about how you get that mix right, and in a constantly changing landscape, and audience expectations changing, it is the responsibility of the BBC to try and meet that challenge, and I think yes it needs to pay real attention to this discussion and questions about arts and science and religion and the comments that David's been making I would echo. But let's not drive the BBC out of the entertainment arena. The BBC has had a long tradition of fantastic entertaining programmes and it should continue to provide those.

ESLER: David Elstein –

DAVID ELSTEIN: I don’t have any problem with the BBC doing as much entertainment and as good entertainment as it can. The question is, how you pay for it. And likewise I think the big issue in terms of the public service element and you know.. the BBC is fighting for audience share because it's got to justify a licence fee that everyone pays that it's the public service elements that get marginalised, you know.. even Panorama which used to be on 48 weeks a year in the heart of peak time is now tucked away at the edge of Sunday for barely half the year. This is one of the effects that you get from audience fragmentation from tremendous pressure on all broadcasters and the BBC does its best. But as long as it's crippled by its funding mechanism it can't do better.

ESLER: Final point on that, Mark Byford –

BYFORD: We're not slavishly fighting for share and beating ITV or beating Channel 4. The key for the BBC's reach is everybody coming to the BBC at some point, and when they come to the BBC they think I'm getting something there that's special. It doesn't mean that they're getting it and nowhere else can they find it. Hence why as Heather was saying, you don’t want to put the BBC into a corner where it's too narrow. But every programme and every service should have ambition and range, and frankly Panorama coming on a Sunday night, at the heart of the national debate with millions still watching it, is part of that fare.

ESLER: I think I should let David Attenborough just conclude this section. But are you still worried David that the pendulum has swung too far and something needs to be done?

ATTENBOROUGH: Yes, I think it's already coming back and has been coming back for about the last six or nine months, and I certainly do not think that we should get rid of entertaining programmes and be shoved into a ghetto of nothing but serious programmes or serious or cultural or whatever (pejorative?) word you want to use in that sense. No, no, there has to be this wide mix, but that does mean that you don’t want to place an emphasis on certain elements and give 3 or 4 programmes per week to those elements when you could actually be doing more varied things.

ESLER: Okay, we'll move on. In the past week we commissioned a bit telephone poll across the country from the pollsters ICM. I'll reveal what it says in just a moment but it might cause a few red faces here in the studio. ICM also independently chose our four studio audiences tonight. We hope they'll be a bit like a huge focus group and track whether people have, in any way, been swayed by the arguments they just heard. So we asked them the same questions we put in our main telephone poll before we came on air. Let's find out when the audiences vote again in a moment if anyone has indeed changed their minds. So ladies and gentlemen will you now vote on our first question. so while we're collating the results, let's give some in our audiences around the country the chance to have their say to make a point on the question are the BBC programmes distinctive enough? Let's start in Edinburgh. Who'd like to start in Edinburgh?

EDINBURGH GIRL: I feel that the BBC programmes have been distinctive in the past but in recent months and recent years indeed, they've begun to come far more similar to those on other channels. I think at the moment there's a glut of typical Changing Rooms, ?? programmes and that's been at the expense of good quality drama. I think it's a long time since we've seen anything of the calibre of Pride and Prejudice, something which really made the BBC look at it's very best, and that's what I would like to see the BBC going back to doing

ESLER: Okay, thank you, let's go over to Nottingham and hear from someone there. Would someone like to start us off?

NOTTINGHAM MAN: I think the point that was made by your opening guest was actually quite good, that there are too many programmes now which are just copycot… copycat programmes from other channels. But I think the real point is that what the BBC tend to do is flog a dead horse with them. So once you get a gardening programme, it's on all the time and they drive it to the point where the audience has got tired of seeing gardening programmes. I think the other thing you do as well is you take somebody like Linda Barker from Changing Rooms and you ram her down our throat until we're sick of her. [Laughter]

ESLER: Well Linda Barker unfortunately is not here to defend herself but thank you, a well made point.

ESLER: Let's go to Belfast, the gentleman in Belfast. Yes sir, go ahead.

BELFAST MAN: I don’t think the programmes are terribly distinctive on the BBC. I do enjoy David Attenborough's programmes and wish we saw more of that sort of thing.

BYFORD Can I respond to some of the audience questions, I mean I do think the makeover programmes being kept in balance and check is absolutely right. In the middle 90s we recognised that audiences were taking much greater interest in DIY, they were taking much greater interest in going to garden centres Saturdays and Sundays, we reflected that in programmes and people loved them in their millions. If they're on every night across all the schedule, that's too much, but people still enjoy those programmes so long as they're well made.

ESLER: Okay, in a moment we'll check whether anyone has indeed changed their minds in our studio audiences but first to our big ICM telephone opinion poll. ICM asked more than a thousand people around the country this question: Compared to other broadcasters, do you think the BBC's programmes are distinctive or similar?

37% said yes, distinctive but 58% said similar. 4% said they don’t know. The numbers are rounded to the nearest percentage.

Mark Byford, despite what you said, is that Greg Dyke's legacy, that too many people think the BBC's programmes are too similar to what they can get on commercial stations?

BYFORD: Well I think the audience themselves have already said to you Gavin, that they expect that the BBC will be doing some programmes that by subject matter may be similar to other areas of the broadcasting offer, but what…

ESLER: 60% almost are saying similar rather than distinctive.

BYFORD: But what research shows you that people not only recognise but also demand from the BBC is that they may be similar subject matters but by their ambition and by their stretch, as I call it, which is.. you know.. quality but also that they are really pushing the boundaries of innovation, they're pushing the boundaries of quality. That's what they expect from the BBC but it doesn't mean that we mustn't make programmes that are not the same subject matter or the same subject areas as other broadcasters.

ESLER: Okay, and I can tell you we've just collated the figures and there's been a slight movement within our studio audiences up and down the country towards saying that the BBC programmes are similar rather than distinctive. And just a reminder to viewers at home, if you want to contribute to the debate this evening you can send us a text message or press the red button on your remote controls. Now a second question is as old as the BBC itself but it has been made much more relevant by huge changes in technology. More than half of us now have access to digital TV in our homes. So in future what should be the main source of BBC funding. Should it continue to be the licence fee payable by everyone with a TV set. Perhaps you think it should be by taking advertising instead, or should it be as some now strongly advocate, paid for by a monthly subscription rather like signing up to BSkyB. David Elstein has worked for the BBC, ITV, BSkyB and Channel 5. He's recently published a report commissioned by the Conservative Party calling for the abolition of the licence fee. David.

DAVID ELSTEIN: The licence fee keeps the BBC well funded but it's inefficient. The cost of collection and evasion is over £350 million a year. The licence fee in my view is misguided. It covers both public service content and entertainment. It should fund neither. Taxes should pay for the first, consumers voluntarily for the second. The licence fee is inflexible. A single flat rate covers all services. By contrast, Cable and Satellite offer dozens of pricing options. That's better for the consumer and the supplier. The licence fee is unfair. The poor pay as much as the rich. Homes with one TV set as much as those with five. Wage earners too poor to pay tax must pay the licence fee. Thousands of impoverished families are threatened with massive fines and even gaol if they fail to pay up. The courts are clogged with cases. Half the nation cannot receive or afford digital television but forced to pay for the new BBC digital services, between 20 and 30 pounds a year. And the licence fee is becoming outdated. It's government policy for all homes to go digital. In those circumstances non-payers can be cut off electronically from BBC channels. So there can be no evasion and there be.. there need be no prosecutions. At that point paying for the BBC becomes voluntary, and the BBC will benefit from more flexible pricing. This could take 7 or 8 years but the BBC can speed the transition to an all digital TV system by promptly switching its new digital channels to subscription. Five years ago that's what a government report proposed and the BBC accepted and that's what should happen now.

ESLER: Okay, there are a lot of points there. Mark Byford, I mean the BBC's critics say this is an 80 year old tax, a regressive tax, completely peculiar. Why on earth does the BBC still have to defend it?

BYFORD: Because there are still some strengths to it as well. The licence fee rightly focuses on the BBC's chief purpose which is to serve everybody and its whole focus to be fair to everybody, not trying to serve just some people who pay and other people that don’t. And for £116 a year, what we are trying to do is to serve every person across the whole of the United Kingdom that pays for the BBC, and they get some value back from it.

ESLER: Whether they watch it or not though, whether they watch it or not.

BYFORD: Well 90 odd percent of the nation of everybody are watching and listening to BBC services ever week and recognising that it's providing value. From David's arguments about subscription, that means that people who want to pay for the BBC will pay for it and even he recognises that that means a substantial number, he said last week up to 50% would not be paying for the BBC. That fundamentally changes the organisation. I worked in it for nearly 25 years and have been driven by wanting to serve everybody with something. As soon as you go into subscription, you're going to focus on only those.. well, you'll focus even more on those that are paying for it.

ESLER: David Elstein.

ELSTEIN: Well I think that's absolutely right and proper. People who want BBC services you know.. there's hundreds of channels available, they're the ones who should pay for them. And people who don’t want to pay for them shouldn't have access to them, or at least, the entertainment services, public service content like Panorama should be provided free to everyone and be funded out of taxes. But the problem with what Mark is saying is that laudable as the objective is, the price that's paid by the most vulnerable and poorest people in society is completely buried. We never hear about it. When did you last see an episode of East Enders which had licence fee evaders mentioned. If East Enders paid as much attention to licence fee evasion prosecutions as to murder, there would be five prosecutions every episode of East Enders throughout the year. That's the scale of the problem for very poor people who are ignored in this equation of Mark's.

BYFORD: David, in my view, in his report and tonight, rightly looks at a future of broadcasting that is dominated by pay and subscription channels. But that doesn't mean that the BBC has to go that way as well because one of the great commitments that the BBC has is to everybody and everybody to have that great range of programming that David has been talking about should be at the heart of the BBC.

ESLER: But are you saying that everybody, whether they want it or not, and if they don’t want it, why should they pay for it?

BYFORD: As soon as you come into subscription, then those people that can't afford that subscription don’t get the high quality programmes that the BBC can provide.

ELSTEIN,, ..but the key point Mark, is that you would rather force people to pay for things whether they want them or not and whether they can afford them or not. I prefer to err on the other side which is to allow people to make their own choice. Now that's a philosophical device, but technology is going to make it ridiculous in 8 years time when every TV set has a digital connection, and when you can electronically cut people off for not paying, why on earth are you going to drag tens of thousands of people through our over packed courts because they can't afford to pay the licence fee.

ESLER: Let me bring in David Attenborough here

ATTENBOROUGH What alarms me about the discussion so far, what David is saying is that look this notion that society should pay for an institution of common good is well rooted in our society which is a civilised society. We pay for libraries that are available to everybody. We pay for museums, we pay for art galleries, we pay for swimming pools. A lot of us don’t use swimming pools but I'm perfectly happy to pay for it as I am for paying for parks and one thing and another. So that the…

ESLER: Paid for out of taxes David, which is fair and appropriate and non-regressive.

ATTENBOROUGH: But it's like a rate.. but it's like a rate, I mean the local museum and a local art gallery is paid out of the rates, and that is money paid on the household which is exactly the same as the BBC's…

ESLER: I just want to pick up with Heather Rabbatts on one of the points that David Elstein made there which is you were a BBC governor at the start of the digital services as they really kicked off and he's suggesting that not everybody gets those, you have to buy extra kit to do so, so why should we have a tax on everybody that pays for them.

HEATHER RABBATTS: I think what was enormously important when the BBC embarked on that digital strategy because the BBC has to think long-term, that what the BBC is trying to ensure is that there are public service programmes available in what will become the multi channel university, and let's be clear about it, the success of free view ensures that there are a whole range of BBC programmes available to audiences, and increasingly when we get to analogue switch off when everybody goes digital you will have a suite of BBC channels, and that's what's important.

ESLER: Mark Byford.

BYFORD: It gets to the very heart of what the BBC is about. For me, the whole British public own the BBC. We're driven by serving them all and we're accountable to them, and I think David's arguments take you down a road where no longer are we driven by serving everyone and the whole British public owning it.

ELSTEIN: Universality is a wonderful idea but it only applies to payment, not to reception. 50% of the country cannot receive the channels that cost somewhere between 300-400 million a year to run, and they are required to pay for it willy-nilly, and that's been going on for five years and it's going to go on for another maybe 8 or 9 years. That cannot be right.

ESLER: we've had a lot of emails on this too. Here's just one. "If we follow this path – this is from someone who's read your report, the BBC will be forced into the gutter with the rest of commercial channels." Another: "I'm totally skint, living in a small village but through the BBC's radio TV and internet all the riches of world culture are available." The implication of that is the reason that that's possible is because everybody does pay for it.

ELSTEIN: Well no, that doesn't follow at all. If you read our report you will know that all of BBC radio, BBC internet services, a lot of BBC television will be provided free to poor people because it would be funded out of taxation, and those people don’t pay taxes. And as for going into the gutter, you know.. some of the best television in the world is delivered by subscription service channels, and that's because subscribers are a definable group of people that you can respond to. The BBC has no real idea of what its audience wants because it's not an accountable institution.

ESLER: Peter BAZALGETTE your programmes in commercial channels attract advertisers, they love your programmes. Why would that work or not work for the BBC? Could your programmes on the BBC not attract the same advertising?

BAZALGETTE: I think half the people who pay the licence fee pay it because they want to watch programmes without advertising.. advertisement all the way through them. And so quite apart from the fact if you put advertisements on the BBC it would destroy the ecology of the commercial channels anyway.

ESLER: Well it would cause problems for the commercial broadcasters because there's ?? ?? your own rank.

BAZALGETTE: Well yes, there's the point about the business of television, but look overall, the licence fee is a bit like democracy, you know.. it aint a great system but there's not a better one that we've come up with so far, and as long as it commands general consent from the British public, it's a wonderful way of investing in fantastic content, and David may be right in 10-15 years time, but I don’t want to see it dismantled yet by his very bright ideas because I don’t think it needs to be yet.

ESLER: Emily Bell, despite your criticism of the programmes, do you think that is sufficient to keep the licence fee going?

BELL: Yes, I think it probably is, I mean I agree with Peter on this one, that David's ideas may look correct in the terms of how technology is actually evolving, but the argument is a philosophical one which is you know.. in a democracy you want as many people as possible to have as much access as they can to as broad information as possible, particularly produced by an independent body, an independent broadcasting, independent news organisation, and I think that, you know.. the licence fee is probably a bit too high, you know.. the BBC was given too much money at the last settlement but I don’t.. I don’t.. I think it should.. you know.. it should endure because it works

ESLER: Okay, well we just want to return to some more results from our ICM telephone poll in a moment, but first again we want to check in with our focus groups in studios around the country to see if they've heard anything on this that has changed their minds. So please, if you would, vote now

well we've got some more of our ICM telephone call results which bring some comfort to the BBC on this. When we asked if the BBC provides good value for money, 59% agreed, just 40% disagreed. When we asked if the BBC is a national institution that we should be proud of, 68% agreed the BBC is a national institution we should be proud of.

we've got a few minutes to talk around the country to get your views. If we can go to Edinburgh first please again, and tell me what you think. On this question of the licence fee what you think of it, whether you think it's the right way to fund the BBC. Go ahead.

EDINBURGH WOMAN: I think it's wrong in principle that people have to pay a tax to be entertained. In my view if the BBC wants the unique privilege as a broadcaster of receiving tax funding, then its output must uniquely be public service broadcasting

ESLER: Okay, thank you very much. In Belfast sir, go ahead.

BELFAST MAN: I'm of the opinion that the licence fee is obsolete now and I think David Elstein summarised the case for moving forward. It can't be abandoned overnight obviously but over the next few years, next decade, maybe things can change as the new technology comes on line.

ESLER. Lady in Nottingham, go ahead.

NOTTINGHAM WOMAN: Hi, I think that the BBC, as I said, is displaying a great lack of confidence. It seems really scared of subscription in that I think it thinks it's going to ?? a massive amount of revenue and that makes me wonder what it really thinks of its own programming as it stands. I also think.. I don’t have a problem with subscription as such, but I do have a problem with anybody who wants to watch television having to pay a licence fee and therefore, if they can't afford to do that, becoming criminals in the process. And when the digital TV age comes along and analogue is switched off, there's no reason why would shouldn't automatically subscribe to the BBC but I do think people should have the right to opt out if they feel that the other television stations that are free would provide their needs.

ESLER: Okay, studio audience here. Yes sir.

MAN I think the suggestion that the BBC is funded by direct taxation is pretty scary actually because that makes the BBC even more subject to the whims of the government that happens to be in power at that particular moment, than it is at the moment. I think recent events should scare us on that one.

MAN: I think the BBC are already advertising such as product placements and as before programmes starts advertising another programme that's on the BBC, and like the commercial, when you're getting the two people dancing, you know.. how much does that cost? [Laughter]

ESLER: Yes sir, the gentleman at the front.

MAN: The BBC doesn't just entertain, it educates and informs and it does some high quality programmes, and I think quality is a good thing and it should be universal and I think the licence fee is a good way of doing that.

ESLER Okay, we'll leave it there.

Well I can tell you that polling our studio audiences here and around the country there has been a small movement towards the licence fee and a small movement away from subscription. But let me give you the results of our ICM telephone poll of more than a thousand adults conducted before the programme on the licence fee. Just 31% in our survey said that they wanted the licence fee to remain the main source of funding for the BBC. That's fewer than one in three. And the same figure, 31%, said they wanted the main source of funding to be advertising. But 36% said the BBC should be funded by a subscription paid only by those who want to receive BBC programmes. Mark Byford, the licence fee is on its way out eventually, isn't it?

BYFORD: I don’t know. I do know that the licence fee does give a stake in the BBC for every household across the land, and therefore it does mean that the BBC is driven by serving all, and one of the issues with subscription that's come out of this discussion as well is that the BBC must never, ever leave some audiences who can't afford subscription services and the new broadcasting world behind. The licence fee allows a rich range of high quality programmes to be provided for everyone, and don’t underestimate as well that how important the licence fee is to something that audiences absolutely treasure about the BBC which is its independence. Direct tax, as one of your members of the audience said, goes to a worrying area of does it get closer to government

ESLER: David Elstein, do you think technology basically is on your side? Things have changed so therefore it can be done, it will be done eventually.. subscription?

ELSTEIN: I don’t think it's a case of my side, it's the audience's side and the BBC's side, I think it's in their joint interests that there be a more efficient and a more flexible and a fairer way of paying for what the BBC provides. What I don’t think is, that in this form it can survive in say ten years time. It's going to have to change. I'd rather see the BBC leading the change than being driven by change.

ESLER: Okay, thank you. We'll move on. Finally, an area which touches a raw nerve with many viewers. How the BBC is actually run at the very top, and its independence from government. The Hutton Report of course made many criticisms, the BBC Board of Governors came in for particular attack and the Chairman of the Governors, Gavyn Davies, resigned along with the Director General Greg Dyke. So should the BBC be allowed to continue to run its own affairs largely as it does now, or should it be subject to greater control from an external regulator, much like other broadcasters. Here's Peter BAZALGETTE, once at the BBC and more recently man who has brought us Big Brother and Fame Academy to our screens. Peter –

PETER BAZALGETTE: Thanks Gavin. I think the Kelly affair was a terrible trauma for the BBC and in essence it was a failure of governance and it was an accident waiting to happen because the governors have always had to face both ways at once. They've had to (cheerleaders?) and regulators, rather like Dr Doolittle's push me pull you, or perhaps a cricketing batsman who's asked to bat and decide whether he's out LBW. Now it can be put right and the first thing I would do very soon is move the governors out of the BBC building, make them transparently independent, give them an independent secretariat and independent advice. The new Chairman of the BBC wants to be a politically independent figure, a strong, politically independent figure, and bearing in mind the last few chairmen, Gavyn Davies and Christopher Bland have both been multi millionaires which have paid the new Chairman of the BBC rather more because millionaires is a very small pool from which to recruit the Chairman of the BBC. And finally we need to reform the governors from the cheerful bunch of amateurs we have now to people who know about the media. Know about competition law and know about journalism, so we have a really expert group. ESLER: Okay Peter, thanks very much. Mark Byford, do you except that if the governors really were doing their job properly there wouldn't have to be so many inquiries on so many different areas into how the BBC is run. We've heard of obviously the Hutton inquiry, there have been questions about whether BBC was right, there's an inquiry into online and inquiries.. the BBC has inquiries the way other people have mice, and if the governors were working, it wouldn't be necessary.

BYFORD: Well I certainly don’t think that the governors are a bunch of amateurs, and I certainly think that the governors have at their heart protecting the independence of the BBC which we know from our research and what has come out of Hutton people absolutely treasure. I also recognise that a unique institution that's absolutely focused on serving the public who own the BBC and pay for it, that a governing body that is representing the public interest reflects that unique institution. What I also think is that to say that the BBC looks after its own affairs and no one else does is simply not true as you have said yourself in fact. When the BBC is launching new services it has to get permission from the government and explain why it wants to do them, and the market impact on them. There's a whole tranche of regulation and quotas that the BBC has to meet within the new OFCOM, wider broadcasting regulatory body, but the governors of the BBC have two very, very special roles. One is that they are there to ensure that the independence of the BBC is upheld, and that is what audiences, not just in the United Kingdom but right around the world would demand from the BBC. Secondly they're there to ensure that the BBC's overall strategy, the way that the BBC is run, is in the public interest.

ESLER: Peter BAZALGETTE.

BAZALGETTE: And as a supporter of the BBC it's the independence of the BBC I'm worried about because the governors have not been strong enough, they've not been competent enough, and what's happened has been creeping political control. What's happened over the last two or three years is that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has been having reviews of BBC's online services, reviews of News 24, we've had the Minister giving opinions about what the scheduling should be on BBC1, now that may be okay up to a point but what would a future government do? We need a genuinely independent BBC with a genuinely strong and competent group of governors, and I don’t believe… by the way, I don’t believe the word 'amateur' is pejorative, I'm merely saying the people at the moment in the current system, and the current system, is not good enough.

ESLER: Heather Rabbatts, you were one of the, shall we say, gifted amateurs. You used to run the BBC. I mean do you see the point that we can't have, however talented, a group of people brought together to run a 2.7 billion pound a year business, can you?

HEATHER RABBATTS: I know David is desperate to come in but before he does, I mean I think what's really important to recognise here is that the BBC has been on a huge journey over its lifetime and the governance structure it had at the beginning I think needs to be looked at and addressed and reformed now, just as we've been.. we talk about earlier about is the remit of the programmes right, we have to look at the governance. And I think Peter's point goes to the heart of it, that actually to have a group of people who have to face both ways, no matter actually how talented and informed they are, I think is asking people to be judge and jury, and we don’t do that in any other sector.

ESLER: So what do you want? What do you think would be the right way for governing the BBC?

RABBATTS: Well I think there are a number of options under discussion but I think the relationship between… as we currently talk about in the private sector about having very strong, non-executive boards, running some of our big corporations, who ensure that the strategy is right and they are subject to competition regulation. And I think probably that the time is coming where you have to slip those two roles to safeguard what is absolutely vital, the independence of the BBC.

ESLER: David Attenborough, do you think the governors are an endangered species?

ATTENBOROUGH: I'm just astonished to hear you say that the governors run the BBC. The governors do not run the BBC and they certainly should not run the BBC. The problem, it seems to me, that came in Kelly was that the governors and the executives of the BBC have merged over the last 10-20 years, 30 years to my knowledge, until in fact the division between the two has become very, very blurred. The governors were originally put up in 1924 to represent the public interest. They were not broadcasters. Their job was to assess the way in which the BBC was going and what it was doing, and it was their right to call the executive and ask them questions and if the executive couldn't persuade them, get rid of the executive or change it. But to have a governing body which is connected to the BBC executive causes exactly the same sort of problems we had with Hutton because there was a continuity which ran from the Chairman, through the Director General all the way through. That should not have been the case. There should have been a division in which the governors were able to say alright, now we've heard this complaint, Director Genera, will you please explain and produce the evidence for your decisions.

ESLER: And that's not happening is the implication of that.

BYFORD: I think the governors recognise that the distance between the governors themselves and management needs to be clear because two have two different roles. But the notion of a non-executive single board would more than confuse that because the managers of the BBC would be side by side with the non-executive directors. And one thing for me Gavin, over the last five years, I've been running the BBC's international services around the world. Do you know the question that I'm asked anywhere and everywhere I go is, how can a BBC that's funded by the government be independent of government? And the governors are critical to that; Secondly, it's interesting that around the world, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, they're actually modelling their public service broadcasting around having a governors body that represents the public interest. Now I would agree with Peter independence is critical to the BBC. Just be careful in all the debate that we have, that we don’t lose those unique strengths that have made the BBC what it is today.

ESLER: Peter BAZALGETTE.

BAZALGETTE: Well that's an independent BBC - tick. Yes. BAZALGETTE: Independent governors – tick. Agree with everything you say. A journalistic organisation funded by a government that can criticise it, probably the purest form of democracy anywhere in the world – tick, tick, tick, tick. Just make it better. Make them more independent, make the governors more knowledgeable about the business that we're running, and I don’t think the BBC in this charter review period, this charter review period that's going on this year should be too defensive about the governors. I think the BBC should be coming up with some proposals as to how it can be strengthened.

BYFORD: I agree Peter, and what you're saying is you still think the governors have a long time future. But as David has said, there should be clear distance between the management and the governors. But also what should be clear, to one of the questions asked, should it run its own affairs, is the BBC subject as you said Gavin, so inquiries here and regulations there that are within the wider broadcasting industry. But the governors within that are representing the public and ensuring that the BBC is meeting the strategy that is in the public interest.

BELL: The governors are actually doing a very poor job of representing the public. If you're as lucky as I am to read most of their reports, and indeed the annual report, the lack of clarity in certain key decisions or the public scrutiny that's put on it by the governors is absolutely miniscule. I mean you know.. the governor's minutes for a whole year or something like.. you know.. this, you can fit each meeting onto a side of A4. The launch of a new channel doesn't get enough scrutiny, and I think this comes back to the problem that they're not the right people. They don’t know enough to ask the right questions.

ESLER: What sort of people are you talking… I mean are you talking about having governors as they are now, just different and better ones from somewhere, or are you talking about the different structure out of the building as Peter BAZALGETTE says, away from the BBC, separate.

BELL: I think you have to.. I think it's such a big job to ask people to separate themselves from the organisation that they go into, and so therefore I think out of the building is a good idea. I think it's physical independence as well as psychological independence, and I think that.. you know, they've got to recognise there's no point in defending the independence of the BBC if actually they're not coming up and asking the right questions about the BBC and the services that they're providing.

ESLER: I should say we've had a lot of emails on this. One of them said the BBC should be accountable to politicians, that's like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. [Laughter] Even if you agree with that, David Elstein, do you think the governors their days are numbered in the way they are currently constructed?

ELSTEIN: The present model worked for a long time but it was highly unlikely that what was designed for 1926, when there was only one broadcaster, is going to work in 2006 when the current charter expiresWhat the BBC most needs, what would be good for it, is a degree of external accountability. It would be good for its soul and its psyche. There is a mindset inside the BBC of immunity and invulnerability which is profoundly unhealthy, and that applies not just in editorial terms as we saw with Hutton but in the way it deals with commercial undertakings, the way it interprets the rules of fair trading and so on. The BBC needs real external accountability which ever other broadcaster in the UK is subject to without a complaint. Channel 4 is a very high class public service broadcaster which is accountable to OFCOM and has a combined board of execs and non execs and it works very well and it defends its corner just as fiercely as the governors defend the BBC.

ESLER: Mark Byford, a feeling of immunity in the top of the BBC.

BYFORD: I don’t feel it.

[Laughter]

BYFORD: I tell you, I don’t, and I also don’t feel a sense of arrogance that I'm not accountable to anyone. We're accountable to the British public that own us and pay for us, and the governors represent that. And to say that we're not subject to any regulation outside of the BBC, David knows that's not true. We are subject whether it's regional quotas or the independent quota, the governors aren't managing that and they've decided it, that's come from outside and we hold to those. But what is really important about the governors for me is that they are there recognising that they are to represent the public interest. If you had 12 brilliant broadcasters who were coming in as governors, the real problem, I think, is they'd try to manage it. What I want from the governors and what I recognise is their role, is not to say – well done, keep up the good work. Their role is to say: Is the BBC fulfilling what the British public who pay the £116 want from it, and to keep us in check.

BAZALGETTE: I must just say, I'm almost in tears at your description of these saint like figures, the BBC governors. What we're actually saying is that the old system of British ?? which is meant to be representative, which has the governors, you know.. one from Northern Ireland, one from Scotland, it's fine, trades unionists, this is fine. But it's a blunt instruments. Of course they should be representative but you've got to pick people who understand competition law, so why is the BBC doing this channel and should it be doing this channel. You've got to pick people who have got a really deep grounding in journalism so they understand exactly what was going on in the Hutton affair and the Kelly affair and they asked the right questions. To my knowledge, having read the emails that flew around and the governors debate, one governor only asked the right question and was pretty well ignored. This is not good. That's how it's got to be improved. 12 bore ?? – couldn't agree with you more. Terrible idea.

ESLER: Okay, on that note of agreement let's move on because for the final time we'll go back to our ICM telephone poll in just a moment. First we'd like again to see whether any of this has swayed the audiences acting as focus groups in our four studios here tonight. So let me ask you all once again to press your buttons and vote And another chance to hear some views from our audiences around the country on what they think of what they've been hearing, this time on the way the BBC is run and specifically on the role of the governors. Let's start in Edinburgh again, go ahead.

EDINBURGH Yes, I'd like to say that I think that the governance of the BBC has served us very well over many years now, and I think that it certainly has been stressed by the Kelly affair and I think really what I'd like to see is that both the Executive managers and the governors of the BBC get the time to be able to learn the lessons from that affair rather than rushing around in a panic to change everything for the sake of change.

ESLER: Okay, thank you. And the gentleman in Nottingham, please go ahead.

NOTTINGHAM MAN: I believe that David Attenborough's point was well made. There should be a much greater separation of the governors and the management of the BBC, but there seems to be resistance within the BBC to the movement of change and the whole debate seems to depict that. The Director General's view is that nothing should change from the existing point of view that they have, and I don’t believe that is true. If they don’t change they will die. We will lose a treasured institution.

ESLER: Okay, and just let's go over to Belfast. Yes sir, go ahead please.

BELFAST MAN: The BBC should continue to run its own affairs. It's got a long and distinguished history. It shouldn't do so much soul searching and I think BBC should become political, not less political, because sometimes politics are too important to be left to politicians alone.

[Laughter]

ESLER: I think a lot of people are enjoying your comment. Thank you very much sir. Let's go again to Edinburgh, please go ahead.

EDINBURGH MAN: Yeah, I believe that the BBC should be externally regulated because after Hutton, it appeared to me that the BBC were so obsessed with its own self-image and its own self perception, it didn't really project to its licence fee payers that it cared enough about what had gone on and what had gone wrong.

ESLER Ok thank you very much Now the final results of our opinion poll. When ICM pollsters asked more than a thousand people whether the BBC should continue to run its own affairs, the majority, 54% agreed, but 43% said the BBC should be subject to greater control from an external regulator and this was one area where our studio audiences did show a large movement. There was a large movement during our debate tonight to greater external control of the BBC. Mark Byford you can't be surprised about that, that people want more external regulation of some sort as Peter BAZALGETTE was suggesting.

BYFORD: I think that it is both. I think that what you've asked is should the BBC be running its affairs, but also in a context that there is external accountability as well, external accountability to the public, external accountability to OFCOM on some key issues affecting the BBC, it's not as though we simply run our own affairs. And lastly, that we're accountable to Parliament.

ESLER: Some people see to want more than that.

BYFORD: But the key that is recognised as well is that there should be definitely distance between the governors and the management, it shouldn't be merged so that those that are representing the public interest are also managing the BBC. But I do think that what's come out tonight is that the independence of the BBC and the recognition that the whole focus of the BBC should be on serving the public, that is what the audience do demand.

ESLER: But do you think there will have to be change in order to get that separation that David Attenborough and others talked about? There will have to be change?

BYFORD: I think what Peter said is that he said he wanted the governors but he recognises that there needed to be evolutionary change. I think the governors themselves would say that they recognise there needs to be that. But the BBC would never say that it must stand still, because if the BBC stood still on anything, whether it was the programming, whether it was on the consideration of its accountability, it would be wrong because things are changing around it. But what it does need to have clarity on is who is it serving, why and is it accountable to them?

ESLER: Peter BAZALGETTE, there was a clear and substantial movement to wards your point of view during the programme.

BAZALGETTE: Yes, and I think we'll see as the debate goes forward during this year the charter review period goes on, the BBC itself will probably come up with some proposals. We will see.. I think it's a given that there will be some element of reform of the governance of the BBC. I think the Hutton affair.. the Kelly affair has made it a given. I just hope it's one that's sympathetic to the independence of the BBC.

ESLER: Okay, thank you very much. Well that's all we have time for tonight. You've heard what our studio guests have had to say but this is only the beginning. The government in the shape of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport is asking for your views about how well the BBC does or does not serve you. If you visit our Panorama website you'll be able to follow the links and send them an email, or you can go to your local library and pick up a leaflet about different ways of getting in touch with them. The public consultation period lasts until the end of March. Our thanks to our studio audiences in Belfast, in Edinburgh, in Nottingham and of course here in London, and to our distinguished panel. Goodnight.

[Applause]

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