What does the BBC do for you?

0:00Nosheen Iqbal:This is The Guardian.

0:09Nosheen Iqbal:Today, why can't the BBC catch a break?

0:20There were two big clashes on Sunday night. One was Argentina versus Spain in the World Cup final. The other one, and I think we'll end almost as bloody actually, is between BBC management and the people who refuse to pay the licence fee. It says here that the money we pay for the BBC creates over£6.5 billion for the economy, which actually sounds pretty good.

0:52Nosheen Iqbal:It may sound dramatic, but the number of people paying the BBC's licence fee fell much faster than expected in the last year. Half a million more households have opted out of the payment. It's one of the biggest declines in its history. I mean, the BBC is in a real fight. And in response, the BBC has produced an advert for itself, fronted by Ramesh Ranganathan, to answer the question... What has the BBC ever done for me?

1:30Nosheen Iqbal:It's a lavish four-minute ride through the Beeb's biggest hits. Who cares about Mary Berry, Blastonbury... Doctor Who, traitors, Strictly, with dozens of household names from Graham Norton to Greg James, Claudia Winkleman to Cate Blanchett, all making a nostalgic case for why the BBC matters. They introduced the nation to someone called... One fisherman and another team about a title swell.

2:05Nosheen Iqbal:The BBC is a unique proposition. A public service broadcaster that receives almost£4 billion a year in public funding and employs around 21 ,000 people. On and offline, it's the most widely used source of news in the UK and has created some of the nation's most popular entertainment. But it's in real trouble. I think we're in a moment of real jeopardy, not just for the BBC, but for Britain and for public service broadcasting. From The Guardian, I'm Noshia Nikbal. Today in Focus. The BBC fights back.

2:45Nosheen Iqbal:Mark Lawson, welcome back to Today in Focus. Now, you're a Guardian journalist and a broadcaster. You commentate frequently on the BBC, which is why we're here today. Let's start with this ad, which debuted on Sunday night during the World Cup. What has the BBC ever done for you? Who is it for? So the advert is very specifically aimed, I think, at one group of people. And that's why it went out during the World Cup final. There are various people who don't pay the licence fee for various reasons, but there's a particular large block of people who say, I love football. I only watch football. I spend£1 ,500 a year to watch TV on all the other channels.

3:31you don't have very much football at all. And so I'm not paying it. The problem with it is, is that the ad was arguing for the uniqueness of the BBC and the very same programme was on ITV at exactly the same time. And if you were a serious licence fee or a fusing ache, you would just be watching on ITV.

3:49Nosheen Iqbal:Mark, you say that, but I think the BBC could fairly argue that while ITV was also showing the World Cup final, four times as many viewers did choose to watch it on the BBC. and that says something. And you say the advert was just for Refuse Nix and you're speaking in broad terms. However, you know, it's possible that it's also a real reminder for everyone else about why they value it, what they use, why the BBC has become an integral part of people's lives at every stage. And so understanding that, what are its most prized assets? What do people enjoy about the BBC? Well, it would be clearly the traitors, clearly strictly come dancing.

4:34Slightly surprisingly for many people, The Apprentice still performs spectacularly well.

4:41Nosheen Iqbal:I'm surprised by that. It does, though. It's one of the major brands. Someone would always have at least one thing that they said, well, I watch the BBC for that. You know, I meet a lot of people who would once have paid the license fee because of the arts. yeah the proms certainly I have lay relatives who paid the license fee respectively for the archers and for songs of praise and that was a real thing you have these very few events essentially the final of the traitors the final of strictly come dancing where you have to watch on the night because otherwise you'll find out who's won yeah so you have to but those can still get very big audiences but there is no one area now in which the BBC produces the absolute best CBBs um I'm I'm just coming back into that via grandchildren but um uh yes I mean arguably but if they were going to make the case on children's the children won't be paying the subscription or whatever replaces it or the household levy um yes and the parents would prefer perhaps potentially and I'm giving myself away here, you know, a CBeebies to a carousel of YouTube and ads.

5:55I can see that.

5:57Nosheen Iqbal:The tide has shifted quite dramatically, I would say, in my lifetime when it comes to the BBC and the way it's talked about. I mean, there was a time where it was a given. There was something that we were just like proud of and it was cherished as this sort of national thing. And now there is very little commentary on the corporation on any side of the political spectrum. That doesn't come with the words beleaguered in crisis. And I wonder if you can sort of pinpoint when that shift occurred and why it's basically so mainstream to hate on the BBC. It spent a lot of its 104 years in crisis because, in fact, of the funding mechanism, this curious thing that the money is effectively collected and enforced by the government and then given to the BBC to spend.

6:42But you've got to be quite saintly not to start exerting some power over the BBC. And Margaret Thatcher, but also Harold Wilson before that, they both exerted really terrifying political pressure on the BBC. And also because they appoint the chairman and all this kind of stuff. And they put people on the board. And so it's always been legal in that way. However, you are right. But it's the three S's, scandal, salary, streaming. so what you were asking earlier which is perfectly fair which is that everyone has something that connects them to the BBC in terms of programming and I think that's true unfortunately now almost everyone has something that disconnects them from the BBC and unfortunately everyone who has on one side of the ledger this is why I pay the license fee now has on the other side this is why I don't want to.

7:35Nosheen Iqbal:These three S's. We'll start with the first, the scandals. From the seismic abuse revelations around Jimmy Savile to the disastrous handling of the Cliff Richard story, which actually changed media law. In the last handful of years specifically, the BBC has continually lurched from crisis to crisis. Can you give me a rundown of, I guess, its worst hits? Yes. There are three types of scandals. There are the police level scandals. As Hugh Edwards leaves Westminster Magistrates Court following that sentencing, the suspended six-month sentence for child abuse images. Former BBC presenter Scott Mills was questioned under caution in 2018 in relation to serious sexual offences against a teenage boy.

8:21Nosheen Iqbal:The Metropolitan Police has released a statement saying a man in his 40s was investigated a decade ago. No charges were brought. And then there are the HR scandals. So I think it's best for all concerned that I step down from BBC presenting duties altogether and not do next season's FA Cup All World. 45 out of 83 allegations made against Greg Wallace during his time on Masterchef, including one of unwelcome physical contact, were found to have been substantiated. And then there are the editorial scandals. The BBC and the British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, both issued apologies today after broadcasting racial slurs shouted during yesterday's awards show.

9:00It happened while two prominent black actors, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, were on stage.

9:05Nosheen Iqbal:Glastonbury 2025 and the cleanup begins. But the headlines after the festival are not about the music. Punk rap duo Bob Villan's performance on Saturday condemned as appalling hate speech by the Prime Minister. Chanting free, free Palestine and then death, death to the IDF, referring to the Israeli military, the BBC streamed the performance live from the West Holt stage.

9:34I think the ones that people don't talk about, I think that the Brexit result and Trump's two election victories were editorial scandals for the BBC. And there's a real problem there, which is groupthink. Some people argue at the BBC that because they very much didn't want to leave Europe or for there to be a President Trump. That affected the coverage. This then leads to the Trump panorama. And there was also a Newsnight report where they'd done a similar thing, but it got less attention. Someone had falsely edited film in order to make it look as if President Trump had said something that he didn't, i.e.

10:11inciting people to violence. It was gross editorial malpractice, what they did.

10:17Nosheen Iqbal:Given all of that, how much damage do you think it's done to the BBC's reputation in terms of public opinion? I think all of that has done enormous damage and I think it's seen in the number of people who are refusing to pay the license fee. There are so many different reasons now that people don't want to support the BBC. Either they say we don't use it, either they say it's because of what they've done. The reason I mentioned Brexit and the Trump as scandals is that it led to the rise of GB News and also to the clear upward tick for LBC and other BBC. So in that sense, it damaged the BBC quite badly because it led people elsewhere to look for their news.

11:02Nosheen Iqbal:Another consistent talking point is your second and s salaries and the irony here of course is that as a public service broadcaster the bbc has to publish those figures and we have the right to know in the way that we wouldn't for someone being paid by netflix or disney or sky or what have you mark why has this become a particularly sore point both in and outside the organization it went uh disastrously wrong because the figures were eye-watering. Well, the women could see that they were being paid far less and it caused them a lot of trouble. They could certainly see that, but also the general sums were eye-watering.

11:41So the BBC gives huge amounts of the license fee money to BBC Studios to make its programs. They were given an exception that people employed by BBC Studios didn't have to reveal that part of their salary. It's not clear how anyone ever got to setting the salary for presenting Match of the Day at 1.35 million. And so this gets into another allegation against the BBC, which is that they're not very good at spending our money.

12:10Nosheen Iqbal:Well, let's talk about the mechanics of the actual licence fee. How much is it right now? And what's the take up? Why are people so angry about it? It's now£180 and it's rising. It brings in the BBC about£4 billion, but that figure is falling. they say 94 % of British people consume the BBC but now only 80 % of people pay for it. The BBC entered full crisis mode last week when the new Director General Matt Britton said the licence fee is a busted flush. Yes we can and should be doing as much as possible on licence fee collection under the current model but it's yesterday's model. It's a busted flush it's no longer fit for purpose and that's why we need to make the case for the BBC and a shift of the licence fee model.

12:58Nosheen Iqbal:And that's an extraordinary thing. Quite astonishing. Until then, every BBC director general had said the licence fee is the least worst option. And the crucial thing is, say, it was half a million people stopped paying last year, 300 the year before. So those numbers are just going down. Well, you'd have to be incredibly optimistic to think they're not. What the BBC and some statisticians would argue is that it's at risk of becoming exponential, because if people see 500 ,000 didn't, they say, well, why am I? And so it's a moment of crisis. Director General Matt Brisson, he took over from Tim Davy about three months ago and announced the first round of cuts in June.

13:39Nosheen Iqbal:And instead of taking that sort of salami slicing approach, he's just gone wholesale big cuts on entire shows. The news, I would say, especially has been hit hard. So could you just give us a top line on what we've actually lost and what we're losing? Yes, so The World Tonight, one of their best news programmes has gone. A lot of programmes will go, but it will be done in their terms on duplication. So if from our own correspondent on Radio 4 goes, they will say, well, we have an equivalent of that on World Service. Which has also had massive cuts. Yes, but it is a very, very expensive organisation.

14:21I don't, you know, I would pay...

14:22Nosheen Iqbal:But small to the impact and influence it arguably has. Look, historically, the BBC unions have been very, very powerful. They have managed to avoid any job losses. Probably that has ended. So Matt, Britain has got a funding crisis. And the BBC's future funding is being renegotiated with Lisa Nandy, still Culture Secretary, continuing. and it seems to me pretty clear that she said to them you've got to show some willing here I can't give you the status quo I can't give you the license fee I can't give you 22 ,000 staff so just you know meet me not halfway but maybe 10 % of the way there and I think that's what these cuts are there for.

15:10Nosheen Iqbal:What is the long-term strategy here when it comes to journalism because one would argue that so much more investment is needed given the way that people find their news these days? I mean, isn't there an argument that the BBC needs to defend its journalism more than ever? There is that argument. The counter arguments are that in certain areas, such as children's, the BBC doesn't really have competitors. In news, it has a quite astonishing number of competitors. And therefore, if you are forced to make cuts, then they are forced to make cuts. Whatever the unions say, they do have to do this.

15:55Nosheen Iqbal:so going back to what we discussed at the beginning of this episode which of course is this bells and whistles promo and you know the bbc wheeling through those legacy shows the remakes the reboots and the stars that have been there for absolutely decades blink and you'll miss some of them it speaks to a bigger issue that the bbc is having which is trying to attract a younger or newer audience. Mark, how does the BBC stay relevant to young people? Well, it's not just young people. I hate to be depressing, but it's probably it's remaining relevant generally. And the reason for that is the third of my S's streaming.

16:30So the traditional BBC argument against the streamers was, yeah, it's all fine. But do you just want to watch stuff about you know people being shot in kansas we make stuff about people being shot in what in rotherham and that's um you know it's and that was always the argument was that streamer content was foreign if you look at the programs that most talked about in recent years got the figures by all metrics won the bachelor awards adolescence netflix mr bates first post office itv rivals Disney +, Slow Horses, Apple TV, Louis Theroux in the Manosphere, Netflix. Now, the point is, they need to explain quite urgently to their audience and to the select committee why they didn't make any of those programs.

17:19That's really quite a big question. But the other problem for the BBC, you know, they'll struggle to hang on to Diane Morgan, I think. They lost Phoebe Waller Bridge. They've lost Louis Theroux, at least for the moment, is that their biggest risk is becoming playing, as we say in football, a feeder club for the streamers.

17:37Nosheen Iqbal:But they've always been about apparently making and breaking the talent. They're supposed to be the hothouse in which British talent gets discovered and gets to make things. That is supposed to be one of the reasons the BBC exists. So if that talent then succeeds and goes elsewhere, then technically job done. No, they've tended to keep them. And in that original, what did the BBC do for you ad, those were people who'd been in the BBC 40, 50 years. And that's much harder to bring off now. There was also this quite astonishing headline earlier this year which revealed that more people had watched YouTube than they had the BBC.

18:13Nosheen Iqbal:Must that have sent quite a shiver down the spine? Yeah, and that's why the BBC is going more and more onto YouTube. And actually, one of the big rounds with its journalists was where they said it would be TikTok first now and YouTube first. And this is constant chasing of the new format. But yeah, that was a huge moment. but it all comes back to the same thing which is that when in the past and when the BBC did that original What's the BBC Ever Done For You ad they were the biggest beast in the jungle to borrow from Sir David Attenborough and they're not, they're just not and YouTube was just another one and also from Walking With Dinosaurs we can see if you're surrounded by much bigger beasts and there are a lot of them then you're in trouble which is why they're in trouble coming up if the license fee model isn't the answer how will the bbc survive

19:19Nosheen Iqbal:mark the future funding of the bbc we all know it's in existential trouble over the current license fee model. What other options does the broadcaster have? You can't overestimate the significance of Matt Britton saying the license fee is a busted flush. Clearly, that's for you in government. So therefore, you look at what could follow, what could replace it. Broadly, there are four alternatives, major ones. The first one is advertising. There's only a certain - Everyone's struggling with advertising. Yeah, everyone's struggling with advertising. So to introduce a big beast to the advertising jungle would lead to extinction.

19:58Therefore, that's not going to happen. So then there is the digital license fee. Now, this is something that the BBC itself has been pushing quite heavily. Their argument is that the digital license fee should extend to include Netflix, Amazon, all the rest of them, possibly even YouTube.

20:16Nosheen Iqbal:Interesting. And how would that possibly be agree that the BBC gets some money for other people having the right to watch. That's why it's another BF, as they say there, busted flush. None of these options. That won't happen. No, and then we're getting to the two that are broadly plausible. Again, huge moment recently. Dr. Samir Shah, the chairman of the BBC, he came out in the most recent edition of the Sunday Times saying, we want the Burnham government to look at the household levy. What is the household levy, first of all? is that every household would pay for the BBC. There are various ways it would be done.

20:49It could be added to your electricity bill as an argument that is used.

20:53Nosheen Iqbal:That'll go down well. It will go down really well. You can see. Everyone's finding those really very high. So it's added to your electricity bill. Another popular argument from within the BBC is that it's added to your council tax. They're working backwards. They have decided whatever funds the BBC should be universal. Everyone should pay for it. Everyone should have access to it. They worked backwards from that. The only one that can deliver that is a household levy. You've mentioned several of the problems with this. One is that just as we're talking, Prime Minister Burnham has said that he will take VAT off electricity bills.

21:29Off electricity bills. So when people suddenly discover they're paying 180 or whatever for Laura Kunzberg and others, much as they deserve it. And for the archers, it's not going to go down well. They will then say, okay, council tax. But at the moment, you have a number of councils who are run by reform. You have a number who have no overall control. You have pretty much every council where people think the council tax is too high.