BBC
The BBC has promoted Question Time to primetime, socially distanced the panel and dispensed with an audience
Safe hands in a crisis
T
he UK is being tested as never before in peacetime – and in an age when communication is immediate and uncontrollable and diffuse. But, if the nation does come together and get through the challenges of Covid-19, it will have done so with the help of the most traditional forms of public service broadcasting (PSB). This is an unexpected twist in what had seemed like an inevitable trajectory. We were witnessing a sharp decline in linear television, the rise of the global streaming companies, an erosion of trust in the old, “impartial” sources – and some within the Government were gleefully celebrating the potential end of the BBC as we knew it. As recently as February, a Downing Street source – believed by everyone to be Dominic Cummings – briefed The Sunday Times about the corporation:
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PSB
As the national lockdown continues, Roger Mosey praises the BBC’s response, and assesses the impact it will have on the corporation’s future “We are having a consultation, and we will whack it”. The end of the licence fee appeared to be in sight, with the forced sell-off of many television and radio services. Even the normally emollient Nicky Morgan, at that time still culture secretary, issued a warning about PSB, saying, “we don’t want a beacon of British
values and world-class entertainment ending up like Blockbuster”, which got under the skin of BBC executives. “There is a danger that politicians catastrophise the situation”, was the tart rejoinder from the corporate press office. “The BBC is the most-used media organisation in the UK.... You wouldn’t think that from some of the things being said today.” Now everything has shifted. Ministers, who had been boycotting programmes from Radio 4’s Today to ITV’s Good Morning Britain – because they thought they no longer needed them – are back in the early-morning interview slots to discuss the public health emergency. The Prime Minister’s broadcast to the nation on 23 March about the corona virus lockdown, was viewed by around 27 million people, with a majority of those watching on the BBC. Younger audiences are rediscovering the value of live television. And hard, factual
