A view from the Edinburgh TV Festival

Not surprisingly, this year's Edinburgh TV Festival was dominated by discussions about the financial state of the industry.

 Putting the heat on the BBC: James Murdoch, post McTaggart, talks to Peter Bazalgette.

However the heat, led by James Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp and BSkyB's chairman, was all on the alleged ills of the BBC. Relatively little was said about the inadequacies of the market or about the innovative measures (where are they?) of commercial operators weathering the current recessionary storm.

The McTaggart Lecture, as more seasoned visitors to the Festival will know, is billed as the scene setter, the weather-vane grappling with the key issues of the day and pointing the way to future solutions.

Welcome controversy

James Murdoch, son of Rupert, was always going to bring welcome controversy from the organisers point of view, but his attack on the BBC, in a speech titled The Absence of Trust, was bitter, idealogically zealous and self-serving from his company's perspective.

Whilst BSkyB clearly still relishes its anti-establishment clothing, all media organisations are about people and many will have bristled at Mr Murdoch's total dismissal of the BBC's proud place in UK culture. He offered not a single positive word for the creative energy and commitment which drives the organisation forward. The atmosphere around the speech was cool, except for the odd polite chuckle, and the audience rather like pupils listening to a headmaster's address.

But maybe someone had a word in James' ear overnight, as in the traditional McTaggart Q&A which followed the Friday night lecture, he had lightened up a little and did at least acknowledge that the BBC did some good work.

 

The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit, says James Murdoch

Come Saturday, indeed, I was expecting the BBC to wheel out its big guns to tackle Mr Murdoch on his one-man bid to shut down the BBC. In fact, it was left to journalists Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Kirsty Wark to question the leader on his company's democratic credentials. Doesn't the fact that millions tune into BBC news represent a choice by the audience? asked Krishnan. Did News Corp's satellite company, Star TV, really pull the BBC off air? asked Kirsty.

Worthy efforts to tackle the key pillars of Mr Murdoch's speech - trust the audience and recognise the power of the market to uphold democracy -  but the bold defence of the UK system, which I had hoped would confront Mr Murdoch, did not materialise.(Although reports have it that the BBC's Robert Peston and James Murdoch exchanged some frank language at the post-McTaggart dinner). Maybe the Q&A was too public a forum, or armed combat was not in the spirit of the McTaggart tradition, or a decision was made to allow Murdoch his day given the many debates to come?

A must-read speech

Little point here in quoting the strong insight provided by many media commentators into Murdoch's presentation, but I do recommend the speech itself to BECTU members. It is a good read (even if it may cause you to froth at the mouth!) because it crystallises the furthest extent of opposition to the BBC and issues a challenge to those of us who want to see the BBC thrive alongside the commercial sector. 

In more than 20 years with BECTU, I have never seen a year in which the BBC or the licence fee have not faced attacks from within the media or from politicians. Yes, BECTU has a responsibility to represent the interests of its members, many of whom work for the BBC, but that doesn't mean that we are blind to the BBC's failings or that we don't recognise that the organisation needs to improve operations and to increase its accountability to the public. But could politicans ever be persuaded to force the BBC to shut up shop? Highly unlikely ...... however the current threats to the licence fee via Digital Brain's proposal for top-slicing are real.

If top-slicing is not challenged and defeated - and there are examples in New Zealand and Canada, apparently, where similar steps damaged the broadcasting ecology only to be reversed years later - then the BBC will be weakened and the output of all UK broadcasters will suffer. Support the campaign against top-slicing.

Calls for a strong response to online piracy

It is worth noting here, however, that there is at least one area of policy on which BECTU and News Corp agree and that relates to online piracy.  As Mr Murdoch himself said, theft is theft.

The real and imagined lack of accountability in public service, highlighted by the dreadful MPs expenses scandal, has extended beyond Westminster to areas including the BBC. Will the Beeb be able to hold off from revealing how much it pays its stars? Ed Vaizey MP, opposition culture spokesman, and Ed Richards, Ofcom's chief executive, think not. This is one area where BECTU might be inclined to agree given the thousands of BBC jobs which have been lost in recent years.

Job losses have also cut deep at ITV and at C4 both of which are struggling to devise new business models in response to digital switchover and the advertising recession. Sadly, from my point of view at least, the PSB:The Insider's Guide session was underwhelming (although Steve Hewlett's film was a hoot) as far as broad discussion went.

The C4/BBC Worldwide tie-up has yet to be nailed down and ITV appeared content to dip under the radar given the attention focussed on the BBC's accidental and relative pots of cash. As Caroline Thomson, the BBC's chief operating officer, explained, but for the recession the BBC's licence fee settlement would not appear as good as it does. In fact, only months ago the director-general, Mark Thompson, was being criticised for striking a poor deal. How circumstances change when economic and political fortunes nose-dive.

Other sessions I attended last weekend, on compliance and reality TV, suggest that the industry has turned a corner, away from the own goals which embarassed senior managers and denigrated so many broadcasters. Hopefully, the viewer is no longer being duped - even if programme makers view guidelines on the use of language post-watershed as opaque, stifling of creativity and wasteful of resources - and, of course, Big Brother is packing his bags, at C4 at least, having transformed popular TV.

Quality output from the US

The session with David Simon, creator of The Wire,  put the case for quality broadcasting with subtley, humility and honesty in spite of its title, Fuck the Casual Viewer. Everyone, to a man and woman, cites the journey from UK to US broadcasting as a bad one, where quality and challenging content are hard to find. And yet its small public service sector can produce gems, such as The Wire, because it has different imperatives from its multiple commercial counterparts.

We are fortunate enough to have in the BBC a dedicated public service provider, free to air, which can stand its ground with commercial operators. Who would be served by cutting the BBC down to size? Private enterprise maybe, the audience most definitely not.  

New diversity group

Ps: two questions which suggested themselves to me last weekend and which members of the new diversity group, TV Collective, launched this summer, might ponder. (Follow TV Collective on Twitter or join them on Facebook). Could a UK- style The Wire be made given its focus on the Black criminal experience and, if so, would we pass up the chance of using such work as a launch pad for positive action in the community? According to David Simon, despite its success, this powerful series, has had no political impact in Baltimore.

Diversity is one subject the TV Festival needs to turn its attention to urgently ........ whilst the BBC will soon have at least two BME professionals on its senior management team, Patrick Younge, new creative head at BBC Vision from January 2010, and Bal Samra, BBC Vision's head of operations and rights, once again this year the Festival, which is dominated by commercial companies and independent producers, appeared largely closed to people of colour.