Get rid of the BBC? Careful what you wish for…

Decades ago, I joined a cruise in blue waters off the southern coast of Turkey, where our captain spoke no words of English except "tips here" – until somehow, through the usual blustering British-person-meets-rest-of-world chats, he established where I worked. For the next three days, I was summoned to mealtimes with a shout of "BBC" that echoed across the Med.

It was a different time: when our national broadcaster’s brand was considered up there with Coca-Cola for global recognition, and the NHS for trustworthiness. Thirty years later, and mentions of "the BBC" once again abound, but this time to a collective eye-roll at yesterday’s headlines that a catalogue of controversies has culminated in both the director-general and the CEO of BBC News falling on their swords over the editing of a 2021 Donald Trump speech. Monday saw the BBC Chair Samir Shah add his apology for the "error of judgement" that caused the furore.

Tim Davie’s resignation speech included reference to the intense personal and professional demands that have punctuated his five years in British media’s top job – those years have seen a roll-call of on-air talent disappearing from screen after a litany of behaviour variously criminal (Huw Edwards), allegedly bad (Gregg Wallace) or political (Carol Vorderman, Gary Lineker).

The departures of Davie and his news chief Deborah Furness are more redolent of 2004. I was among those queuing up, some in tears, to bid a fond farewell to Greg Dyke after he quit as D-G, as did his Board Chairman, after the government complained about the news coverage of the dossier – "sexed up" as alleged by reporter Andrew Gilligan – putting the case for Iraq’s nuclear weapons and justifying invasion. We know the rest.

Possibly apart from some of those involved in that debacle, there were no calls then for the binning of the BBC – this week’s episode feels more rotten and existentially threatening. We learned through a memorandum leaked to The Telegraph that the BBC desperately tried to audit its own failings with an external report, both the act and results of which have given plenty of ammunition to those on both sides – that this whole thing is a politically-fuelled conspiracy to bring down the broadcaster, or that this internal, secret wrangling is more proof it’s the right time, with just two years to go before Charter Renewal – to completely disband the 103-year-old institution and rebuild in an entirely different image, one more fit for the commercial and cultural realities of 2025.

Be careful what you wish for. Of course, the BBC has its faults – I cringe at some of its attempts to keep up with the kids: buying the rights to Drag Race about half a decade too late, pulling BBC Three off the linear platform before U-turning at great expense, the self-satisfaction it displays when it builds an entire schedule around one formerly charming event like Eurovision, its reliance on too few, over-exposed presenters...

Nevertheless, it remains the gold standard, not just for the UK but for the world. Overseas friends cite The Goodies, Doctor Who, Kenny Everett as a central part of their childhood TV diet. They’re always surprised to learn dramas like Brideshead Revisited and Downton Abbey weren’t actually BBC titles — "it feels like something they’d do”"— pointing to the fact that the BBC’s production and training ecosystem has long ensured all broadcasting boats rise.

Countries from Canada to Australia to South Africa have built their own national broadcasting institutions in the BBC image, citing the worthwhile aspiration of "trust", "authority", "grown up TV". It’s a point of abject embarrassment that, while these broadcasters build on that original vision and continue to flourish, our homebuilt mothership is left struggling to justify its existence.

Among Winston Churchill's many famous quotes, he called "democracy the worst form of government, except for all the others" – and the same is true for the BBC and its place in the firmament. Look to your left, to Russia and neighbours, and you find state-sponsored, state-controlled, state-supporting TV — propaganda not programmes. Look to your right, and you have American TV. The transparently commercial imperative – the first ad break often coming straight after the opening credits — used to be a source of mirth for foreign viewers, but has now evolved into something far more nakedly and ruthlessly driven.

Meanwhile, pushing against the two walls of legislation and commercial rivals like Chewbacca in the trash compactor, the BBC tries gamely to balance our diets with wholesome fodder and some glittering, expensive jewels, in a way that only it can. Of course, it needs tidying up, refreshing, streamlining, reforming — but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Life without it would look very different, and we would all be the poorer.

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