Rightwing press scents BBC blood – but does the public back a mauling?

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/12/rightwing-press-bbc-john-whittingdale-telegraph-mail

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Ed Miliband may have been defeated and heading off to an island far away, but the rightwing press did not have far to look for its next target following the appointment of a new culture minister.

Front pages of the Telegraph, Times and Mail as well as the leader column of the Sun all declared, with ill-disguised glee, that the appointment of John Whittingdale as culture secretary was a “declaration of war” against the BBC which leaves the very future of the licence fee in doubt”. “Tories go to war on the BBC,” splashed the Telegraph.

Yet even senior Tories seemed a somewhat taken aback at the way the appointment of Whittingdale – the veteran chair of the culture, media and sport select committee – was received. “I think there’s a debate to be had about all sorts of things to do with the BBC [during charter renewal negotiations],” said one, “but fundamentally will there be a public service broadcaster largely funded by the public? Yes.”

That debate – set to include an overhaul of BBC governance and the corporation’s impact on a beleagured local newspaper industry – could be had “without kneecapping the BBC”, he added.

So what’s going on? There is definitely a wing of the Conservative party happy to see the BBC humbled for perceived leftwing bias. This faction, which has made no secret of their dislike of the BBC and its funding model, is pleased with the appointment of a former Thatcher aide who has called the licence fee “worse than the poll tax” and argued that the BBC should subsidise free TV licences for the over-75s to the tune of £500m.

And yet, in the runup to the election, when BBC bullying was de rigueur for parties that wanted to be seen in the best light, not one senior government member said that the universal licence fee should be scrapped. Indeed, in his interview with the Radio Times, George Osborne categorically said there were “no plans” to replace the licence fee, even if a future government would “look at all the options”.

Let’s not forget amid the din that Whittingdale himself may have uttered some tough-sounding talk on the licence fee but he also signed off on a far-reaching report that argued for the survival of the BBC’s funding mechanism in the short term as recently as February.

In some ways, the appointment of a man with more knowledge of media matters than most of his peers could even be a good thing. For a start, any concessions made to the BBC will be far more easily argued by a man thought to be “one of us” by the party’s right wing.

“It’s certainly true that there are certain parts of the party that are not the greatest fans of the BBC and they will trust John to do the right thing,” said one Tory MP. “He is the one to convince them.”

But while the politics of the appointment are fascinating, the newspaper reaction says as much if not more about the power of the press than it does about Westminster.

Fresh from a perceived victory against a Labour leader who made no secret of his dislike of press self-regulation or media monopolies, this is the rightwing press flexing its muscles against an even older foe. The overweening power and publicly funded popularity of the BBC has long been a bugbear of a newspaper industry struggling to retain revenues and relevance in a digital age.

In a leader column titled “Licence to kill”, the Sun said on Tuesday that it was “payback time” after “decades of BBC bias against the Tories, subtle and blatant”. The BBC “intrudes into markets where private firms should thrive instead” for an organisation that should be “radically shrunk so it focuses on first-class original TV and radio”. In the Times, also from the Murdoch stable, a “Tory figure” said “this isn’t about the wholesale destruction of the BBC – far from it – but it’s about requiring the corporation to tackle a long hard look at itself, the job it is doing, the way it is funded and whether it is fit for purpose”.

The reaction to Whittingdale’s appointment was such that Tony Hall tried to issue a note of calm in an email to all staff on Tuesday night urging them to approach the future with “confidence”.

In this environment, the “absolute accident” that saw the BBC press office retweet and then quickly delete a post attacking Whittingdale’s hardline stance on social justice issues such as gay marriage was foolish. In the long 18 months ahead before the BBC charter is confirmed, any tiny transgression will be seized on by the BBC’s enemies in the same way that they picked on a man eating a bacon sandwich.

It would be foolish to argue that the appointment of Whittingdale or indeed the Conservative party’s majority are good news for the BBC. But the rightwing press is more opposed to the BBC than any survey has ever showed the electorate to be. That should not be forgotten before the corporation’s demise goes from front-page fantasy to fact.