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BBC boss wants more money to compete with Netflix, Amazon.

“While their spending is going up, ours is going down," argues BBC boss.

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BBC’s Director General Tony Hall wants to more money to compete with the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

“I’m making the point that we need to find more money. I’m saying that could come from a variety of different sources. We’ve never had a proper debate about funding, it’s always been [the BBC’s budget is] too big, cut it. What is the right level of the funding for the BBC?” he asked.

Speaking at the Royal Television Society London Conference, Hall claimed that it needs to raise more money to fight the US$8B that Netflix is spending on content this year and the US$5M he claims that Amazon is spending. The BBC and the other British public service broadcasters spend £2.5B together (US$3.3B).

“While their spending is going up, ours is going down. In those ten years, while the big shift was getting going, Ofcom’s data shows that the public service broadcasters reduced their annual spending on new British content by around £700m (US$920m) in real terms. If you go back to 2004, the fall is around a billion pounds amongst us. As the BBC has been forced to spend less because of a cut in the licence fee, so the other PSBs have spent less too.

“Netflix and Amazon are not making up the difference. Ofcom’s data suggests that less than 10% of the catalogues of Netflix and Amazon are comprised of content produced in the UK. Two separate recent estimates have suggested their investment into new UK programs is around £150m (US$197m) a year. Co-production helped make up the difference for a while, but those deals are becoming more rare. You can argue about the size of the future gap, but there’s no doubt there is a gap today in funding public service broadcasting, and there’s going to be one in the future. This isn’t just an issue for us economically, commercially or as institutions. There is an impact on society.”

Source: Deadline

4 Responses

  1. I have seen other forums on this matter and it could be an interesting subject to come back to at a later date as it seems Lord Hall, the BBC’s Director General, wants Britain’s media companies to have a new system of regulation to allow the BBC to compete against tech media giants. I’m sure that Mr Murdoch would agree, especially if this BBC aspiration also protected Sky, as would Foxtel if similar media proposals which favoured Australian media companies were made in Australia.The idea of protectionism is not new, Mr Packer in his heyday was a strong effective advocate for his own TV business interests, I’m sure Netflix and other tech media giants will be watching this recent political activity in the UK and Europe with interest.

  2. The BBC is funded by subscription charged to all TV owners. #150 p.a (#50 for B&W and you only get a 50% if you are blind and can’t see the TV!). They keep a database of every household in the UK and still have van that go around detecting and fining people watching TV without a subscription. Watching, recording or streaming it even to a mobile without paying results in #1000 fine (meanwhile people all over the world have been using VPNs to access BBC streaming for free). When the BBC had a monopoly on TV broadcasting you could argue this was a reasonable usepays system that didn’t penalise people who couldn’t afford a TV. Now that the BBC has less than 30% share of TV viewing charging people who watch ITV or Netflix is absurd, which is why the fee was reduced by 20% recently pending a review of the BBC role and funding in a digital world.

  4. Interesting, the BBC do have the occasional big budget production, probably to match it with iTV, the BBC also have sports coverage and a large catalogue of shows, past & present, and popular documentaries sold on DVD, as well as BBC films, which co-produces movies for the big screen. The BBC do appear to be diversified enough to fund quality shows themselves without taxpayer assistance, perhaps like our ABC the BBC have overstretch their tax funded resources too much trying to stay relevant for a future in broadcasting.

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