Do the BBC "cuts" mean that an over-mighty subject has finally, grudgingly, agreed to reduce its size? Or have the wolf pack of press and commercial interests intent on demolishing any competition that stands in their way had their first taste of blood before moving in for a more gruesome kill when a new government comes? Or, on the contrary, is it all a cunning feint by the bloated bureaucrats of the corporation trying to dodge a real and needed slashing? And where is the public interest in all of this?
The assumption that the Strictly Come Dancing-rejoicing, Proms-proud, web-page-addicted public wants the BBC to be beaten down is bonkers. The BBC's networks know and are owned by their audiences in a uniquely creative way. But Auntie has to concentrate on being the BBC. The question of what size the BBC ought to be is wrong. The only sensible thing to ask is "what is the BBC for?", and then sort out the range of things that it needs to do with the money we afford it. The BBC, after all, is there to serve its licence-fee payers, not its own corporate agenda – but also to serve the nation, which gives it obligations to wider audiences. The BBC is there to be purposely intelligent: but promiscuously and wantonly so.
The proposals for cuts leaked yesterday are neither piecemeal concessions nor mealy minded; they look like a plan to me, concentrating focus more sharply and painfully. BBC principles always sound like motherhood and apple pie; but things like children, national events, knowledge, news, comedy and original drama are all the key ways of conducting the national conversation. Indeed, in a cash-strapped country where everything from the army to universities is going to have to manage budgets more creatively, the emerging principles for a BBC fit for this era are based on intelligent restructuring of purpose. And we may disagree with the detail, but this new package is not just baggage thrown off the back of the sledge to appease the pack.
Of course there has been a pretty fierce battle about refocusing the corporation; it has taken a while to get there. However, the process of defining what to do next is only meaningful if it is uncomfortable. The BBC management and the trust seem to have a matured relationship: pushing and resisting is proper.
What have the problems been? Most national and international media corporations eye the BBC's web presence hungrily. No wonder: it gets paid by the licence fee for things they would like to find a way of making money out of. As citizens, of course, the BBC's web has been a huge addition to our individual and collective lives. But the corporation, having been wonderfully prescient early on in the new digital world, nevertheless tried to occupy every inch of the space.
It jumped into every territory available because it was anxious that it would lose what would turn out to be vital ground. The BBC, like everyone else, did not know what the digital future looked like. Now some things are clearer. It was said that "steam television" would die, but most people still watch their TV live and the "mixed diet' of channels still works; the nature of the digital audiences' engagement and the forms of the new era are still evolving rapidly. But a bit down the line it is possible to be more strategic. The proposals to make the BBC web presence friendlier for competitors and to concentrate on where the corporation adds value is a good test. The BBC needs to, and evidently intends to, lead public service digital – not do everything, but hopefully to go on being agile and inventive.
There is money. Salaries and buildings have both come to look large. While the BBC had to move to the periphery because it has a duty to represent the nation to itself, how it chose to do this was the issue. The BBC seemed for a little while to forget that it uses two different currencies – every real purchasing pound is also a public pound that has political consequences – and that it is far more under scrutiny than almost any other organisation.
Public dismay was also part of a wider anger about salaries across the board. The public wanted its money spent in ways it understood and approved of. So, by far the most significant re-engineering in the new proposals is the commitment to make every BBC pound work harder for programmes: that more of the licence fee goes into content is the most significant promise for the future.
The BBC is for the nation and for the world. At a time when our banks and our politics look tarnished it is still a beacon admired and magnificent. The BBC survives because what it does is appreciably different: not high brow or low brow but because it makes the good popular – and the popular good – and that should be the public test of the BBC.
