Making Music's response to the BBC Charter public consultation

Making Music made a submission to this consultation which was open until 10 March and will be crucial in determining the future of the BBC for at least the next 10 years.

Our submission was guided by the principle that the BBC’s role is civic, cultural and educational, as reflected in its 5 public purposes, which we agreed were still correct.

Public Purpose 1 - to provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them.
Public Purpose 2 - to support learning for people of all ages.
Public Purpose 3 - to show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services.
Public Purpose 4 - to reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, to support the creative economy across the United Kingdom.

We reflected in our answers that we believe the BBC should and could do more to showcase the local diversity of places and activity in the UK and give a platform to musical genres and activities not featured by other (commercial) broadcasters, for instance to music groups which after all include an estimated 2.5 million participants.

Therefore, we also asked for greater local consultation on what people would like to see from the BBC. One negative development, we think, in recent years has been the erosion of their local radio. This should not just be maintained, to our mind, but perhaps even complemented by local TV (as is common in some European countries).

We articulated support for BBC independence and the arm’s length principle from government, something we are lucky to still have in this country, whatever the (undeniable) faults of the BBC. Perhaps, we suggested, there are different funding models, other than the licence fee, which could guarantee this independence, whilst ensuring that everyone, regardless of financial capacity, has access to the BBC’s high quality content, including its trusted and wide-ranging educational content which is relevant for adults as well as under-18s.

We criticised the BBC on its partnership working, which we at Making Music have found too onerous in the past, with an expectation on us to deliver work, in return for the benefits of being featured in BBC programming, when we lack the resources to do that, and benefits are usually limited.

There is probably widespread agreement that the BBC is a good thing, but that it could work better and reflect the diversity of the UK more in terms of geography and content than it does at present.

Image credit: Marshall W, Unsplash