Re: [Swprograms] John Tusa BBCWS editorial in the Guardian

[Daniel Say <say@xxxxxx>]

	but he has done this argument before about
	the danger in cutting services for short 
	term gain, re: Spanish to South America
	before the Falklands blew up.

	What is to happen is English for all the 
	expats who want their football scores and 
	a few of the wog languages.
	And TV for all the rest, being beaten by
	Jazeera et al. in popular entertainment.

	They certainly don't want lecturing.  They
	get enough of that as it is.


------------

How money makes the World Service go round

http://media.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5321869-105337,00.html

The axing of 10 language services to fund one Arabic TV service
paints a bleak picture for the rest of the BBC's foreign radio
output 

John Tusa 
Monday October 31, 2005 Guardian 

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the
BBC World Service's decision to axe no fewer than ten of its
radio language services in order to fund a single Arabic
television service. The cull represents the biggest such loss in
more than a generation.

The unequal sacrifice of ten radio services for one television
service represents a historic shift. It risks appearing to align
the BBC World Service's broadcasting priorities more closely
than ever with the diplomatic priorities of the Foreign Office.
And by appearing to wish to "take on Al-Jazeera", it could
become more of a cold war "journal de combat" than a broadcaster
committed to free and independent news and information.

There is no doubt that the World Service has approached this
momentous shift with proper seriousness. Its bid for resources
to the Foreign Office in the 2004 government spending round was
based on detailed work carried out in a prior review of the
future of World Service broadcasting. There is nothing impulsive
behind the analysis justifying the closure of ten "weak" radio
services and their replacement by a hopefully "strong" Arabic
language television service.

Yet closer examination of the thinking and tactics behind the
decision suggests one tactical misjudgment in the BBC's
approach, made worse by a fundamental strategic error. The
tactical misjudgment may have lain in the emphasis placed by the
BBC World Service on its wish to start an Arabic television
service. The Foreign Office's position is a simple one. It has
the right to "prescribe" the languages in which the World
Service broadcasts, though this usually involved discussion
between the two parties. It does not have to fund the
consequences of saying "yes".

Once the BBC's own enthusiasm for Arabic TV was laid bare, all
the Foreign Office had to say - and no doubt did - was: "OK, if
you're so keen, go ahead and as you always say how independent
you are, you find the money". On this reading, the World Service
was hoist on the petard of its own, well researched,
enthusiasms. It was impossible to go back and they probably did
not want to either. But this is where the strategic error comes
into play. As far back as the late 1980s, the World Service
started to diversify its methods of broadcasting. It relied less
on the traditional short wave - with its much loved snap,
crackle and hiss signal - and began to dabble in FM relays based
in key capital cities, such as Helsinki.

Since then the BBC has successfully offered listeners programmes
in short wave, medium wave, FM and online. Its own review of
broadcasting spoke of "increasing impact by being on relevant
platforms including television and more video online". So far so
good. What this diversification policy seems to have overlooked
in the presentation of the case to the Foreign Office was the
huge disparities of cost between these delivery systems. They
go: online, very cheap; radio, cheap per listener per year;
television, very expensive, as the equation of ten radio
services to one television service vividly demonstrates. What
the BBC does not seem to have done, or to have done effectively,
was to insist that the shift to any television operation was so
disproportionately expensive that agreement to Arabic Television
had to be conditional on a new and additional funding regime.
Once the BBC appeared to believe that "all platforms are equal",
and under-emphasised that some platforms are hugely more
expensive than others, it

Just how hard did the BBC governors fight for the World Service
over this issue, or was it seen - as so often in the past - as a
distraction from overall BBC licence-fee issues? At this stage,
the Foreign Office's own views and priorities come into play.
There is no reason to doubt that the World Service directors and
editors are unshakeable in their determination to be driven by
broadcasting and journalistic imperatives. But the language used
in Foreign Office briefings last week suggested a not-too-hidden
diplomatic and political agenda.

It is not surprising that the diplomats should see broadcasting
as an arm of their political aims to "promote liberal
democracy", to "combat the wilder forms of Islam". It would be
still less surprising if the politicians wanted the BBC to "take
on al-Jazeera", to make good the lack of credibility of the
American broadcasting effort in Iraq, and even to help bolster
the weakness of the coalition's position in Iraq.

The trouble is that such overtly political considerations
undermine the credibility and subvert the ethos of the World
Service. Once listeners believe that such politico-diplomatic
motives are the real drivers behind the decision to switch
effort to the Arab world, previously hard won credibility is
lost in the Arab "street". Word of mouth about the BBC's "real"
reasons for switching could be hard to control.

Back in London, the "one for ten" bargain could have damaging
implications for the way the Foreign Office handles the BBC
"prescription" in future. In the past, it was the Foreign Office
which identified the services to be "culled". On this occasion,
it has been the BBC. It will be far easier for the diplomats to
urge a further culls of the next tranche of "weaker" services
now that the process has occurred once.

This week's decision, however seriously it has been approached,
has established a going rate for any migration of the BBC into
international television. It is "one for ten", representing a
bleak outlook for the foreign language radio services.

There is a nightmare scenario which some in the notoriously
anglophone Foreign Office might welcome. It would be to engineer
a shift to English and a handful - no more than six to seven -
key other tongues for radio; these would be bolstered by
television in, say, Arabic, Hindi and Mandarin? And what is to
stop the Foreign Office pointing to the underperforming and
underfunded BBC World Service Television and suggesting that it
is a greater priority than "weaker" language services?

The fact that such thoughts are possible reveals the size of the
risk the BBC World Service has taken. It will take a great deal
of careful handling to contain those risks and to turn this
week's decision into the hoped for "great leap forward".
---------
 Sir John Tusa was managing director of the BBC World Service
from 1986 to 1992 


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