Alistair Stewart calls for BBC “Beeching enquiry”
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
Veteran ITN newsreader Alastair Stewart has told the BBC it would bebfit from a “Beeching style enquiry” to assess whether all its services are “really necessary and viable”. Stewart also attacked the licence fee as a “monopolistic, guaranteed, inflation-proofed income stream to dream of”.
Speaking at a CBI dinner in Liverpool last night, Stewart called for a “shakeup” of the BBC to help protect the plurality of news output across the country and the success of the struggling commercial sector in the current economic climate.
“In extreme circumstances we need unusual solutions and this is just such a circumstance,” said Stewart, a regular presenter on ITV’s lunchtime news, as well as the ITN-produced London News.
Stuart said he supported recommendations made by Lord Carter’s final Digital Britain report last month to top-slice the licence fee to help pay for ITV local news services, saying that it should not be considered exclusively as a “BBC licence”.
The government and Ofcom are backing proposals to use part of the BBC licence fee to fund a series of local news consortia around the country, which would be responsible for ITV’s regional news provision. Each consortium would be made up of existing TV news providers, regional newspaper groups and other media organisations. Several news providers, including The Guardian, STV, ITN and the Press Association, have expressed interest in the scheme.
However, BBC director-general Mark Thompson and Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, have attacked the government’s plans to use part of the licence fee to fund ITV’s regional news output.
Stewart said: “It is hardly the case that the BBC … are cash-strapped. A monopolistic, guaranteed, inflation-proofed income stream is to dream of. They woke up to find the dream was true.”
The presenter said that the corporation would benefit from a thorough investigation of its operations along the lines of the Beeching enquiry in the 60s, which led to dramatic cost cuts, the abolition of antiquated steam-powered trains and the closure of little-used and unprofitable lines.
“They [the BBC] run more TV and radio channels than you could shake an antenna at,” Stewart said.
“I think they might benefit from a Beeching-style enquiry to explore just how well they are serving the public with the public’s money and just how many of those media branchlines are really necessary and viable.”
He added that it was necessary for the BBC to help make ITV local news viable as it was a costly “net loss making” enterprise that the network could no longer afford without assistance.
“At this time, balanced reporting of economic, business and political events, nationally and locally, is more important than ever. The UK cannot afford to leave it to the BBC alone,” he added.
