Is the BBC doomed, too?

By Rachel Morgan

The world of well-reported, sustainable and unbiased media outlets has begun rapidly shrinking in recent years, and now the British Broadcasting Company may join in on the trend.

In February, the BBC announced a proposed plan for budget cuts that is will eliminate half its website, 6Music and Asian Network, two radio stations and two magazines by 2013. These cuts, if successful, will axe 25 percent of the BBC corporation, are a result a proposed strategic plan to cut costs enacted by BBC Director of Policy and Strategy John Tate.

Tate also proposed reducing foreign import spending from its current toehold at £100m and putting a £300m limit on sports spending.

These cuts would be a staggering defeat for the BBC, who has long tried to serve its viewers and listeners first instead of catering to media giants News Corp and the Murdochs.

The upcoming general election will also be a deciding factor in the BBC’s fate. The Guardian predicts that if the Labour party wins the spring general election, the proposed cuts would be enough. But if the Conservative party wins the election, the amount of cuts enacted will be harder to prophesize.

The BBC has long sat in a precarious situation, being a liberal model that is publicly funded. In addition, it has also been openly criticized by News Corp and the New York Times for its bloated spending and failing programs that bring in little or no revenue. The network may also face a cut in licensing fees – a prominent source of its revenue. Licensing fees in 2009 were set at £142.50 for color and £48.00 for black and white. In 2008-09, a majority of the £3.49 billion collected in licensing fees was used to fund the BBC.

And it’s no surprise that the corporation is blaming digital technology on the need for such expansive cuts. The lack of effective charging for online content has been the Achilles’ Heel for thousands of failing newspapers and new media outlets worldwide. And the BBC is no exception to this alarming trend.

Currently the BBC does not charge for its online content and refuses to negotiate on that fact. The company cites the free and impartial content as key to its mission of service to the public through providing accessible, impartial news. But this admirable intent may harm them in the long run.

According to a study conducted by the BBC, leading opinion writers and television personalities were polled regarding which aspect of the BBC they most often accessed for information – 32 percent cited the BBC website as their first choice, followed by 15 percent who said they relied on News 24. Interesting data for a network that provides its website free of charge - one would think the BBC would catch wind of this and begin charging for their most popular entity.