The BBC is spending a smaller proportion of its licence fee income on original television programmes than at any time in its history, according to a new analysis.
While its licence fee brought in £3.5 billion, it spent less than £1 billion on production last year, says David Elstein, a former chief executive of Channel 5.
His findings coincide with a government review of public service broadcasting as it negotiates the cost of a TV licence from April 2022. It is currently £159 a year. Elstein calculated that the BBC cut spending on original UK programmes from £1.63 billion in 2006 to £1.24 billion in 2018 and it fell below £1 billion in the last financial year. He used figures from Ofcom, the regulator, instead of BBC statistics, which are higher but include more overheads.
Since the golden age of public service broadcasting in the 1970s and 1980s commercial channels have shed their obligations to make original arts, religion, children’s programmes and serious documentaries.
Elstein sets out his case in a book, What’s the Point of Ofcom? published on Tuesday. Other contributors include Mark Thompson, the former BBC director-general, and Clive Myrie, the BBC news reader who is the new host of Mastermind.
Elstein’s chapter argues that the definition of public service broadcasting is so nebulous that it has included the BBC quiz show The Weakest Link and Channel 4’s
The Great British Bake Off. He said: “In this relativist world, the BBC can offer up as public service broadcasting Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance and
This Is My House (described by previewers as ’thin entertainment from flimsy material’)”
For viewers enjoying the output of the streaming giants, Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime he suggests quality is being delivered, no thanks to Ofcom.
“The combined production budgets of the streamers will easily exceed £30 billion a year, rendering the BBC’s £1bn marginal,” he writes. “The consumer is already drifting out of reach.
“The average 18 to 34-yearold spends two minutes a day with [BBC] iPlayer, 40 minutes with Netflix and 64 minutes with YouTube.”
The BBC said: “No broadcaster makes and shows more British content than the BBC. We spend more on original UK programming than any of the global streaming services.”