Patrick Barwise and Peter York survey the forces threatening the future of Britain’s much-loved corporation
Patrick Barwise and Peter York must be miffed that the phantom controversy in August over patriotic songs at the Last Night of the Proms came too late to feature in their new book. Here was a classic soufflé of an outrage, whipped up from the flimsiest ingredients, which enabled newspapers and ministers to wave the flag in the face of the BBC’s incoming director-general Tim Davie for several days. Meanwhile the government floated Charles Moore, a man with no broadcasting experience who once appeared in court for not paying the licence fee, to be the next chair of the BBC. After Moore bowed out, attention turned to Sir Robbie Gibb, who went straight from heading BBC Westminster to working for Theresa May and is currently raising funds for the new right-leaning channel GB News. Other candidates are in play, but “Rule, Britannia!”, if nothing else, will be safe in the next chair’s hands.
The BBC, Barwise and York claim in this staunch defence of the corporation, is “the whole British nation in all its untidy variety and, at the same time, one of its glories”. This book’s value lies in its steady accumulation of myth-busting data. In 2015, 99% of households used at least one BBC service at least once every week. It remains by far the most trusted source of impartial news. Nineteen out of the 25 most-watched programmes of the last decade were broadcast on BBC One. The BBC is still, to quote the old Radio 1 slogan, the nation’s favourite.