As reported by the Newspaper Society: An editorial on the consultation yesterday (Wednesday) said: “The BBC’s unique model of funding gives it a huge advantage in the media marketplace and with that advantage must come significant responsibilities. Central to those responsibilities must be a regard to ensure that the media sector remains entrepreneurial with low barriers to entry.”
The piece said BBC had “already taken some small steps towards acknowledging its responsibilities to limit harm to the commercial sector” such as reducing the number of opinion news blogs and cutting back online coverage of sport and show business.
It continued: “The review - which will help to decide the content of the next BBC Charter - is an opportunity to go much farther still. Serious consideration should be given to allowing BBC audio and video to be used more freely by other media organisations.
“After all, the content has been paid for by licence fee payers and not by the BBC itself. More significantly, the scale of the online offering remains inhospitable to free and fair competition.
“The settlement that is most likely to guarantee a level playing field for other media organisations would be for the BBC to focus on television and radio but to stop producing written online news reports and analysis.
“Just one mention of 'online' output was made in the last BBC Charter. The next Charter must spell out much more clearly the BBC’s responsibilities to online diversity and to commercial news providers. Without such a commitment, the long-term cost of having such a powerful free news provider will be that other voices fall silent.”
