Recent weeks have shown – more starkly than many would wish – just how exposed the BBC has now become. The furore over revelations about Panorama’s clumsy edit of Donald Trump’s January 6 speech, and the astonishingly high-level resignations that followed, have put the UK’s public broadcaster under an intense and highly politicised spotlight.
Trump’s threat to sue the BBC has added further heat, handing fresh ammunition to those already opposed to the licence fee. It is hard to escape the sense that this could prove to be a decisive moment in the wider battle over the corporation’s future, just as the government prepares the ground for the public consultation phase of its review of BBC funding.
But moments like these are a reminder why the debate about BBC funding matters. For most of my working life, I have defended the licence fee. When I joined the corporation in 1980, I saw what shared public funding could build: a national institution paid for by all and available to all. I still believe in that ideal – even as the pressures on it intensify, and as we face the hard question of what comes next.
