The BBC is depriving competitors of up to £115 million a year by running entertainment stories and other content that competes with commercial rivals, a report has found.
The estimate comes as John Whittingdale prepares to launch a defence of the newspaper industry, raising concerns over the rise of ad-blockers. The culture secretary will use a speech in Oxford today to argue that many news titles are struggling to survive against a backdrop of falling revenues from advertising and online content.
A report commissioned by Mr Whittingdale’s department and published today warns that the BBC is stifling its competitors and should broadcast fewer populist shows on BBC One, play less mainstream music on frontline radio stations and cut back its website.
Competitors could benefit by up to £115 million a year over the next decade if the broadcaster stopped aggressive scheduling against ITV, made Radio 1 and Radio 2’s content less similar to commercial stations and ditched entertainment stories and soft news from BBC Online, it stated.
Mark Oliver, founder of Oliver & Ohlbaum and the report’s author, said he was surprised that the impact of the BBC on rivals had escaped scrutiny.
Advertisement
There was a “potential to improve things for the consumer not by having a smaller or larger BBC but a more distinctive one,” he said, and it would “still leave the BBC with just under half the total radio market, BBC One with probably almost 20 per cent share and online news still the UK’s leading news and information portal by a long way”.
The conclusions, will open the way for Mr Whittingdale to insist that the corporation takes its tanks off com- petitors’ lawns. He has raised concerns about scheduling clashes, asking whether the BBC should be going up against ITV over Saturday night entertainment by showing The Voice at the same time as The X Factor. The chancellor has also taken aim at the “imperial ambitions” of the BBC’s growing online operation, asking whether it should become the “national newspaper as well as the national broadcaster”.
The report said the BBC One’s schedule had become “less innovative and less risk-taking” over the past 10 to 15 years, pumping out fewer new titles and fewer new shows overall. It said “less competitive scheduling”, coupled with more distinctive programming, could lift rivals’ revenues by up to £60 million a year over the next decade. Forty per cent of 244 episodes of ITV’s flagship entertainment shows — such as X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent — clashed with a BBC One show aimed at a similar audience.
In radio, the report found that the BBC was “restrict[ing] the commercial market from competing on equal terms” by refusing to let commercial sectors access its radio archives, by promoting its radio shows on TV, giving stars exclusive radio and TV deals and aggressive bidding for sports’ rights.
It said making playlists more distinctive on the two main radio channels and cutting back sports coverage aimed at 25 to 44-year-olds — a blow for Radio 5 Live — could help advertising-funded rivals by up to £47 million a year.
Advertisement
BBC sources said that the report “appeared to propose a BBC designed for the convenience of its competitors”.
● The public has strongly endorsed the BBC, with more than four in five people saying it is serving its audiences “well or very well”. Publishing the summary of responses to the government’s consultation on the corporation’s future, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the majority of the public believed BBC content was of high quality and distinctive from other broadcasters