John Kampfner
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, whether you’re here in the hall at Chatham House or whether you are watching us remotely. My name is John Kampfner, it’s – it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this discussion this evening, The Battle for Truth: The BBC’s Role at 100. Not the first centenary event that the BBC has done this year, but one that we’re going to be focusing particularly on issues around the BBC’s role in the world.
And we’ve got an absolutely illustrious panel, delighted to have with us today Tim Davie, known to you all as the Director-General of the BBC, with whom I’ve worked in different incarnations and always enjoyed doing so. Liliane Landor, Senior Controller, BBC News International Services Director of the World Service, and Sarah Rainsford, who was, until a short time ago, in Moscow for the BBC and is – and she will talk about those events, and who is Eastern Europe Correspondent for the BBC, having left Moscow.
We’re going to have a conversation among ourselves for around half an hour or just over, and then we’re going to throw it open to questions, both from the hall and also for any of you listening and watching remotely, do prepare, do think about your questions. We want to con – very much focus this on the international role of the BBC and particularly this whole question of, as it says on the tin, the battle for truth.
Liliane, you wanted to kick off with just a couple of minutes, really giving an overview of where the World Service is now and particularly at this vexed time for international relations, so before we have that discussion, I’ll just hand over to you.
Liliane Landor
Thanks, John.
John Kampfner
And welcome, everybody.
Liliane Landor
Thank you. I thought it would be useful to give you an idiot’s guide to the World Service. I know that you all probably would have listened to the World Service at 3 o’clock in the morning or when you were travelling, however far or near. There is a great deal to the World Service that you may not know and I want to just take you through it very quickly.
The BBC turns 100 this year and the World Service turns 90, and what I want to do, in that short time that’s been allocated to me, is take stock of where the World Service is, its reach, its funding, the recent changes, and ask a couple of questions of you, questions that have been preying on my mind lately, and I thought with an audience as illustrious as this, you may be able to help me, and that’s quite genuine, really.
So, in the process of the conversation, I will be addressing soft power, but that will come through, as well. So, the World Ser – the BBC as a whole, internationally, reaches 458 million people every week across the world, 350 million of whom are reached by the World Service, which is more than any other international broadcaster. The BBC World Service broadcasts in 42 languages, including English, and we are present in 70 countries.
The World Service, as you may or may not know, is primarily funded by the licence fee. The funding of the World Service moved from government grant-in-aid to the licence fee in 2014, and at the time, the BBC committed to providing 254 million of annual funding to the World Service. This minimum funding commitment was removed as part of the latest licence fee settlement and it is now almost 300 million, so that’s what we get from the licence fee. We also do get a grant-in-aid from government, 94.4 million per annum, and this is until 2025.
The World Service is on its way to becoming a digital-first organisation, I’m sure this will come out in the discussion, but we have decided to accelerate the digital transition in order to futureproof the World Service, but also to move to platforms that our audiences are increasingly using, they are on smartphones, no longer on shortwave. So, what does the World Service represent to those 365 million who consume us globally in 42 languages. including English? What is its value to the UK, what is its value to the licence fee payer, what is its value to the BBC, to BBC News, and what returns on investment? These are pretty, kind of, daring questions but I think, if one does not ask them in a group like this, one will never do.
So, what I want to gauge from you is what you think the World Service is. If it did not exist, would you invent it? Do you believe that the World Service is instrumental, should be instrumental, in its projection of Britain’s soft power? Give you a few facts and then I’ll be done.
Last year, the BBC commissioned research into the wider impact and influence of the BBC around the world and the results were compelling. The BBC, one, is the world’s most trusted and best-known international news broadcaster, and, if we want to talk brands, it is the most trusted news brand amongst mass audiences and influential audiences. And to confirm what I’ve just said, the Soft Power 30 index in 2019 cited the BBC World Service as one of two British institutions that are key to British soft power. So would you want to guess which is the other one? The Premier League, absolutely. It’s the Premier League, and sometimes it’s the Monarchy. So…
John Kampfner
Depends who’s in charge.
Liliane Landor
Depends who’s in…
John Kampfner
Yeah.
Liliane Landor
Well, it – okay, keep – okay, so I would contend, though, that this soft power is incidental, that it is the product of the quality of our journalism and our editorial standards rather than the reason for its existence, so how do we frame the public debate? Is it about full-term benefits to the UK licence fee payer? Is it about long-term investment in journalism, a journalism that is impactful and trusted the world over? Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive. I would say that the trust that we have with our audiences has been built slowly and painstakingly over 90 years.
Now, you know as well as I do that the World Service is a colonial creation. The Empire Service started in 1932 and BBC Arabic, which was the very first language service, was created to broadcast Britain’s views to the Arab world in the late 30s. We’re a long, long way away from this version of the BBC and this version of the BBC Arabic service and the connection that we have forged with our millions of audiences around the world is incomparable, and most countries and broadcasters would give their right hand for a fraction of this audience.
So, yes, we are a unique asset, I won’t be long now, and yes, there is alignment with British national interests. We do disinformation, we do factchecking, we talk about democracy, about accountability, the role of China in Africa and Asia, climate change, global cost of living, what’s happening in Iran, and of course, Ukraine and Russia. All these are issues that editorially preoccupy our audiences and that matter in an interconnected world.
So I guess the aims of the World Service do go hand-in-hand with what the government wants, in terms of soft power, but it’s also what the BBC wants, in terms of growing its audience and in terms of providing a service to people who can’t get a balanced news service in any other way. So it’s public service broadcasting at its very best, and that’s me.
John Kampfner
Thank you very much indeed, Liliane, that sets up my first question very nicely. You said that the BBC is in alignment with British national interest and you cite the Soft Power Index holding up the BBC along with the Premier League as the two great arms of British soft power. So my question to you, Tim, is, is it the job of the BBC to project and to promote Britain?
Tim Davie
I think Liliane touched on it, really, which is the job of the BBC is to deliver its purposes, and that is journalism of the highest standard, programming of the highest standard, and that is absolutely brilliant for Brand Britain. So, whenever I take a flight, I actually – by the – we don’t half do a good job sometimes at beating ourselves up.
One of the things I would do, in the moments of – tough moments in this job is take a flight or a train and just go abroad and listen to people’s view of what the BBC brings, which we can come to. But our job is we do promote Brand Britain but that’s not what drives us; what drives us is the editorial standards, it’s absolutely – we’ll talk about it. We are without doubt in a ferocious battle for truth to be clear.
We can talk about it, the threats are very, very significant, but this institution, driven by purpose, and, you know, there is 100 years and what are we now, eight days ago, that Reece and a couple of others – actually, Reece was a bit – joined a few weeks later, as – there’s people in the room who know a lot about – more about the BBC history than I do, actually, but I know quite – and, you know, they came up with Inform-Educate-Entertain and did their business and set – it’s an unbelievable pioneering story, but it’s based on values. It’s based on there being more to life than money.
And that’s what we do, and I think it’s really clear, actually, it’s not – don’t worry, by the way, that angst is not, to me, the defining challenge of our times, our relationship to Brand Britain. It’s are we able to deliver our mission in the midst of a highly polarising media market, enormous pressures. We’re going to talk to Sarah about actually having Journalists on the ground. We’ve had Journalists thrown out of China, we’ve got pressures in – I could – there’s all kinds of countries, including free democracies. These are the kinds of things that occupy my mind, as well as hard cash, ‘cause if you’re going to do this, it requires funding, and we haven’t got enough funding. So, they’re the things, John, that really I think the BBC and we as a group need to focus on.
John Kampfner
I detect a slight difference in nuance between Brand Britain and Britain, or maybe I’m stretching it a bit, but what happens when the BBC comes in confrontation with British foreign policy national interests? I’m old enough to remember Kate Adie and Margaret Thatcher, many of us remember the Hutton Inquiry, as well. Where does this alignment with British values and British goals begin and end when it comes in direct conflict with what…
Tim Davie
We know what…
John Kampfner
…the government of the day wants?
Tim Davie
No, but it’s not that – again, it’s not – I mean, it’s difficult. I mean, we get a lot of – we have a lot of stress with it, but our mission is really clear, to go after the truth. We’re not there to tow a line in that way.
Liliane Landor
Or protect.
Tim Davie
Or – exactly, as Liliane says, to protect. I mean, you know, they – it’s not a job – look, the history of the BBC – I mean, I think Reece once wrote, “This is going to be uncontroversial.” This – we’ve always been at the – in the crosshairs of this, but we have to be very strong around what we stand for and we go after the truth, we go – you know, we have empowered Journalists. We are not there as a propaganda arm of anyone, okay, and it’s as simple as that.
I mean, when I say it’s as simple as that, the principle is simple. Your question is absolutely valid ‘cause these things are struggles, nuances, all the – but we’ve got strong Editors. We’re – that’s how we operate. We’re an editorial entity. I mean, you know that word, we’re an editorial entity and the editorial values of the BBC are sacrosanct and they stand above everything.
There is – to Liliane’s construct, there’s a net effect of that, in terms of reputational advantages for the – ‘cause, look, the clue’s in the title. That mission I’ve talked about builds trust, and what people value is that trust in journalism. The very thing that you’re pushing at, which is quite right, is that we’re – we are trusted because of that purpose and because of our independence to government in the way we report. It’s sacrosanct. I mean, I don’t – I feel no compromise about that or there’s no lack of clarity about that in the BBC.
Liliane Landor
Completely. Completely and absolutely. I don’t think that we would have 458 million who would come back week-after-week-after week to the BBC if they did not trust in the absolute robustness of the BBC’s news, its independence, its accuracy, its impartiality. They’re not clichés. These are not words that we, kind of, you know, repeat because we like them.
This is the reality of us reporting on issues that are extremely hard, and day-by-day we ask ourselves what is impartiality, where we should be on this issue or that issue, we’re doing Iran, we’re doing Ukraine, we’re doing Russia, and we do the UK. And this is quite important, that incidentally, the strength of our journalism makes us one of the most best-known products in the world when it comes to Britain. It’s incidental, that is not our purpose. Our purpose is to do the journalism that we do so well.
Tim Davie
I think – sorry, John, if I may, I think the truth of this is because there are deep challenges to what I’ve just said, ‘cause if it sounds in any way good, no, and we’ve got a purpose in that, you know, this is a – our journalism is a result of a process, editorial guidelines, rigour, think – now, in a world in which I’ve seen research that most 16 to 34s don’t believe anyone can be impartial, anyone. Everyone’s got a point of view.
We are having to do more to actually demonstrate our intent ‘cause in a polarised, kind of, social media world, everyone ascribes intent. So if you ask a tough question of one side in politics, you are coming from the other side of politics, as opposed to being a robust Journalist after the truth, whi – there – you quickly get into a Twitter world, into ascribing of intent.
So, in my email, I’m either a kind of right-winger taking over the BBC or I’m a woke left-wing activist. Yeah? You seriously – I mean, people want to badge you, and the badge we’re wearing is different, which is we’re wearing a badge, which is we’re trying to get to the truth and we want to be impartial. We’re not perfect. We make mistakes now and again, we don’t get it right, we have to manage things, but by and large, in thousands and thousands of instances, we’re getting it right through process and rigour, but that is – yeah, I have to say, it feels a little bit of a unique course when I travel round. We seem to stick out like a sore thumb in trying to hold that course, but we’re going to hold it.
John Kampfner
Sarah, Tim used the term, the word, “crosshairs.” You were right in the crosshairs, you became the story when you were thrown out, you were expelled, from Moscow. I want to ask you this, do you believe it’s the job of the BBC to promote liberal democracy? Is there a legitimacy – is there a hierarchy of legitimacy or is liberal democracy, as practised in the UK and in many other countries around the world, but in retreat, just one of several competing ways of organising society and the BBC’s job is to give them all fair airtime? So you were right in the heart of it in Moscow and reporting from different places in Ukraine, there is a war in which two – the views of most rightminded people, there is a pernicious aggressor and there is a country that is being invaded. How do you navigate this question of legitimacy?
Sarah Rainsford
I think, first of all, I don’t see it as my job to promote anything. I think my job is to reflect what’s happening and to interrogate what’s happening and to report what’s happening. I’m not there to promote Britain or its values, I’m there to look at the country I’m currently reporting from and what’s happening on that occasion in that place.
I would say just one thing just reflecting on what the others are saying, that there’s no better way of understanding what the BBC stands for than to work in a country like Russia, where the truth is criminalised now. I mean, it’s always been extremely difficult as an environment for Journalists to work in or for any critics of the Kremlin to work in, as we all know. But this past year has shown just how dreadful it can become, and people are currently in jail because they simply referred to what’s happening in Ukraine as a war and talked about people being killed there and talked about war crimes being committed there.
So, when you work in that environment where there is no understanding of the role of a free press, then it’s really interesting for me to come back to the UK for the first time in 20 years and see these debates about what should the BBC be, kind of, massive criticism of the BBC for various things. And I’m personally, kind of, getting flack for what my colleagues are doing, and this debate that’s happening in Britain is extraordinary because it couldn’t happen in Russia because there’s just no concept of anything like the BBC.
John Kampfner
It’s extraordinary in a – are you worried about the debate?
Sarah Rainsford
Sometimes I’ve had, sort of, shouting rows with, “You just don’t know how lucky you are,” kind of conversations with my friends because, you know, coming from a place where all of my Russian-speaking independent Journalist colleagues have had to leave the country if they wanted to carry on with their job, it is extraordinary to come back to Britain, where we have this – the BBC and a plethora of other Journalists doing amazing work and to see that people don’t necessarily value that as I wish they would. But it’s not my job to lecture them, it’s for them to understand that and maybe things like what’s happening now in Russia and in Ukraine helps to bring that into sharper focus.
John Kampfner
But when you are being challenged in Moscow, when you were being challenged, and Steve, now your former colleague, and many others reporting there, it’s surely a temptation to, sort of, almost because you are being challenged and threatened so consistently, to, sort of, set yourself up as the other voice, as the counterpoint, as the counterpoise to whether it’s fake news, to whether it’s, you know, imprisoning people, hitting them on the head, almost to become, you know, the other voice, the dissident voice.
Sarah Rainsford
Well, I mean, if the alternative to being the dissident voice is to refl – is purely to reflect the Kremlin’s position, then yes, I would say my role is to reflect the voices that aren’t reflected within Russia, definitely. It’s to show what’s happening beyond the propaganda that Russia is projecting within the country and outside, so that Russians and people outside Russia get a full picture, and not just the message that’s coming from the Kremlin. So yes, it is to be a counterpoint in that sense.
But it is also to try to help people outside Russia to understand Russia, as well. So, not to simply, kind of, be a voice, but ,you know, a kind of megaphone for Russia’s voice, but to interrogate that, but certainly to try to put it in the context of my, in my case, 30 years of studying Russia. So, it’s a complex role, but it’s not – I don’t think it’s to represent anything apart from freedom, truth, freedom of choice. Russia itself, in its constitution, gives the – gives its people those rights. So, if there are people who are being imprisoned for that then I do think it’s my job to – certainly to report on that and to tell people.
Liliane Landor
Can I say something about the…
John Kampfner
Yeah, and let me just…
Liliane Landor
…dissidence voice that’s…?
John Kampfner
And also, if you would, the point about the hierarchy of legitimacy. Is the role of the BBC and the BBC World Service to be the voice of liberal democracy in a hostile, difficult world?
Liliane Landor
No. I mean, the BBC World Service does the job that all these Journalists do, which is to report, to analyse, to inform, this is what the BBC World Service does. So it’s through its clear editorial power that it does what it does.
But let me come back to the dissidence voice because it’s very important, in terms of what’s happening at the moment in Iran. We’ve got quite a big Persian service, which has been completely in the eye of the storm, in terms of the events in Iran. And this is because they re – they have been seen not to be the dissidence voice, they have been seen to have stayed impartial, they have been seen to have reported the news as they should, they factchecked, they interviewed people from both sides of the argument, etc., and they have been under huge and momentous attack on social media by the opposition. Why? Because they did not stand up as the voice of the opposition, and that being attacked by the opposition from – it’s a pincer movement, the opposition that says, “What do you mean, impartial? That does not exist, you’ve got to take sides,” and the ravine that has, for years and ever since its creation, been harassing our Journalists and demeaning our Journalists – journalism.
So, this is where we find ourselves when we continue to occupy the ground of we report the news impartially because we want to inform new audiences, not just in Farsi, but in English, as well, on what is happening in Iran, and there is this pincer movement because they are expected to be behaving as the voice of the dissidence and the opposition. And we’re not, inasmuch as, you know, we are not the voice of Britain, and we are not the voice of Ukraine, and we – you know, we are there to delve into the news, to unpick it, to report it, to be completely transparent and rigorous about it.
Tim Davie
I think, John, we – just building on all this, I think the – you talk about the hierarchy of legitimacy. I think where you get to have this conversation is we do have some values we stand for: freedom, truth, that sit at the top. But that does stop at – you were saying “methods of government,” we – that’s not where we are, we’re shopping slightly higher, but we do have – I mean, we are in a – we do have an opinion around, you know, fake news versus truth. These are very simple things, they’re simple, and that is enshrined in what – now, my feeling is the pressure’s on us to deliver that, and by the way, there’s always been pressure if you look at the history of it.
I mean, the one thing 100 years does, you can reflect things in the long – what is changing by the way? On our watch together, we have seen – you know, if you look at the latest data, 73% of the world’s population does not live in a situation where they have a free press now. It’s really sobering. In the latest studies, only 22% of the world’s population live in a free democracy, and I’m not championing particularly one method of government, but it does give you some clues in terms of, to Sarah’s point, what – how – what kind of functioning society they have. And in that context, we are facing – and social media adds so much, you know, kind of angst to this. We’re facing a really demanding situation, in terms of the choice to just keep with the truth, and you can hear exactly we’re doing it – we’re hearing it all the time, which is you’ve got to take sides. You’ve got to be – this pressure.
And it’s very interesting, I mean, if you look at somewhere like in the US, where we’re now the most trusted news source. We’ve got good scores, but actually a lot of them have fallen away into the polarised camps and we’re left – it’s an incredible position, actually, if you look at our latest numbers on new – and by the way, if you want a slight ray of optimism on a Tuesday night, it’s that actually, we’re growing, by the way.
These numbers that Liliane has given, we’ve got really good numbers. I was looking at our numbers for October 22, in terms of the number of unit users on the BBC, it’s growing. So we definitely have a place, but, you know, it would be interesting – for instance, CNN, you know, taken over now in the Warner Discovery merger, they’ve said they’re going to try and get back to impartial news. That’ll be an adventure in time and space for them ‘cause it’s going to be tough.
John Kampfner
Well, now that we’re on America, and we’ve been talking previously about out-and-out dictatorships and governments that egregiously harass, imprison, people who try to spread the – objective information, news, whatever. But America is surely a test case, and you talk about 73% of people living in unfree countries, America is still mostly…
Tim Davie
Not having a free press.
John Kampfner
Not having a free press, so where are we on the United States? The BBC does talk about the claims that the last elections were rigged as being there is no evidence for it, it is – you know, it’s very legitimate on that. What happens with a second incarnation of Trump or somebody like Trump where you have American state Governors-General that declare results to be different to what they otherwise might be, and you have a completely bifurcated country? How does the BBC navigate that where you have people telling blatant falsehoods? And of course, as I say, the BBC has been very good on that one specific point, but it’s much more than that one specific point.
Tim Davie
I mean, personally, the others might have a view, I mean, huge opportunity, by the way. What an opportunity, as I say, I mean, in terms of – and by the way, I think there’s enormous amounts of people in the US who are desperate for trusted news, who are very, very interested in – John, there’s – I’ll answer in generics ‘cause you just can’t – I mean, everyone’s talked about it, you just go off the story and the truth.
It’s old-fashioned journalism, in terms of – I think it becomes so much harder for the individuals in the middle of the storm, that’s what I would say. The amount of noise around them, the pressures, you know, the jobs that – but this could be, you know, a Political Editor in Scotland or it could be a Political Editor in, you know, America. And the pressures around people and their ability to just do, if you like, proper work, in terms of where the truth is and trying to ascertain the facts becomes extremely hard. And we just need to ho – but we have a decent record of this, and I think we – I remain optimistic we can keep on that brief, I really do.
John Kampfner
The 2016 – let me just push you on this, the 2016 Brexit Referendum, do you think the BBC covered itself in glory, in terms of factchecking as rigorously as it otherwise might have done?
Tim Davie
I think we did very well, and – but there were learnings. Okay, so if you actually look at what we did, right, there’s a – it’s interesting, this, ‘cause you get a lot of noise around your coverage then we went and looked at our coverage. Actually, there was quite a lot of analysis of some of the claims, there was quite a lot of work done.
I think with regards to the UK, ‘cause you’re in a – and this is – when I talk about it, you know, people know that when I came in, I made a very big choice ‘cause I could see other organisations that claimed impartiality beginning to, I think, drift to one side of the fence or the other and be caught in this, the culture wars as a whole, another dimension, which is another evening’s discussion. But all of that led to enormous pressures on people wanting to just be impartial and get to the truth.
The vulnerability, I think you are vulnerable in instances to what I’d call group think, yeah? What do I mean by that? In surveys, 96% of creative industry leaders at a senior level supported – I think that might have been one of your surveys, John, there you go, supported wanting…
John Kampfner
[Inaudible – 33:12].
Tim Davie
…to stay in, yeah? Now, you just – however good your intent is, you’re going to have – are you making sure you’re truly hearing for the widest number of voices, are you – now the BBC is good, by the way. It’s got real outreach into 39 local radio stations, it’s got an incredible presences, I think it did a good job, but some of those – I have to say, some of those things were you sense, okay, maybe we just got caught now and again on looking at life through a certain lens, no doubt, that’s a risk. But I think there’s a – if I may, they are…
John Kampfner
Yeah, but I was talking not so much about group thinking, I was talking about not calling out Politicians who told blatant porky pies.
Tim Davie
Well, with – I think overall, we do a pretty decent job of that, that’s what I would say. I mean – and sometimes you can’t get to – you know, and we do a lot of – by the way, you – this audience will know, more or less, one of our hit podcasts at the moment is the Economics Explained, yeah? It’s absolutely huge, by the way, the desire, John, it’s a really interesting point, by the way, and we probably have learnt a little bit since Brexit, that just explaining things, understanding some of these numbers that are thrown around, and certainly our new Head of News, Deborah Turness, is very, very focused on how do we get underneath these claims and these truths? So I think there’s more we could do, frankly.
John Kampfner
And…
Liliane Landor
Can I just say…
John Kampfner
Yeah.
Liliane Landor
…something quickly? Just come back to your point about America, and I’m sure you know, but if you don’t, I’m going to say it, that we’ve got millions of audiences in the States who take the World Service because they see the World Service as far more impartial and aiming for the truth, whatever we mean by the truth, than their own broadcasters, and the Controller of World Service English is here and could give you a song and dance about how well we have done in America and still do in America.
John Kampfner
Absolutely. I mean, one of my bugbears with the BBC, and everybody’s got their bugbears with the BBC, is – I mean, it’s…
Tim Davie
I feel we’re in the pub now.
John Kampfner
It’s made great strides on the nations and regions, but apart from the one or possibly two running international stories, I’m sure you’ll tell me that I don’t have my facts right, there appears to be, in the domestic services, far less international coverage than rival broadcasters. I mean, German TV on a Sunday night would lead on the Polish elections, you know, in a – British domestic 10 o’clock evening news wouldn’t even have the Polish elections.
Tim Davie
If we could generate – so if we could generate less domestic news, then we might have a bit more space, John, but anyway…
John Kampfner
And so…
Tim Davie
…that’s another story.
John Kampfner
Well, I mean…
Liliane Landor
That’s a very important point that you’re making and I would be very interested to see what your audience thinks of that.
Tim Davie
Yeah.
Liliane Landor
I mean, do people think that the BBC is not domestically as internationally focused as it should be? I know because I watch in French and I watch in German, and yes, you’re absolutely right. But, you know, we’ve got so many big and important stories at the moment domestically, and I’m seeing myself now defending, kind of, BBC domestically. Of course, I would love to have a foreign story heading the agenda every single day.
John Kampfner
Would you like the World Service output to be better projected and promoted in the UK for a UK…
Liliane Landor
Of course not.
John Kampfner
…audience? Why is it not?
Tim Davie
I think broadcasting’s rather archaic. I’ll get us some opportunities around that, John, which is, I don’t think the – if you talk to the Editor of the Ten and the Six, the Today Programme, they are – they’ve got a, you know, deliberate strategy, they’ve got a strategy to serve their audience, yeah? There’s no rationing of international news in any way, shape or form. They are smart Editors making calls on what the stories of the moment are, and actually versus other outlets with our – I mean, we can be very proud of our international coverage, you know, the Correspondents that we’ve got around the world. So I don’t think I need to be defensive about that.
What I would say, by the way, is digital inc – massively increases the opportunity to bring news to people who are inter – I mean, this is where the BBC actually – rather than being a threat, ‘cause you feel like linear traditional media operations are like besieged by the threat of digital in transition – 37:30. If we really could make it work, ‘cause the BBC strength is often its depth. If you go, by the way, to Truro, the Cornish team will say, “You just don’t surface the stories properly that we do and some brilliant journalism, just as you would with the Nigerian service,” etc., etc.
One of the things we hope we can do, and this is a delicate balance ‘cause you don’t want it to be fully personalised, is we can be in a point where we can, kind of, push up our journalism and actually tailor it a lot more, and that gives us a real opportunity. ‘Cause some of the best reporting we have done, best investigations we’ve done, the glowing examples of the BBC at its best, are actually coming through the World Service, there’s absolutely no doubt about that.
Liliane Landor
Yeah.
John Kampfner
Sarah, let me ask you. RT, in the old Cold War, Russian and other news services coming from dictatorships were just not very good. They talked about five-year agricultural plans and the harvest had gone up by 7.3% and that sort of thing, which isn’t designed to keep the audience. RT’s production values are incredibly slick. It’s – if you looked at it, you would think, well, they are throwing money at it and it’s actually very good. So it’s a much greater challenge, is it not, that the BBC and other equivalent news organisations face an alternative that is – as I say, it’s slick, it’s professional, it just gives you a slightly different take on events, to be polite. How do you – what’s your assessment of that, how do you navigate that and how do you think people in third countries, which, you know, if you’re in a hotel somewhere or, you know, in the Global South and wherever, where you’re being constantly bombarded with Chinese and Russian TV, how do you deal with that?
Sarah Rainsford
I think it’s depressing. I mean, the number of hotels you go to and you find RT as the main English language channel, and I still like to call it Russia Today because hiding behind…
John Kampfner
Yeah.
Sarah Rainsford
…RT is a bit of a…
John Kampfner
Okay, fine.
Sarah Rainsford
I mean, they call themselves RT, but they are Russia Today, but that’s part of their whole game, isn’t it, to hide who they are and what they’re doing? So they – I mean, I remember when they first started up and I remember in Moscow, a whole bunch – a whole new, kind of, wave of foreign wannabe Journalists pitched up in Moscow, paid huge amounts of money to front up RT, Russia Today, as it definitely was then. And they didn’t really know what they were getting into, they hadn’t got a job before – had a job before, they were paid lots of money, and they thought it was real journalism, they were sitting on really fancy sets, and at the begin – in the beginning, they were doing relatively normal stuff, but it changed.
And I think you only need to look at the social media platforms of the Editor-in-Chief of RT, Margarita Simonyan, to know exactly what RT is, and so therefore, you know, I think – I watched RT and other Russian state media propaganda channels in 2014 in Ukraine essentially starting a war. So, I think to have any kind of rosy-tinted spectacles and talk about other perspectives, questioning more, giving different people the floor and platforms and all that stuff, is one way of presenting what RT’s doing and has been doing for years, but another way is to look at what happened in the Ukraine in 2014 and what’s happened ever since then. And unfortunately, they’re as culpable as every single one of the other state media channels that exist in Russia. It’s part of the same package, it’s part of the same machine, and it has produced what’s now happening in Ukraine today.
Liliane Landor
I think audiences internationally see through RT.
Sarah Rainsford
I’m not sure they do.
Liliane Landor
You don’t?
Sarah Rainsford
No.
Liliane Landor
Internationally? But I wanted to say something else, which is that in five years’ time, RT will not be that important and that interesting because it’ll be digitally that people will be getting their news from, whether it’s RT or CGTN.
Sarah Rainsford
They’re pretty canny, and digitally, as well.
Liliane Landor
Yeah, they are.
Sarah Rainsford
I think that’s the thing.
Liliane Landor
They are but, you know, if people don’t go to RT digitally, they get onto Twitter and then they – or Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, but that…
Sarah Rainsford
I’m not sure.
Liliane Landor
…I think is the danger rather than RT sitting in hotels.
Tim Davie
Yeah, I agree with that.
Sarah Rainsford
The Editor of RT calls Putin her boss, [inaudible – 41:47].
Liliane Landor
Yeah.
Sarah Rainsford
He’s her boss.
Tim Davie
Yeah.
Sarah Rainsford
He – she wrote it as a sort of…
John Kampfner
I think she’s…
Sarah Rainsford
…joke, but it’s not really a joke, and her latest telegram platforms have been genocidal hate speech, so I just think you have to…
Liliane Landor
And people don’t see…
Sarah Rainsford
…know that because…
Liliane Landor
…through that?
Sarah Rainsford
And some people love it, she’s – you know, has a huge number of…
Liliane Landor
Internally.
Sarah Rainsford
…followers and supporters. Not just internally, no, but I think that’s important to know, it’s not just internally.
John Kampfner
We’re going to come to questions in a second. Just a very quick further question to you, Tim, going right back to the beginning, we were talking about Britain and the brand, so the British Brand, the British political brand, I’m not inviting you to comment on it ‘cause I know you won’t, has not been in the greatest of odour over the last six or nine months. Is the BBC affected – to the reverse, is the BBC affected by the strength or weakness of Brand Britain? So if Britain is being disparaged around the world, is that completely separate…
Tim Davie
I haven’t seen…
John Kampfner
…to the BBC’s reputation?
Tim Davie
I just haven’t seen any evidence of that. You know, we’re having a – our numbers are strong, actually. I mean, you know, we’ve got lots of challenges, but our numbers are strong, and generally, when I go around the world, people – what’s the right phrase? They may be bemused.
Liliane Landor
Intrigued was what I was going to say.
Tim Davie
It’s better, Liliane, intrigued by what’s been going on, but actually, they – you know, we’ve got 100 years’ history here.
John Kampfner
So you…
Tim Davie
I think also that…
John Kampfner
…outcast from Liz Truss?
Tim Davie
Yes, but the – I mean, there’s one point, and just in terms of any opening remarks I wanted to make, which is I think that what they also see is because of this environment we’re in, you know, where truth is becoming more vulnerable, it just is more vulnerable. It’s harder to get to, there’s just so much noise, but they are beginning to reflect on what they care about.
I mean, if I’m being an optimist, there are – I mean, by the way, I do see the Russia Today and the Chinese investments as a serious threat. I think the – I’m going to say more about this over time, I think, but I think the UK does need to decide how much it wants to invest from the FCDO and the governmental side, in terms of supporting the World Service, ‘cause I think there’s only so much we can ask a licence fee payer in Penrith to pay for language services. They do provide a benefit and money coming back, but I think, at the end of the day, this is a strategic decision for the UK, and those two economies have decided, for better or worse, that it’s a big strategic decision that over time they’re going to build soft power and media is a very significant part of that.
John Kampfner
So the BB…
Tim Davie
And there is absolutely no doubt that, with the resources we’ve got, we do a spectacular job in my view, and that’s not me, that’s me being very proud of the teams, and we do a spectacular job, in terms of bang for buck, and I think the case is overwhelming.
The last thing I’d say is there’s a really – essay that I’d recommend, which is Jonathan Haidt’s that many in the room may have – may know, it’s – I’ll get the title wrong, but it’s on The Atlantic, it’s called something like the – Why the Last Ten Years Have Been the Stupidest in American History, and it talks about social media and what it does, and it says what are the things that hold a democracy together? And it talks about social capital, strong institution, strong institutions, and shared stories. It’s not a bad list. It’s not a bad list if you’re in my job, and I actually think we’ve got a big choice.
I think at the moment, we’re defying gravity with our investment, but we’ve got to decide, the game is getting tougher, and there are big-scale competitors out there, and believe me, they want – they may or may not be successful. I share both the worry and a little bit of your optimism, Liliane, in terms of – but I do think we need the resources to take it on.
Tim Davie
Right, questions. Have we got microphones? Where – are we – we’ve got the mics coming up. Right, let’s – gosh, there are so many. Right, let’s start at the back, gentleman there, thanks. Yeah, yeah, thanks, and then lady here, and then lady here in the second row. Right, and we’ll take three together, and if you could please keep them incredibly short, thank you, ‘cause we’ve got a lot to get through in not much time.
Member
Hi there. So, my question is, what would you say is the biggest threat to the future of the BBC, would it be political polarisation, funding, or atomised consumer habits and consumption of the media? Thank you.
Tim Davie
Just here, thank you, and then the second row, and then we’ll take…
Member
Do you want me to…?
Tim Davie
…you three, yes.
Member
Hi, I will just preface by saying I love the BBC, you provide enormous value, thank you. However, the criti…
John Kampfner
There’s always a but.
Tim Davie
[Inaudible – 46:38].
Audience Member
But the criticisms about the notion of impartiality don’t just come from outside the organisation, you know, you’ve lost some incredible Journalists like Andrew Marr, like Emily Maitlis, like Jon Sopel, recently who seem to feel they were restricted by that notion of impartiality. So, given what you’ve rightly identified as the threats and that, you know, we are in a battle for truth, is that notion of both sidesism restricting that battle – restricting the BBC in that battle?
John Kampfner
They’re two such big questions, I think we should just go for those to begin with. Let’s start with this one here about impartiality and big BBC beasts leaving because they are not given the voice that they are given elsewhere.
Tim Davie
I think – I’m very happy with the talent we’ve got. Sorry, that’s a Politician’s answer but you know what I’m saying. I mean, I think we have – a few people have left, not many, if you look at our numbers, and the…
John Kampfner
Quite a lot, from the news and current affairs.
Tim Davie
It’s about 3% of Presenters, John, if you want the facts.
John Kampfner
Yeah, but – okay.
Tim Davie
3% and we’ve got the A-team in place and I’m very happy with our line-up, but there is something in the question, which I do agree – some people will choose with what we set as the parameters for the BBC that they, over time, may want to go away, and to be fair, I mean, Andrew’s got an amazing career, brilliant Journalist, but he want – he was very – he said, “I want to go and offer a view,” and that’s fine, no problem. You know, this is – and also, we are a grower of talent. I don’t want the whole place to be stuck.
There is something in your question, by the way, about this two sideism, which I think is slightly different, but rela – actually, slightly different, I’ll put it that way, which is true impartiality is not just the seesaw, you know, here’s one, here’s the o – it’s contextualising the whole and often, you know, just these more clunky ways of dealing with the issue doesn’t get to truth. So I think that is a profound conversation that’s going on in the BBC and important.
Option three, by the way, it’s relevance, everything else is secondary. If you don’t have an audience and if we can’t support a universal model in the UK, and we’re not – currently, we’re used by 88% last week, 90 – this week, we’ll be at 90% because England are doing okay. If we hit 90% of the population a week in the UK, we’ll be okay. The issue is to do that through an internet distri – the atomised nature of a internet distribution, not through fixed distribution, and that’s what the internet does. It did it to black cabbies outside and it did it to every business. Navigating that course and having the right investment to take you across that bridge is the central challenge, it’s relevance, more than any political noise that – I think a lot of BBC watchers focus on the wrong thing, and that’s where I’d be.
John Kampfner
Sarah, I want to ask you that…
Liliane Landor
And let me say quickly, I know…
John Kampfner
Yeah, sorry, I’ll let you come in.
Liliane Landor
…I’m constantly coming in. No, no, no, it’s about the two sideism, which is so much not the definition of impartiality. Impartiality is such a painstaking thing. We labour day in, day out, to get to a notion of impartiality that we’re happy with on a daily basis. So it’s not, “I give a Muslim and I give a Christian and I’m happy, I’m being impartial,” not at all, it is not that. It is what we try and do and what we strive for and sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t. As for the talent, I have a hell of a lot of admiration for the Andrew Marrs and Maitlis and Jon Sopel, you’re absolutely right, we still have some very good people, too, but impa – this is not impartiality and I do not think that people have left because of impartiality.
John Kampfner
I agree. Sarah, do you – you’ve obviously lost some good colleagues along the way, in the last few years, it’s putting you in a difficult position ‘cause you’ve got your two bosses on your right, but do you sometimes feel restricted in what you can say? You’ve seen so much, you’re whatever it…
Tim Davie
You certainly have.
John Kampfner
Yeah.
Sarah Rainsford
I think – I’ve never worked in the UK, so I don’t know what it’s like to work as a Journalist in the UK political…
John Kampfner
At Westminster, yeah.
Sarah Rainsford
…environment, yeah, I have no idea, and I think…
John Kampfner
Foreign Correspondent.
Sarah Rainsford
…it’d be a completely different world to – although I’m sure the values, etc., is all the same, but it’s a completely different world and, you know, the scrutiny you’re under is completely different to what my life has been as a Foreign Correspondent, so I would start by saying I don’t really know.
But I think it’s always interesting and surprising to people that I talk to about my work that people don’t understand how actually free editorially I am in my job, and I’m not saying this ‘cause they’re here, but I mean, I – our scripts are not checked, really. I mean, I’m talking about just news scripts, right, I’m not talking about something which might be contentious, which might need referring up to somebody editorially for a proper, kind of, signoff. But generally speaking, if I write something, it goes on air, if I say something, it’s not checked, we’re not – our [inaudible – 51:24], our interviews or whatever with Presenters are not pre-discussed. You know, you just – the questions are chucked at you, you answer them, you say what you think, you say what you know, they respect your experience and your knowledge, and that’s not what it’s like even in somewhere like Spain.
It’s a very, very – I feel like it’s a very unique working environment and it’s why I’m still at the BBC after 20-odd years, and because it’s the thing that I value more than anything, it’s the fact that you can be respected to have, you know, brought all your editorial, kind of, thinking to a story and to a situation, and that you’ll be trusted to take that information and to tell people what you believe to be accurate and true.
John Kampfner
Right, let’s take some more questions. Lady – oh my goodness, we’re going to be here ‘til midnight.
Member
Is it on?
John Kampfner
Right, go ahead.
Member
Yeah, okay. So, first of all, congratulation for 100 years and also for the tremendous achievement, and what I’m saying now it’s a part of an answer for both you and Liliane. It’s not only 190 – 100 and 90 years, it’s also 30 years, three, zero. When BBC World Service and Foreign Office started an exceptional, ambitious programme…
John Kampfner
Can we just – can we get to your question, please…
Member
Yeah, it’s…
John Kampfner
…very quickly, we’ve got lots of people.
Member
It’s very important, really.
John Kampfner
Thank you.
Member
Inviting young Journalists from ex-communist countries to join a training programme, extensive one, which implies a huge financial and logistic effort. So bringing the Journalists to the UK and showing them what does it mean a free press, a responsible press. So this announcer and now the question is, do you have a report on the impact of this programme and are you continuing that?
John Kampfner
Good, thank you. Gentleman there at the back and then – all the way at the back there on the side, thank you, and then the gentleman there in the second row, I don’t know how I’m doing this, quite randomly, right. Sorry, go ahead.
Yusuf Hassan
Thank you, John. My name is Yusuf. I’m from the Africa Programme here. My question is in relation to changes to the Africa service. I think initially I should say that the move towards putting more Africa-based Journalists on the continent themselves is a fantastic one, which you should be applauded for.
However, I am concerned and we are concerned about the move to digital causing some level of elitism to go into who accesses your coverage because the reality of it is, internet penetration’s been fantastic, quite expensive, therefore what are your thoughts in relation to that question itself and what, you know, guarantees can be made? Because the concern really is, especially for the African audience, the impact of the BBC is immeasurable, and I really would like an answer to that.
John Kampfner
Liliane, those two questions belong to you.
Liliane Landor
So, thank you for this. No, we have not followed on with this programme, but I will go back and see whether we can get a report on this, it’s fascinating, and thank you for asking the question.
Yusuf, we have had to make cuts in Africa, as we have had to make cuts elsewhere, including BBC Arabic and, you know, the big beasts. What we are doing in Africa is not just moving completely to digital, we still have radio programmes in areas of the continent that we know are not at the moment able to access digital or data.
But we also have an example of India where, from practically one week to the next, data became so cheap that there was an explosion of people wanting digital, being on their phones, etc., and we know that this is going to happen on the continent, we do not know when. So we are putting in place the structure that will enable us to move digitally as qui – as soon as data becomes available to people, but we have not done away with radio. You know, we know that in some areas of the continent, radio is still absolutely essential and crucial, but we’ve had to make some difficult choices, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.
John Kampfner
There’s a few patient people in this row, let’s – gentleman there, yeah, right there, yeah, and then the gentleman just ahead. Thank you.
John Warren
Thank you, John Warren. Thank you so much for the World Service. There’s big issues like Brexit and Trump and all sorts of things where Rupert Murdoch has had a phenomenal influence. He’s virtually never mentioned on the Today Programme. Is that a right approach to deal with a man who’s more powerful than so many Heads of State?
John Kampfner
Good, right. After Rupert Murdoch, we’ve got here, two rows up. Thanks, and then two rows above, sorry, and then – right, and then we’ll go there. Right.
Hugo Barr
Hugo Barr, I’m a member of the Common Futures Conversation at Chatham House. As a young person, I’m endlessly being chased for my attention across many devices, many technologies, web, so on. How important do you think entertainment is for news and do you think the BBC should be trying to chase entertainment and does the degrade the work of it when you compare yourself to the CNN and the Fox News of the world with flashy, kind of, signals and things?
John Kampfner
Right, we’ve got Rupert Murdoch and we’ve got entertainment, not that they’re linked. Right.
Member
Hi, I just had a question. There’s a lot of talk about impartiality and there was a question right now about World Cup happening, the FIFA World Cup and the decision that was taken not to show the opening ceremony, which has a global audience, was that tool and then you’ve gone back to reporting everything about the World Cup. Was that a decision, how is that reflect on influencing? I mean, that’s one of the biggest global audience and you’re taking a stance on something and then going back on it to, sort of, that you don’t show anything. What was the point of that, just wondering?
John Kampfner
Yeah.
Tim Davie
Shall I…?
John Kampfner
Let’s start on that one and then we’ll work backwards, yeah.
Tim Davie
That one, we showed it on iPlayer, we just didn’t think it merited broadcast. We’ve done that before with opening ceremonies, so we’re flat out in terms of our coverage on the World Cup. I think it’s absolutely right, by the way, that we do that journalistic work and we abs – we show the context of the competition. So, I’ve got no problem with where we’re at, just to be clear, and I think, well, we’ll go out both from a sporting point of view, but there’s also stories in that World Cup that are important to report.
John Kampfner
Just on that, and I know it was before your time, but do you regret that the Beeb and other broadcasters didn’t ask the same questions it’s asking of Qatar when the World Cup was in Russia four years ago?
Tim Davie
So, at that point…
John Kampfner
They had already invaded Ukraine and exploited it
Tim Davie
…I wasn’t running it. I think you can look back on some of these things and say, “Could we have done more?” Maybe.
Sarah Rainsford
Well, we did a – I was there, we did a huge amount. I mean, the 2018 World Cup, I mean, I covered the World Cup and I happen to be a big football fan, but the leadup to the World Cup, we were actually – I was physically abused in the streets by England fans in [inaudible – 58:24] because they told me that the BBC had been so ba – been so negative about Russia that no England fans had come to the World Cup.
So – and then later, I was abused ‘cause everyone was having such a great time, they said, “Why did – why were you so, kind of, you know, down on Russia?” And I was kind of like – I mean, there was a huge amount of coverage of problems in Russia ahead of the World Cup and it was actually a way for us to get quite a lot of stuff on air. But it was also something that we were massively criticised for by the Russian Government because obviously for them, it was a ma – a huge party for Putin and it was a great party, and Russia knows how to throw an amazing party and show its best face to the world, and it absolutely did it, but we tried to show what was behind that as well, as showing that Russia does have this great front, and, you know, great culture, great people, but it also has this dark side, as well.
Tim Davie
I mean, on the Murdochs, so I think, you know, one is if you’re the Editor of the Today Programme, you can talk about the Murdochs as much as you like. I think there’s a – there’s two things I’ll say. I mean, you’re talking to the broadcaster that broadcast the documentary on the Murdochs, so how much do you want? There’s more? I mean, you know, okay, it’s getting into an obsession. But the other thing is, you know, I also think there’s something about the influence of the papers and how – where they stop and start, which is an interesting question in of itself, by the way, at the moment, so that’s another area. But I don’t think there’s any restraint of the BBC going after that story of – inappropriate as it should do.
The question on entertainment news is really interesting, one that’s pretty live in the newsroom, actually, because if we just want to get reach, then, you know, the traditional, kind of, cap falling off, it’s often when you go to the BBC News site, you can get slightly, kind of – depressed might be the wrong word, but there’s always that story, isn’t there, that’s kind of like the crazy story or whatever? You watch it and then you can see it’s the most watched, yeah?
So there is something going on, which is that ability – my personal view is we’ve got a whole crew to what – not just prioritise reach, not just go for entertainment and tittle tattle and hold our standards up. But there is certain things in the grammar of how we do it, how we write headlines, how we create short form, how we use our graphics, so, you know, summarises in a few minutes. What you don’t want to do with it is stuck wholly in an old-fashioned linear form, and I think you have to, to a degree, accept that game, use some of its dynamics without diluting your standards. Not easy, debated daily in the BBC newsroom, but we’re not going to just go after reach at all costs ‘cause then you just end up losing your soul.
John Kampfner
But quite a few BBC Journalists privately complained that there’s a lot on the homepage of the website that does look like clickbait, and it’s not – the BBC is not competing in the same commercial world as newspapers where clicks matter.
Tim Davie
I think, honestly, John, I don’t buy it, and everyone can find a Journalist unsourced, so…
John Kampfner
[Inaudible – 61:16].
Tim Davie
…in my life. For the – I think, actually, we’ve been – to warm slightly, move towards you slightly, I think we’ve done a – we’ve done some work recently on just constantly improving that, so you keep – I think there are teams and they – often, when you go slightly away from news, where you are under the enormous pressure as the question to get traffic, yet I have to get reach to justify the licence fee.
The licence fee is supported not because we are a good thing. We are a good thing, by the way. We’re very good for the creative economy, we’re critical to the UK, etc., but it’s not why the licence fee is paid. It’s paid by a household, by people who use the BBC. Usage supports the BBC. You will only get a market failure BBC, a much smaller BBC, if its only argument is, “We’re good.” You know, go have fun, the music’s in the corner. No, I’m really serious about this. We are a mass usage intervention, which is wonderful, that’s what’s so good. That’s why, when I go and sit in front of other broadcasters in public service, they go, “How do you do it?” and the reason is usage. So you have to assess about entertaining and guess who came up with Inform-Educate-Entertain? It’s 100 years ago, good line, yeah? And Reece thought that, we need to see that, and we need to entertain. It’s a really important question.
John Kampfner
Right, first of all, apologies to all those of you online, I’m – there’s a lot of questions there, I’m just going to have to prioritise ‘cause we’ve got about another million questions here, and we’re only going to get through another three or four. So I’m only going to take three or four more from the hall. Lady there, yeah.
Member
Tim, you said earlier that the Foreign Office had to decide how much it wanted the World Service and what it wanted – you know, how it wanted to support it. Where are you concerned that strategically, you are underweight around the world? So when you go to the Foreign Office, what are the places you say that you need to be strengthened? ‘Cause certainly I had a view, travelling in Africa, travelling in Central America, that China, Russia, were way ahead of us. Every hotel room you went to, that was the first broadcast you got.
John Kampfner
Yeah. Let’s hold onto that. The gentleman here’s been very patient.
Member
Yeah, I have two words tonight, which came to everyone’s attention, the truth, better for the truth, and also impartiality. Now, in relation to the hotel room, the jury would like to hear the truth, the Judge has to act impartially. Now, as far as the BBC is concerned, in relation to the war in the Ukraine, it is being reported only on one side, on the side of the Ukraine. We have never heard why the Russians have invaded Ukraine.
John Kampfner
Okay. We’ll get…
Tim Davie
I’ll let Sarah…
John Kampfner
Yeah, let’s – and we’ll just get the gentleman here ‘cause we’ve got the microphone here, and then we’ll do one more round after that. I don’t think those clocks hang up.
Member
The answer to Liliane’s questions at the beginning is yes, yes. I’ve listened to the BBC for 80 years, and during the Second World War, you certainly weren’t there – you weren’t partisan, and quite rightly so, but my question is this. Does the BBC always tell the truth, and when it does not, what do you do about it?
John Kampfner
That’s a really good remark about the Second World War, which I think it merits – when you face an existential battle to be reducted, good versus evil, what do you do? Is Ukraine and Russia in the same league? So let’s answer those two, Sarah.
Sarah Rainsford
I just want to answer the question about why we’re not reporting on Russia’s side, if you like, of this. I mean, I think that’s – unfortunately, I have to disagree with you politely because we have a Moscow Correspondent, we did have two, but we’ve only got one now, due to circumstances beyond my control. But Steve Rosenberg is our now Edi – now promoted to Russia Editor, still doing a extremely good job in Russia where very few Journalists are still operating. So, you know, he’s navigating a pretty difficult place to be journalistically at the moment, and he’s on air almost every single day on the 6 o’clock and 10 o’clock news on the Today Programme.
So, there are restrictions in Russia about where we can go, well, I can’t go anywhere in Russia, but where the BBC can go. For example, we are banned from the “DNR LNR”, so going to Donetsk is not an option, generally speaking, we’ve been banned for many years from going there. So, if you’re saying we’re not inside the Russian occupied areas of Ukraine and reporting from there on what’s happening, that’s for an objective reason that we’re not allowed into those regions.
Tim Davie
I would just – if you Google Steve interviewing Lavrov, it’s an exceptional piece.
John Kampfner
It is.
Tim Davie
It’s a proper interview, I think it’s world class. It’s absolutely the Russian perspective. To Sarah’s point, we’d be on the ground with the Russian troops safely if we could, as it were, but we’re – we – you can’t get in there.
Sarah Rainsford
But…
Tim Davie
So, I think our efforts are very significant to give the Russian perspective, very significant, but that…
Sarah Rainsford
And I would argue that by having – using me, occasionally, in Ukraine, I am trying to explain what’s happening, from a Russian perspective, but that doesn’t mean reflecting what the Kremlin’s saying as truth. It means interrogating what the Kremlin is saying because I’m on the ground in Ukraine watching what the Kremlin is doing in Ukraine. So I think that’s just as valid a reporting of Russia, to use someone with 30 years’ experience of Russia in Ukraine, as it is to have a – you know, somebody in Donetsk.
Liliane Landor
I think that’s a very, very good point, actually, and we do have a Russian service, I don’t know if you speak Russian, and we’ve been using it domestically in order to put through what – the Russian viewpoint, to some extent, not that they do adopt the Russian viewpoint, but they can explain it in the same way as…
Sarah Rainsford
I was talking about the World Service…
Liliane Landor
…our Correspondents and…
Sarah Rainsford
…maybe not the Russian service, but the Russian Politicians.
Liliane Landor
…there are in the World Service in English, yes, exactly.
John Kampfner
What about just – it’s too big a question to answer simply, but this point about the existential threat, the Second World War? You could almost translate it now into climate. We are facing an existential threat on climate. How do you, Liliane, and – I mean, just a few, sort of, headline points, obviously we – it – we could be talking about that for an hour, but how do you navigate that question where freedom is under threat?
Liliane Landor
That’s a very good question and that’s a very difficult question. It’s far easier on the climate change front because this is – it’s a given. We know what is happening to the world and we broadcast and report accordingly.
When it comes to Syria, say, just picking an example, where freedom is of course under threat, where you’ve got a dictator who’s sitting there and who is, you know, killing his own people, do you not get an interview with Assad if you’ve got the opportunity to do so because you think that something like this, an interview with a dictator like this, is going to work against our liberal values and democracy? Do you – what would you do? Would you say, “I don’t want to hear from him? All I want to hear from is – are the opposition, the fighters, etc?”
I want to hear from him and I want to hear from him because I want you, as the audience, to hear what comes from these people as well as from the opposition, similarly with Ukraine, similarly with Iran. It is absolutely essential and crucial that we hear from all these perspectives because I trust that our audience is intelligent enough, is acute enough, and is thorough enough to be able to absorb and to process. So, putting someone like Assad on air, putting Lavrov on air, putting Putin on air, would only help the cause of liberal democracy and freedom rather than hinder it, that’s what I think.
John Kampfner
There was the lady’s point there, just the one about…
Liliane Landor
That’s a very difficult one because we do have a very wide footprint. What we don’t have that Russia Today have and the Chinese are the resources and the money. So yes, I mean, I’m sure that Yusuf would also agree with me that wherever you go on the African Continent, you’ve got Chinese TV everywhere, as you’ve just said, and similarly with Russia Today. We cannot compete resource-wise with Russia Today and CGTN and this is to our detriment perhaps, but this is – you know, this is where we are stuck.
Tim Davie
It’s depth more than breadth, is the answer. So we’re not looking at territories going, “We must be there, we’re not there,” it’s depth.
Liliane Landor
I mean, would we love to be there?
Tim Davie
Having been involved in.
Liliane Landor
Of course we would love to be there.
Tim Davie
Yeah.
John Kampfner
The gentleman there who’s almost jumping up and down wanting to ask a question.
Member
Hi. Hi.
John Kampfner
And we’ll take a couple more and then we’ve just…
Member
Am I…?
John Kampfner
…got to stop and apologies to everybody whose questions we can’t take.
Member
Yeah, I may be unique in the audience, I moved to London recently because of the BBC, because of World Service, and then Radio 4, which I love.
John Kampfner
You moved to…?
Tim Davie
And maybe it’s a testimonial featuring yourself.
Member
It’s a testimonial.
Tim Davie
Thank you.
Member
And my favourite programme, when I was in New York only watching BBC, I closed off all American media because it just was impossible, except for some of the RT shows that had Chomsky and others. Anyway, the point is this. Why did you cancel the crown jewel of BBC, Dateline London, and do you miss it personally?
John Kampfner
Yeah, I’ve heard this a lot. Okay, Dateline, and lady here, just here in the third row, and I’m afraid we’re just going to have to stop there and I’m sorry to everybody else. It better be good.
Liliane Landor
Dateline?
Member
Oh, jeez, no pressure. Okay, hi, so I’m basically just wondering – I’m Canadian, my friends and family are Canadian, I’ve been living here for years. When they’re watching the situation unfolding in the UK, and – oh, sorry, and you’re speaking about, you know, Brand Britain, what is Brand Britain, what does that look like now and what does that look like in the years ahead? Because looking at the, kind of ,political situation and everything unfolding, it seems a little messy.
John Kampfner
That’s a good – that’s a, kind of, full circle way of ending. Dateline, why was it closed? It seemed – I mean, in pounds and pence, it was fairly cheap to put on, why…?
Liliane Landor
John, do you want to answer why we’ve closed Dateline UK?
John Kampfner
Yeah, microphone, thanks.
John
This is going to be the ultimate, “It wasn’t my job.” I think it was felt that, as a format, it had sort of run its course. It had certainly, you know, explored many issues over many years with a variety of guests, but actually, you know, over time we had developed new formats. And some of the new formats we’ve developed, particularly in the television sphere, like Ros Atkins’ explanations and other areas like that, is where we think we can actually meet a greater audience need at the moment and through basically a panel discussion programme that had really explored that format, I think, over many years successfully, but new ones were needed, particularly in the context of this discussion around the battle for truth.
So, how else do we more quickly get at the truth than a forensic, longform report over five minutes on a single issue, which we’re able to service on a variety of platforms, be it a social platform or our own on-demand platforms like iPlayer, and indeed on the World Service itself? So I think it was really that we can’t carry on making everything in the same way that we have, it’s time to try new things.
John Kampfner
Okay, so on that final question, I’ll just slightly add to it as my final question to all of you. We’ve talked a lot about the battle for truth, democracy, Brand Britain, why the BBC is absolutely central to it. Why therefore are you required constantly to be cutting, salami slicing, and you’re not getting your message through to Government Ministers? What is it that they don’t get? Go on, Tim.
Tim Davie
Well, I think the – I have mixed views to that question, which is, I think – I will give the an – the, kind of, stock answer to a point, which is we’re incredibly privileged to have the licence fee. You know, it – with household income where it is, you know, by law, £159. Now we justify that, it’s actually quite a market model in some ways, you have to justify that, and the fact that we’ve got security of revenue for two years flat and four years at CPI is something that I am – I think we’re – I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s a good thing to have that stability.
And by the way, around the world, if you look at the public service broadcasting, it is in crisis, to be clear. Funding’s in crisis. I will also say look at – the traditional media market is in serious trouble, in terms of its economics, whether that’s papers, linear television companies, so be careful, you know, ever – it’s every institution who’s going through enormous pain.
Second thing is, and I’m the corporate man here, that not everything you hear about that we’re closing is pure cuts, alright? It is really moving money around. So not everything that we move – we want – we think we need to move at least, you know, kind of, 500 million around the organisation, of which about 200 million is cuts, pure cuts, 300 million is things we’re stopping ‘cause we think we – you know, it is – to John’s point, it’s an editorial organisation, so you have to kill things and start things, and that can be really painful, and we don’t do much bad stuff, so people care about it. Yeah?
Having said that, the fact is that public finances are under enormous pressure, but I think the long-term disinvestment in the BBC has been a really bad move for the UK. Yeah? We have lost, you know, significant – over ten years about 30% in real – I mean, cuts after cut. Now the BBC has gone through efficiency – I mean, I come from a commercial background. Now, if you benchmark our costs, and we do, is you can’t – you can no longer say that the BBC’s got 100 people everywhere, you literally ben – look at the external benchmarks, we’re pretty lean, number of HR people, number of cen – I mean, it’s pretty vigorous now, how we’re doing it.
I think we’ve reached a point of choice around the creative industries and the BBC, which is we cannot continue to just take money out and expect to defy gravity. I think that point is exacerbated by a transition and the capital required to move from a linear organisation to a digital organisation.
To the point about our growing is we’re having to shut things to get digital. You have to be ready for digital. You don’t have to be the biggest digital evangelist, we’ll still – radio’s still going to be huge, TV’s going to be huge, but we need the capital to do that transition, and I think we should be invested in. Now, we’re doing all we can with our commercial arm, 1.6 billion turnover, growing 60%, but that does not really make a massive difference, in terms of the overall public funding and what we need to do.
So the answer to your question, John, is I think there are political realities around what the economics of the country are, public spending, I don’t think – I think you have some ideology around a public intervention of this nature. My personal view is it’s an incredibly enlightened blend between public and private institutions working together to grow the creative industries and I think we need more investment.
And I think people have been used to salami slicing, if I can be blunt, and continuing for us to defy gravity, so there’s always occasions when you can just do a bit more and it’ll all be fine. There will be a point, and we’re beginning to prove it, where that is not the case, and I think – my – as I lead the BBC, by the way, what I won’t do is just thin everything out by 5% or 3% or 10%. Now, that doesn’t work, you have to stop doing stuff, and that’s why we are doing certain things where people are saying, “Well, what you mean, you’re stopping certain services?” Because we have to, and we do have a choice, in terms of we can keep this thing going at scale for a while, but we’re going to have to invest harder.
John Kampfner
That’s a good point to end, that’s the clarion call. I just – thank you to the Events Team here at Chatham House, thank you to Julia and Dan at the BBC, it’s taken some time to get this event happening, and boy, I think it was – I’ve certainly learnt a huge amount. And apologies to those whose questions we were not able to take, both in the hall and online. I’ve broken a Chatham House cardinal rule, which was to go over an hour, we were an hour and 15, but we do have to stop there. So please everybody, give a warm thanks to Sarah, to Liliane, and to Tim.
