On October 8th the BBC Press Office publicised the corporation’s submission to the DCMS public consultation on the subject of the BBC charter review.
The press release on the topic can be found here.
The submission itself – titled “British Bold Creative” – can be found here and supplementary documents are available here.
One of the submission’s notable features is a proposed extension of the ten-year charter (section 3.19, page 101). Curiously, the rationale presented by the BBC for that proposal does not address the topic of the rapid pace of changing technology.
A section which will undoubtedly be of particular interest to many of our readers relates to the BBC’s complaints process (section 3.17, page 94). There, the BBC claims that:
“The processes we have in place are easily accessible and work well—in 2014/15 we received 260,000 editorial complaints and answered 96% on time. Fewer than 1% of complaints went to appeal by the BBC Trust.”
That portrayal is one many members of the public will have difficulty recognizing.
It would of course have been helpful to licence fee payers reading both this document and the previously published ones aimed at the same purpose had they been informed of the expenses entailed in the production of the audience research and commissioned studies cited and provided with transparent information on the general issue of BBC expenditure relating to the topic of charter renewal.
