At the end of February I applied, for the second time, to become chairman of the BBC, the first being three years earlier before Gavyn Davies was appointed. In the past this post has been filled by an invitation from the relevant minister on behalf of the prime minister. Marmaduke Hussey recalls how his chairmanship resulted from a telephone call from the then home secretary: "Oh Dukie, it's Douglas Hurd here, with a very odd question to ask you. Would you like to be chairman of the BBC?"
The Nolan rules for public appointments have now been adopted for the chairmanship, a task for which they were not intended. The rules - which cover every public office from a minor advisory board position on tourism to one of the biggest unelected posts in public life, the BBC chairmanship - may make the selection seem more transparent but the final choice, still opaque, remains with the prime minister of the day.
This time the process was especially delicate. Lord Hutton's report had just been published. It criticised the BBC's handling of Andrew Gilligan's allegation that No 10 inserted claims it knew to be unreliable into its Iraq war dossier. In the row that followed the broadcast, the BBC refused at first to back down. After Hutton's demolition of the BBC's case the chairman and director general resigned. But to Tony Blair's dismay, the opinion polls showed that the BBC remained far more trusted than the government. All the more reason that the new chairman should not be seen, as Gavyn Davies had been, wrongly, as someone chosen to do Blair's bidding. So a curious advertisement appeared in the press. "Could you chair the BBC?" it asked and set out the qualifications for leading the board of governors through what it described as "a difficult and challenging time" for the corporation, with "the immediate need to respond to the conclusions of the Hutton report" and the review of the BBC's charter, due in 2006.
I sent off for the details and a public appointment registration form duly arrived. Any hubris one may have felt at presuming to apply for such a grand job was dispelled by this prosaic civil service questionnaire. "Are you applying for a specific vacancy?" it asked, "Which vacancy are you applying for?" and "Where did you hear about this vacancy?" These hurdles jumped, it remained to find two referees, and get out a brief account of why I was suited for the job (worth ?81,320 a year for a four-day week). In an oddly worded passage, the department for culture, media and sport (DCMS) announced that the successful candidate must have "proven senior experience at chair level" and would be expected to have "experience of the management of a large and complex public service or commercial undertaking."
But the skills required of a chairman of the BBC bear scant resemblance to those needed to run a big company. The overriding duty of the chairman is not, after all, to provide profits and dividends for shareholders but to use the resources of a largely non-profit organisation for the benefit of the public. He or she chairs an independently appointed board of governors whom he or she cannot sack, and who have in the past often proved intractable. The best BBC chairmen have rarely had experience of running a big business.
No 10 found it hard to attract the candidates it wanted. A headhunter had been appointed to ring round those who might be interested, and on the eve of the closure of applications he rang me. "We have not rung before because you don't have the commercial experience, but several senior people have said you should be on the list. So we are making no promises, but we wanted to remind you that applications close on Friday." Undeterred by this endorsement, I applied, as I had already intended, and waited to hear whether I had been shortlisted for interview.
The invitation arrived with details of who would be sitting on the selection panel and where it would meet, but with a request that all details be kept confidential. Rennie Fritchie, the commissioner for public appointments, was asked to oversee fair play with a separate panel of three privy councillors, one from each of the main political parties. This arrangement, intended to suggest all-party involvement, was undermined when the Tories refused to take part on the grounds that they would not be involved in making the decision. The monitoring, they said, could be admirably carried out by Fritchie on her own. The names of the selection panel soon became public knowledge. The only member with any experience of broadcasting was to be George Russell. He has worked for the Independent Broadcasting Authority, Channel 4 and ITN. He is now a director of ITV plc, the BBC's principal rival. It seemed curious that someone with his feet so firmly planted in the other camp should be helping to decide who should lead its main opponent.
Knowing that I was taking a gamble, I decided to say just what I thought of the way the BBC was run and what I would do if I was selected. But I first took discreet soundings (through the most unusual channels) to discover if the prime minister might veto me. I had given him a rough ride in his first big interview before the 1997 election, and had not pulled any punches in subsequent interviews or during his appearances on Question Time. The answer was reassuring. He was aware that I might be a candidate and bore me no animus. So far, so good.
Now my work began. I had many reports to read. Richard Lambert's review of BBC News 24; David Elstein's report for the Tory party on the future of public broadcasting; the charter review process; the relationship between the BBC and Ofcom; the impact of digital television on the BBC and viewers' habits; the complaints of the independent production sector; the Communications Act and the BBC charter itself. I spent an hour with Andrew Ramsay, the director at the DCMS responsible for broadcasting, discussing, among other things, the relationship between the governors of the BBC and its senior management. I talked to two previous chairmen about their experiences at the hands of the governors and the director general. I discussed the role of the BBC with independent producers. I had a briefing on BBC finances, and finally, my thoughts gathered, rehearsed my opening statement in front of two friends, one a political commentator, the other a senior broadcasting executive. They subjected me to the requisite 40 minutes of interview followed by a sharp critique of what I had said. Thus armed, I set out to make my pitch.
By the time I arrived for the supposedly secret interview, there were two reporters and a cameraman waiting on the doorstep. Half an hour into my interview there was an alert over a suspect package, and we all had to troop out to another venue, photographers merrily snapping our progress.
A friend of mine was recently appointed to head an Oxford college. He had to submit to nine separate interviews before being selected, the final interview before a gathering of all the fellows. By contrast, the interview process for the BBC chairmanship was lean. Each candidate was allotted just five minutes for an exposition of the future of the BBC under a new charter from 2006; this was followed by 40 minutes of questions. Impeccably chaired by the permanent secretary of the DCMS, Sue Street, it nevertheless gave the impression not so much of a serious examination of the suitability of the candidate so much as a box-ticking exercise with the choice made elsewhere, and so I think it proved.
What follows is based on the arguments I put for change at the BBC, designed to ensure its survival as an institution vital in British public life.
The Reithian origins of the BBC are well known. Its future depends on its finding a way of being true to those origins in the expanding world of communications. Since it is funded by the public, it must try to reach as much of that public as it can with programming which is informative and entertaining. The balance between popularity and intelligent programming has been a conundrum ever since the BBC first faced competition from ITV. The trouble is that while audience size is measurable, quality is not. The temptation is therefore to aim for quantity.
There are many prescriptions for how the BBC should define its place in a multi-channel world. The "market failure" theory argues that the BBC should do only things that the market cannot or will not do. Soap operas or sport for example are well provided by ITV or Sky, so the BBC should not be allowed to use public money to duplicate them. But that means abandoning the BBC's mission to reach out to as wide an audience as it can and to use its popular programming to draw viewers and listeners into other work that they might not otherwise encounter.
Another prescription for the future is that the BBC should become a subscription service, with viewers paying directly for particular programmes or strands of programmes they want to see. It seems a more equitable method of fundraising than the universal licence fee. But it would eat away at the foundation of the BBC as a universal service. It would also sever the connection between BBC radio and television. For many of the BBC's staunchest supporters, radio is the most valuable part of the service. It seeps into all aspects of our national life and culture and through the World Service enhances Britain's reputation abroad. But BBC Radio, like BBC TV, is protected from direct government interference by the charter and the licence fee. If BBC television becomes a subscription service how would radio be funded? Restoration of the old radio licence would be impractical. The alternative of a direct annual grant from the exchequer is unacceptable. It would threaten the political independence and iconoclasm listeners cherish in programmes like Today.
The BBC's annual reports from the past ten years reveal an ambiguity of intention. From time to time the governors have set out targets for the content of BBC programming. This has subsequently been assessed by the same governors who have generously found most of their targets met. But the numbers listening or watching still predominate as measures of success over the inherently more subjective measure of quality. It is no good the governors constantly announcing their intention of improving the quality of BBC programmes unless they rigorously test these aspirations. If channel controllers are to be judged on quality too then a "quality index" must be established to set alongside the viewer headcount. Audiences must be asked to what extent they believe they are being offered original, creative or high quality broadcasting. Their answers should be analysed to measure whether the BBC is succeeding in providing the distinctive programming which it is under obligation to offer. We should trust the audience. The accumulation of their judgements will indicate whether they feel they are being properly served.
The sheer size of the BBC means it now squats like a giant toad over the whole broadcasting industry and beyond. The successful negotiation of a ten-year charter in 1996 and of a licence fee guaranteed to increase annually at 1.5 per cent above the rate of inflation has led to a big expansion in its activities, from the building of an internet service widely acclaimed as one of the best in the world to the setting up of new BBC channels only available to those with digital television. This expansion has brought complaints from its rivals of unfair competition, of public money being used to drive them out of business or make it impossible for them to enter a market. The BBC is often insensitive to their complaints. It is not easy for a huge corporation to see itself as others see it, but the BBC must distinguish between its own interest and the interests of the licence-payers. The two are sometimes in conflict. For instance, as a result of its response to the government's insistence that it set up profit-making companies to augment the revenue from the licence fee, the BBC now earns over ?600m a year from publishing, programme distribution and other activities. BBC Worldwide is Britain's largest non-fiction hardback publisher. It runs a stable of magazines, some not directly related to its programming. I do not believe this is in the public interest. Unlike commercial publishers and distributors, the BBC can take risks and bear losses without the discipline of the marketplace. Its losses on any particular project are subsidised by the licence-payer. If it were sold off, private sector publishers, licensed to use BBC material, could take the market risk. One former chairman, who failed to interest the governors in a sell-off proposal, told me he believed that the BBC would lose nothing by such a sale.
The BBC's treatment of independent television producers must also be reformed. Under the 1996 charter, a quota of programming has to be made by outside producers who bid for contracts. Apart from news, 25 per cent of all BBC output is meant to come from outside sources. The idea behind the quota was to make the BBC more efficient but also to harness the creativity and originality of producers working free from the bureaucratic constraints of the BBC. Much of their contribution has been outstandingly successful, but has only been grudgingly accepted by the BBC, which last year failed even to fulfil the quota. The BBC should welcome the independent sector and voluntarily exceed the 25 per cent quota without being forced to do so under the new charter.
Such changes can only be achieved if willed by the board of governors and its new chairman. Here there is a problem, as exposed by the handling of the Gilligan affair. BBC governors have a dual role. They are first and foremost the guardians of the interests of the licence-payer and the wider public, but they also set strategy for the BBC and are thus implicated in all its broadcasting. On this occasion they gave the latter role precedence over the former. Relying on what they were told by the director general and the head of news, they acted as cheerleaders for the corporation. Hutton criticises them for failing to appreciate the seriousness of No 10's complaints, and for not making their own detailed investigation and reaching their own independent conclusions about whether the BBC should acknowledge that a mistake had been made. On the publication of the report the chairman Gavyn Davies resigned. None of his fellow governors offered their resignations, although they were implicated in the strategy. The BBC started two inquiries. One was a necessary review of its editorial procedures. The other was a disciplinary process resembling a star chamber. There was no explanation of why editors and others were being cross-examined about their role in the Gilligan affair without any specific accusations being made against them but with the threat of demotion or dismissal hanging over them. This demeaned the BBC and was thankfully concluded in early May.
Many years ago I had a brush with the Labour party over a 1971 programme, Yesterday's Men, about Labour being thrown out of office. At the time, Harold Wilson was being criticised within the party for appearing to concentrate on writing his memoirs, for which it was said he was being paid a small fortune, rather than devising effective opposition to Edward Heath. In the programme I asked him, half in jest, if he could set our minds at rest about what he was being paid. The explosion that followed reverberated for months. Wilson's press officer blustered and bullied and threatened my producer that she would never work for the BBC again if the interview were broadcast. Lawyers were summoned. Injunctions were sought. The governors decided to see the film themselves and with the omission of the offending question and answer agreed to its transmission. But, crucially, they also set up a full inquiry into how the film had been made, whether the participants had been fairly treated and whether the resulting programme was properly balanced. In other words, they deliberately distanced themselves from the BBC's editorial process and acted on behalf of the viewer and in the wider public interest.
It is this distance between the governors and the management of the BBC that the chairman must now restore. It will not be easy. The governors are independently appointed and unlike directors of a public company cannot easily be removed. They have to be persuaded that, if their credibility is to be restored, they must be seen to tilt the balance of their dual role in favour of the wider public interest.
For a start they should set up their own secretariat, not share one with the BBC managers. They should establish their own sources of advice and commission their own reports into contentious areas of broadcasting policy to pre-empt government inquiries. It is humiliating that the early failures of BBC News 24 had to be highlighted by an independent review set up by the DCMS. The flaws should have been spotted by the governors. Inside the BBC the governors have for too long been seen as a pushover. You take a report to them, one executive told me, and expect a pat on the back.
They should also establish a wholly independent procedure, a final court of appeal outside the BBC, for complaints about fairness and balance. Complaints about decency and taste can already be judged outside the BBC by Ofcom, but editorial judgements remain the preserve of the BBC alone. It is no longer defensible that it should be both judge and jury.
The selection of governors also needs to be reviewed. This is not a matter for the chairman alone, but he should have some influence. At present, too many governors are chosen by category, because they represent one of the nations of Britain, or an ethnic minority, or the arts or business. What is missing are governors who know about broadcasting, who can cast a sceptical but informed eye over the proposals that BBC managers bring them.
If the BBC is to retain public confidence it has to put its own house in order. It has to convince the licence-paying public that it will use its privileged position to the benefit of the broadcasting industry as a whole. It will then be able to continue to justify its unique role in our public life. Not, perhaps, the "voice of Britain" any longer, but the invaluable purveyor of its many voices.
Such was my pitch for the chairmanship, compressed into my allotted five minutes. I was in India when the call came through to say that I had not been chosen. A disappointment but not a surprise. My hope now is that although I was rejected, some of these arguments will be heeded by the successful candidate, Michael Grade.
