BBC: Centre for Policy Studies

N.B. This page relates to the Centre for Policy Studies’s attacks on the BBC.
A separate page deals with the Centre for Policy Studies in general.

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The Centre for Policy Studies is a right-wing neoliberal think-tank set up in 1974 by Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph and Alfred Sherman. Joseph, who was head of policy at the Conservative Party between 1975 and its successful election in 1979, was strongly influenced by the Institute of Economic Affairs and helped set up the CPS as a kind of politicised version of the IEA, with the aim of promulgating its ideals around the political establishment - in particular, around the Conservative Party.

Centre for Policy Studies and the BBC

The Thatcher Years

Whilst other Thatcherite think-tanks like the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute heavily criticised the BBC during the 1980s, the CPS does not appear to have shown much interest in broadcasting until much later. Nevertheless, some key figures involved in broadcasting policy during this period did have links with the CPS.

The most important of these was David Young, who was the director of the Centre for Policy Studies from 1979 to 1982. Young was also appointed a ‘special advisor’ to Thatcher in 1979 to – in his own words – ‘offer technical advice in disposing of nationalised industries.’ He was later appointed to the Department of Trade and Industry where, according to media academic Tom O'Malley, he ‘used his position to battle against Home Office traditionalism and promote free-market policy options for broadcasting.’

Young was a member of Thatcher’s Ministerial Committee on Broadcasting along with Douglas Hurd, William Whitelaw and Nigel Lawson. His view on broadcasting, according to the authors of The Battle for the BBC, was that it should be used to encourage consumption:

…television advertising was the most powerful tool known to man for creating and fuelling demand. It therefore followed, from a strictly business perspective, that everything possible should be done to encourage the growth of commercial television. The problem, of course was the BBC. It accounted for half of total viewing, time which could have been devoted to valuable commercial viewing… IT was with this sort of outlook, both before and during his tenture at the DTI, that Young approached broadcasting and found a sympathetic audience from the Prime Minister.

David Young's younger brother Stuart was chairman of the BBC from 1983 until his death in 1986. He was originally seen as a provocative appointment by the Thatcher government, but is generally portrayed as having developed a close affinity with the BBC. In 1987 one of Young’s special advisors Howell James was appointed Director of Corporate Affairs for a BBC, a position he held for five years. James had been introduced to Young by Thatcher’s PR guru Tim Bell, who was also appointed as a PR consultant to the Corporation.

Another CPS figure who deserves a mention is Alfred Sherman who co-founded the think-tank in 1974 and was its Director of Studies until 1984. He was the leader writer for the Daily Telegraph from 1977 to 1986, during which time the paper, though less hostile than the Murdoch press, was nevertheless supportive of the Thatcher government’s attacks on of the BBC. A Leader in 1986 (presumably penned by Sherman) stated:

We have frequently argued in these columns that there should be a re-evaluation of the structure and management of the BBC. It has become such a vast and unwieldly organisation as to defy effective management by even the best-intentioned of senior executives.

In December 1986 Sherman wrote a long article (over 1,300 words) on the BBC in the Guardian entitled ‘Why the BBC needs its own monitors / How to defuse the claims of bias’. The article was written in the context of sustained attacks on BBC News and Current Affairs by the far right, and though somewhat vague, was nevertheless implicitly supportive of the attacks. Sherman argued that given that the BBC was publicly funded, the government had a right to attack it on behalf of the public:

The BBC is a state corporation, originally granted a monopoly of public broadcasting, now shared with other privileged licensees, together with the right to levy de facto taxes on the public. On the one hand, these state-given powers ineluctably entail public accountability: 'no taxation without representation!' On the other hand, any move by government to exact accountability or to question BBC stewardship in general or in detail courts certain denunciation as attempted censorship and intimidation.

This was a reference to the far right tory MP Norman Tebbit, who had recently produced a detailed critique of the BBC's coverage of the US bombing of Libya. Sherman went on to imply that in the case of the Falklands War the BBC should have been supportive and partial in favour of the British government, psoing the question: ‘can an organisation which claims special national status as 'public service broadcasting'… also enjoy journalistic licence? Is this not wanting it both ways?’ (In fact studies have found that despite passionate claims to the contrary the BBC was indeed highly partisan in favour of the British government during the conflict.)

Sherman contrasted the BBC with the commercial press which offered diversity (‘If People do not like the Guardian they need not buy it’). The BBC, he claimed, was born out of the 'authoritarism' of the 1920s and conceived by 'the Establishment' as a 'counter-balance to the commercial press, to provide opinion-free information, i.e., to present Establishment bias unquestioningly.' Ultimately the article called for the setting up of a systematic monitoring system for the BBC's output or at least a system whereby the BBC's output could be subjected to independent and critical scrutiny by researchers.

CPS Reports on the BBC

A Better BBC: public service broadcasting in the 1990s

In 1991 CPS published A Better BBC: public service broadcasting in the 1990s, a report by the rightwing journalist Damian Green. Green had spent much of the 1980s working in at Channel 4, but had also worked at The Times and the BBC where he was a Producer in the Financial Unit from 1980 to 1982. He would go on to become a Policy Advisor to John Major, a political lobbyist, and then a Conservative MP.

Green's report attempted to develop a middle ground between the push for the BBC's privitisation coming from the neoliberals, and the support for quality national broadcasting amongst more traditionally minded Conservatives. The report is was somewhat unusual in that Green conceded that 'there is little evidence that the public is opposed to the concept of public service broadcasting... or that there is a wave of feeling that the BBC fails to help realise that concept.' Neither was he supportive of the common assertion that the BBC had a systematic left-wing bias. The report was more typical in its criticism of the BBC as wasteful and inefficient. Its main argument in favour of reform though was that changes to the 'broadcasting landscape' meaning an increase in the number of channels, would necessarily make the BBC's exclusive right to the licence fee revenues 'indefenisible'.

Green rejected advertising and subscription as alternative sources of funding. Instead he argued that the licence fee should remain, but that its revenues should be distributed by a new 'Public Service Broadcasting Authority' which would then commission public service broadcasting, initially overwhelmingly from the BBC, but also to private producers and Cable TV companies. This, Green argued, would encourage competition and efficiency in the BBC and would guarantee that public service broadcasting was not undermined. The inevitable loss in revenue would then be met by the BBC 'marketing the range of BBC programmes' international, and from entering into joint productions and sponsorship deals. 'If,' Green wrote, 'it eventually transpired that all the functions at present served by the BBC could indeed be provided by the market (with assistance from the PSBA), then the BBC could wither away, or be transformed into a much smaller and more concentrated broadcasting organisation.'

How to save the BBC

The CPS did not produce any further pamplets on the economics of broadcasting for another 17 years. Then in July 2008 it published the disingenuously titled How to save the BBC by the television writer and right-wing activist Antony Jay; the man most famous for co-writing the 1980s political comedy Yes Minister. In the report Jay declared himself to be a 'Friedmanite' and wrote that the market 'may, and in my own view should, be the ultimate destination' for the BBC. He conceded however that given that privitisation would probably lead to a 'national outcry and a dramatic loss of votes' for any government trying to introduce it, 'it is neither desirable nor practicable to head straight for it immediately.'

Rejecting outright privitisation as politically impossible, Jay also dismissed the 'Arts Council of the Airways' concept advocated by Damian Green. Instead he proposed that the BBC be drastically reduced in size and focus to a 'much smaller, self-funding public service broadcaster, consisting essentially of one television channel and one speech radio channel'. This new BBC would not compete with commercial broadcasters but would focus on meeting demands not met by the market. Under Jay's vision the BBC's public service obligations would remain but rather than being funded by the license fee, the BBC would rely on a 'massively expanded and professionalised marketing operation'. Jay also argued that the obligation of political impartiality should be removed, stating: 'The obligation to maintain political balance made sense in the days of only one or two broadcasters. But as stations proliferate, so that obligation becomes more and more illiberal and restrictive.'

Jay's pamphlet's was cited by Conservative MP Christopher Chope during the 2nd reading of his Private Members' Bill, Broadcasting (Television Licence Fee Abolition) Bill in October 2008.

Allegations of BBC Political Bias

In addition to reports advocating the privitisation and commercialisation of the BBC, the Cenre for Policy Studies has published a number of reports critising the BBC's news and current affairs output as having a liberal-left bias. A year before How to save the BBC, CPS published a pamplet by Antony Jay entitled Confessions of a Reformed BBC Producer. Jay argued that the BBC is part of a 'minority media liberal subculture' which promotes attitudes and opinions 'at odds with the majority of the audience and the electorate'. He argued that the culture of 'media liberalism' at the BBC made it hyper-critical of governments and other powerful institutions. This, Jay argued, had led to the 'erosion of the efficiency and effectiveness' of the institutions Jay called the 'building blocks of civilisation'. Recalling his time at the BBC (over 40 years earlier) Jay wrote:

...we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it.

The publication of the pamplet received publicty in the British press, with an extract being published in the Daily Telegraph. A month later The Sunday Times published an op-ed piece by Jay which started by making reference to the BBC's recent impartiality report and then reproduced much of the pamphlet.

Earlier the CPS had published a number of reports authored by Kathy Gyngell and David Keighley alleging a systematic bias against the right-wing.

Relevant Publications

• Martin Le Jeune, ‘To inform, educate and entertain?: British Broadcasting in the twenty-first century’, 31 March 2009

• Antony Jay, ‘How to save the BBC’, 4 July 2008

• Antony Jay, ‘Confessions of a Reformed BBC Producer’, 14 July 2007

• Kathy Gyngell & David Keighley, ‘BBC Bias? Two case studies, 27 April 2005

• Kathy Gyngell & David Keighley, ‘An Outbreak Of Narcolepsy – Why the BBC must improve its coverage of the EU’, 16 September 2004

• Kathy Gyngell & Daivd Keighley, ‘Blair's EU-Turn: A case study in BBC partiality’, 16 September 2004

• Damian Green, ‘A Better BBC: public service broadcasting in the 1990s’, 10 November 1991