Broadcasting: Recent Developments

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have had the nod to speak in what is called the gap—I hope that meets with your Lordships’ approval. As a declaration of interest, I am currently chairman of Ofcom, and I have had a long career in various bits of British public service broadcasting which would take too long to recite here. I join all those who welcomed the passion of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and the sustained interest that he has shown in our public service broadcasting. This has been a terrific debate.

The debate has, not surprisingly, concentrated on the BBC. We are at base camp of the next great charter review, and there will be plenty of opportunities to rehearse all the arguments. As a veteran of one charter review, when I was chairman some years ago, with the late and much-lamented Tessa Jowell at the DCMS, I would caution that charter review always starts at the wrong point. I hope we will not do it this time. That point is governance and funding. Those are two important questions, but they are absolutely subsidiary to the biggest question of all: what do we want from the BBC in this very changed environment? When I came into broadcasting in 1973 at London Weekend Television, we had a monopoly of advertising revenue, and there were three channels. The advertising sales director never came in on a Wednesday because it messed up both weekends. Those were the days.

I therefore beg that the question about the future of the BBC is focused on what we want from it in this changed world. At Ofcom last year, we published our public sector media review, which did not deal with BBC charter review but with a much more challenged sector over which legislators have very little control—namely, the private sector of public service broadcasting. Our report, which I know the Government have welcomed and are taking seriously, is a canary in the mine. There are serious challenges in the private sector.

All the policy initiatives and Ofcom’s regulatory processes going forward must focus on the objectives of public service broadcasting, by finding ways either to legislate or to deregulate in a way that enables the sustained investment in British productions made by British producers for British audiences. That is at the heart of the creative industries in this country. The most successful growth sector of any sector of business in the UK has been the creative industries, and at the heart of that are the PSBs.

The PSBs themselves are going to have to work a lot harder to get the attention of viewers. It is not simply a matter of “Keep doing what you are doing, and we are going to drown in the face of the competition”; they will have to work a lot harder. Parliament and the regulators have to create the conditions to help them to sustain their investment. Part of that will be serving all parts of the nations and regions, and part of that will be to preserve a plurality of trusted news and current affairs throughout the nations and regions. That is crucial, and all of policy must be directed at that. I look forward to the charter review, but that is all I will say about the BBC for now.