Broadcasting: Recent Developments

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate. I briefly declare that I am the co-chair of the All-Party Group on Creators, which means I meet a lot of YouTube influencers. I am also a broadcaster on Times Radio. In fact, I should be plugging my show right now on Times Radio—it is on Fridays at 10 am—but I have chosen instead to listen to some excellent speeches.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for securing this important debate, and also say how thrilling it was to see the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, appearing as the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. I know it is something he has wanted to do for years, although I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, will later be appearing as the noble Lord, Lord Razzall. I feel like I am in the middle of a pilot for a new BBC comedy series.

Back in 2009, when I was still the opposition spokesman, I suggested to a media analyst that the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 should merge. She told me I was a complete idiot—but I was obviously making a point about scale. Although we are still a large, medium-sized country, we know we need scale in broadcasting. The BBC cannot compete—that ship has sailed—against the global streamers such as Netflix, Apple, Amazon Prime and, of course, YouTube, which we never talk about, but which has become the absolute Goliath in terms of media broadcasting. So, what we are really debating here is how we secure the future of the BBC in this new ecosystem.

Of course, the BBC is not the only game in town when it comes to producing high-quality British content. It is also worth pointing out that it is not just the licence fee that funds high-quality content. The tax credits for film and television, which the last Government introduced but which have been secured by this Government, are also vital in securing good quality British content. But the BBC really is, as far as domestic broadcasting is concerned, the only game in town.

It is incumbent on all of us to support the BBC. We can be critical friends of the BBC, but we should be careful what we would lose without it. I really react with astonishment and a bit of horror when I see people supporting the move by President Trump, for example, to sue the BBC because they happened to have watched BBC News the night before and disagreed with its tone or supposed bias. The BBC is an incredibly important institution.

When I did charter review with John Whittingdale, we had a very easy time of it. There was not really much we needed to change. We changed the regulation from the BBC Trust to Ofcom, but otherwise we effectively kicked the challenges the BBC faces into the long grass. These challenges are now more real today than they have ever been.

I will make three or four suggestions of areas we should look at. We seriously need to look at a structural separation of BBC News and a merger with the World Service, with its own board, charter and chief executive. I, for one, would welcome the BBC investing properly in local news, which is so important with the death of local newspapers. The BBC has to accept that, realistically, there is no more money. It has to cut its cloth. I was always a bit sceptical of people who said that, because everyone pays the licence fee, the BBC must do everything—and I accept that, by doing a lot, it actually raises the quality of what the BBC produces. However, the BBC seriously needs to look at the breadth of services it provides.

The noble Lord, Lord Hall, mentioned the importance of religious programming and children’s programming. We introduced the content fund, which had a short shelf life but was apparently quite successful. It may be that part of what the BBC does is provide content for other programmers, focused on where the market has failed, such as children’s programming. We need to have a debate about how much of the IP the BBC now keeps. We had a trend of pushing it out to independent producers. If we want the BBC to be more commercially successful, let us look at that.

We need to be more open-minded about subscription—I know that I have to wind up, but I will need to speak for another 15 seconds—but in my view that opportunity should be put forward by the BBC, not by the Government. I would counsel against changing the licence fee. It is very tempting, but the public will see any change as a new tax, not an alternative tax.