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As chairman of the board of governors it is his job to monitor the BBC's activities on behalf of the public.

But when he was appointed the Conservatives accused the goverment of cronyism, because of his well-publicised Labour links.

In the five months since he started the job the BBC has launched new digital radio and TV channels and faced criticism over how the corporation is regulated.

But how do you think the BBC is succeeding in meeting its audiences' needs? What do you think of the BBC's new digital channels and its plans for more?

You pay 2.5 billion pounds to the BBC in licence fees each year, do you think that money is being spent wisely? Do you trust the BBC to monitor itself?

Transcript

Newshost:
Hello, I'm Andrew Simmons and welcome to this BBC Interactive Forum about the BBC - how it's governed and where it's heading to in this age of digital TV. I'm going to be putting your questions to the BBC's chairman - Gavyn Davies - who's in our Manchester newsroom.

You've been hearing in the news this week plans to give the governors more independence and more of a hands-on role and this all comes ahead of the Government streamlining the way broadcasting and telecommunications are regulated with Ofcom. Now some of the industry are arguing that with the arrival of Ofcom the outdated system of BBC governors should go altogether, now what do you say to that?

Gavyn Davies:
I don't agree Andrew. The arrival of Ofcom does indeed change the type of governance and management that we need at the BBC somewhat but I don't think it changes the fundamental need for the BBC to remain independent, especially independent from the political process and independent from any regulator who might be over influenced by our commercial competitors because our commercial competitors are desperate the size and scope of the BBC and make our life more difficult so they can make more profits for themselves by occupying that space. And one of the things the governors have always done is stand between the political process and the programme makers and also, to some extent, the competitors and our programme makers. And I think that role remains intact. But we are reforming and modernising our governance so that we can work with Ofcom and under Ofcom where it's appropriate once the new regulator is around.

Newshost:
What in effect though can you do to assure our viewers that independence will be acquired for these governors?

Gavyn Davies:
Well the governors have always been independent from the political process and always will be I hope and the guarantee of that is actually getting greater by the way that we're now appointing governors. In the old days governors used to be appointed by politicians and it was really often a very whimsical process, in fact one chairman of the BBC was phoned up in a three minute conversation from the Home Office in the late 1980s, he was asked if he fancied a job, he said - Yes that sounds like quite a good idea - and that was the entire process. Now there is a panel, we have open advertisements, people apply - anyone can apply to be chairman of the BBC or a governor of the BBC and a totally independent, what is called, Nolan panel, largely comprising of public services public officials like civil servants and others makes a recommendation on the names that should go forward. So our new appointments process is definitely designed to make our governors clearly more independent from the political process.

Newshost:
Well obviously there's been a very wide range of questions put to you. I'll start now with Alex Keelyside who comes from England. "In a multi-channel era of television where all the television requirements can be met in the marketplace what is the justification for a TV licence that is forcibly paid by anyone wanting to own a TV regardless of whether they wish to use the BBC services?"

Gavyn Davies:
Well the justification is that if you leave the market to its own devices and we don't have the BBC at all and we do away with the licence fee I think the outcome of that will just simply not be in the public interest. And the analogy that I often use is the analogy of commercial radio: 10 years ago, 15 years ago, as the number of commercial radio stations started to spread and to grow very rapidly a lot of people said - Well do we really need Radios 1-5, do we need the BBC's local radio stations now that all this choice is available from the commercial sector? Well 10 years later what it looks like is pretty different, I think, what it looks like is 260 commercial radio stations have existed and grown up and they're quite healthy in lots of cases but most of them are trying to do the same thing - they're basically providing top 40 pop music, jingles, weather, not very much local news. So the replication that you get from the free market is absolutely massive. And I think that what we will get in television if we don't have the BBC is something similar - we'll have fragmentation, we won't have any national presence for any broadcaster that can create national events and we won't get very much more diversity and choice either because many, many channels will simply seek to do the same thing. So for all sorts of reasons I think the market is not going to provide the right type of television for the UK and the BBC will remain absolutely crucial for the public interest.

Newshost:
John from London asks: "Do you believe Goldman Sachs, your former place of work, or the BBC to be more efficient and better run?"

Gavyn Davies:
I'm not sure, actually both the organisations that I've recently worked for - Goldman and the BBC - are about the same size, we both have about 25,000 people. The main difference I'd say between the two of them is that people at Goldman, at least until recently, have earned a lot more money because of course the financial markets have been booming. I don't see a very big difference, either in the quality of the people or in the efficiency of the organisations. Now if you go back 10 or 15 years, pre John Birt, at the BBC I probably wouldn't have been able to say that. But the BBC in the last 15 years has eliminated about �50-75 million of costs every single year as a result of efficiency savings. And we're still doing that. So the criticisms of the BBC as a sort of elephant that wasn't at all nimble or efficient I think are increasingly out of date actually and we are now able to stand comparison with some of our best private sector counterparts.

Newshost:
Well Phil White from Cambridge asks: "The arrival of Mr Dyke was supposed to modify BBC TV output in favour of intelligent programmes, instead we get even more soaps and game shows. Why do you insult your audience so much?"

Gavyn Davies:
Well actually if you look at the soaps and game shows we're not really insulting the audience I think by having those because they get absolutely mass audiences. If you take EastEnders, the peak of the EastEnders audiences in the last couple of years has been up in the 18 or 19 million region for some of the key episodes of EastEnders. So I think it's an insult to those people to say that the BBC is insulting them with that kind of programming. However, we obviously do have to make sure that we remain distinctive and we do continue to serve the intelligent needs of our entire audience and I sympathise with the questioner on that. We're trying our best. I think that we're doing actually better through time with programmes like, last year, The Blue Planet, Walking with Beasts, The Way We Live Now - I could go on and on. The previous year Simon Sharma's History of Britain. These phenomenally intelligent and successful series are totally different from the game show genre that the questioner thinks dominates British television or the BBC and I think we can move further in that direction with amazing landmark series in natural history and history, in science, education and there's a ton of that on the BBC and I think it's just a matter of making sure that you find it and see it.

Newshost:
But would these reforms you're planning for the governors and the public service remit they'll fulfil could there not be more friction perhaps between the governors and the executives and does that concern you?

Gavyn Davies:
It does concern me yes because a lot of people actually in the outside world try and encourage that sort of friction so that they can then gleefully report a row between the governors and the executive, between Davies and Dyke. And I don't really like that, I think if the governors are going to be effective they should work inside the organisation hand in hand with the executive to achieve the right results in the public interest. And essentially the way I see it is this: we're both on the executive and the board of governors trying to achieve the same objectives for the organisation and that is to maintain a distinctive public service but mass market broadcaster in the UK. So we have the same objective but we have very different roles. The governors rule is a supervisory role, setting objectives for the organisation, ensuring accountability, ensuring compliance for the organisation and making key appointments and the management's role is operating the services and making and scheduling great programmes. So we have two distinct roles with one objective in mind in the public interest. And I hope and trust that we can fulfil these roles without public conflicts and rows which I think are damaging to the BBC as a whole.

Newshost:
John Browning from London asks: "What are the measurable goals of the BBC's public service mission in a multicultural and multimedia world?"

Gavyn Davies:
Well I think some of this is hard to measure. If you say what are our measurable goals, I don't have goals for the organisation based on, for example, target audiences of shares of audience or reach or anything of that nature. But I would like two things to be sustained simultaneously and maybe even improved simultaneously. First, we have to give value for money to the people who, as another questioner said earlier, are forced to pay for our services and that is a sobering thought - the whole nation is forced to pay for our services - we have to recognise that and ensure that every licence fee payer gets value for money and that goes for the Asian kid in Oldham round the corner just as much as it does for the member of the House of Lords in Westminster close to where you are. So value for money is a crucial thing that the governors need to ensure the organisation is doing. But secondly, that isn't enough, we have to also be distinctive. We have to produce programmes that are mind enhancing, broadening, enable people to broaden their experiences like the BBC has always done. And we have to do both those things. And the challenge for programme makers is very difficult and very intense but unless we can do both those things simultaneously - mass market, distinctive public service - we won't deserve the licence fee.

Newshost:
M.C. from Liverpool asks: "How can the BBC remain competitive against commercial companies like Sky. The BBC licence fee, in many people's eyes, is an outdated tax. Shouldn't the viewer be given the chose of whether they would like to subscribe to BBC services or not - why pay for a service you very rarely use?"

Gavyn Davies:
Well subscription for the BBC at the moment isn't really on the agenda because the technology to ensure that that can happen for the whole nation isn't yet available. While we have still what is called the analogue for broadcasting the BBC, which is the traditional way that we've all got BBC channels down our aerials and while that is the dominant way, still, in this country of receiving television we cannot switch over to a subscription system. I actually think that even if we could it would be the wrong thing to do because in the same way that the public decides, the nation decides, that we should all pay for the National Health Service and we should all pay for the education service because it is in our long-term interest as individuals and families in order to that I think there's a very strong case for saying the same applies to the BBC and always has applied to the BBC. These arguments have been around for a very long time, since the 1950s at least, when ITV was launched, ever since then people have said now there's a private sector "alternative" to the BBC why not do away with the licence and leave it all up to the private sector? People have said why not sell the BBC off as a private company? Well the reason is that we're doing something special and different, we're doing it for the whole nation and the whole nation needs to pay for it and almost nobody actually, to be honest, fails to use our services. We've got to retain our reach to the population at 90 per cent plus to make this licence fee system work and be sustained but at the moment we are doing that. And I'm actually optimistic we can do that for another indefinite period.

Newshost:
Now N. Benson from Swindon in Wiltshire asks: "Why are you launching new digital channels that a majority of licence payers will not be able to view - do you consider this a good use of our licence money?"

Gavyn Davies:
We're worrying about this because at the moment actually about half the population, a little more than that if you measure it in households, but in terms of people and heads about half of the population cannot receive our digital services, so it's a balance, we have to make sure that we don't spend too much of their money on services they can't receive. And if we didn't believe that one day quite soon everyone will be able to receive these services I think we'd have a problem in justifying this spend. But at the moment I think it's a bit like the launch of BBC 2 and 625 lines in the late 60s, early 70s, where the additional costs of that were not initially - the services, sorry, were not initially receivable by everybody, not everybody could receive those services. But we still felt that it was something we should do to move the BBC into the new world of technology that was about to develop. And as long as everybody eventually could receive the services we thought that was justified. Same today - as long as everybody eventually can get these services we think it's justified to launch them and if we didn't do it that way round we'd never make any progress, if we waited until everybody had a digital television set before launching these services we'd always be last in the field, and actually probably nobody would ever bother getting a digital TV because there wouldn't be any services to watch.

Newshost:
But there is a problem, is there not, with the fact that the BBC is reliant upon platforms such as BskyB, are you able to divulge anything along the lines of the BBC's efforts to get free to air digital terrestrial TV off the ground in a way that they're going to be more effective than the ITV digital channels?

Gavyn Davies:
Well we've been in negotiations with ITV and others in order to try and achieve this and let me just explain to people what this means. Free to air DTT means digital channels received through your aerial with a box, a set to box, between the aerial and the television set. We're hoping that if negotiations go well both with the industry and with the government we will be able to make such a system feasible for the majority of the population reasonably soon and the set top box manufacturers - the people who make the boxes - that won't be the BBC incidentally and we won't subsidise the boxes, but the manufacturers like PACE tell us they think they can make a box for less than a �100 that will enable people to plug it into their aerial, plug in the TV and get all of our digital channels and that will certainly help a lot. So we've put a lot of effort into this and we'll have to see how these negotiations pan out in the next period of time ahead.

Newshost:
Robson Stroud from Leeds asks: "Do you think that it is a shame that where once Labour is now obsessed with control over the medium of communication and the retention of power at all costs in the appointment of a Labour supporting director general and chairman the primary example of Labour's politicisation of public life?"

Gavyn Davies:
Well you know in the '80s at one point all three top officials in the BBC - the chairman, the vice-chairman and the director general - all came from the Conservative Party. There's been a tradition in the BBC's history that the governors come from all parts of the political spectrum and right now we have 11 out of 12 governors actually in place, I think offhand I would say we have at least as many Conservative supporters as we do Labour supporters but the key point is that when a governor becomes a governor, when a chairman becomes chairman and a DG becomes DG, they have to leave their political affiliations outside of the BBC before they come in. And I find no trouble in doing that at all. I was a member of the Labour Party, I resigned that position because I thought it was important to signal to people that in a new role any political affiliation has gone out of the window as far as I'm concerned. And that's been the tradition of all previous chairmen - the last one was a Conservative before he became chairman he did the same thing, I never saw any political bias from him when I worked under him. And the mix that exists on the governors of different political views in terms of what they had when they came into the organisation is an important part of our representation of the licence fee payers. And I think it would be very odd if you said the only people you can have as governors of the BBC are people who've never before been a member of a political party, I think it would be infeasible to do that. So as long as there's a mix and as long as there's a clear cut abandonment of any political biases once you enter the governor's chamber the system words.

Newshost:
Does it irritate you this accusation put at your doorstep of being Tony's cronyism from the media, does that get in the way in establishing your rule over the organisation?

Gavyn Davies:
Well I have to say I'm surprised I get this in particular compared to previous chairmen, I mean most previous chairmen have had similar histories and people have tended to come out of public life and public environment in a way that previously hasn't led them to have political affiliations. Those people have typically been appointed directly by either the Prime Minister or by the Secretary of State for Culture in a very opaque manner. In my case when I became vice-chairman of the BBC I went through this public appointments process, which I mentioned, and then when Christopher Bland went to BT and I became chairman I went through it again. So I've been through this public appointments process twice now. And I feel it's time we moved on and looked at what the BBC's actually doing now that I'm chairman - is it biased? I mean you tell me but I don't think so.

Newshost:
And on that point I mean in terms of complaints is there any developments with the reforms you're making in the governance of the BBC what effectively will there be in the way of changes to complaints such as bias for example?

Gavyn Davies:
Well in terms of political bias one of the things the Government said when they established Ofcom was that that was such a core part of what the governors have always done at the BBC that it should be left entirely with the governors. There's lots of other things that we do now that Ofcom is going to take over but bias and impartiality is not one of them. Complaints - there's a really transparent complaints procedure which we're hoping to improve and make even more transparent. The first port of call for a complaint to the BBC is with the programme complaints unit which is part of the director general's empire, they make a ruling and if the complainant is not satisfied then he or she can appeal to the governors and the governors word is the final word. So essentially it stays in the hands of the governors.

Newshost:
Gavyn Davies thank you very much for joining us.

Gavyn Davies:
Thank you very much.

Newshost:
And that's, I'm afraid, all we've got time for. Thank you very much for your questions, we've got through most of them today. From me, Andrew Simmons a very good bye.