Cutting red tape for a more creative BBC - commentary on the Trust's review of service licences

As a former programme maker, I know that setting boundaries to creativity is a finely balanced thing. Too little structure risks creating programmes which don’t hit the mark with audiences; but too much can slow down the creative process. With this in mind, the Trust has today published a simpler set of service licences for each of the BBC’s TV, radio and online public services.

Like a contract with audiences, service licences set out what’s expected. This is important for those watching or listening at home, but also for competitors in the industry seeking certainty about BBC activities. And because the licences are used to measure BBC performance, we’ve made some changes to make them clearer and easier to understand.

Having asked those inside and outside the BBC – including some of the BBC’s major stakeholders - what they think of these changes, we now believe that our updated licences are a modest improvement on a system which we have found (and which others recognise) works well.

Without relaxing the commitments covered in the licences, we’ve simplified some of the regulatory wording, and we’ve introduced a short introduction to the licences for any member of the public or stakeholder who comes to them without fuller knowledge of BBC governance.

In particular, we took a careful look at the use of quotas or targets - a subject of much debate over the years. While these should never exist for the sake of it, we concluded that quotas are helpful in some areas alongside qualitative commitments.

For example, remembering that BBC One’s serious arts output nearly disappeared under a previous governance regime, we are clear that a minimum quota for arts and music on BBC One alongside a small quota for religious programmes, is necessary.

Our review concluded that BBC One and Two’s quotas for factual programming – which covered everything from Frozen Planet to Cash in the Attic – did not add anything to our ability to govern these services effectively and needed to be removed. Alongside the Ofcom-regulated quotas for news, current affairs and regional programmes, the Trust now only imposes two further quotas on the BBC’s two biggest services.

We’ll continue to use the licences to hold those who run BBC services to account, reporting our main findings publicly each year in the Annual Report and through our on-going programme of reviews of each of the BBC’s services. And, as always, we welcome input from interested stakeholders as we continue this important work.