The BBC faces severe challenges if it wants to move to a fully digital future and take on the global streamers, warns the UK’s Public Accounts Committee.
In a new report, the House of Commons committee states that the broadcaster “currently lacks a plan for delivering its services in the digital future it envisages”. It also adds that the broadcaster is being “held back” by uncertainty over funding and regulation.
To achieve its goals, the BBC must work with government and other stakeholders, including on the rollout of broadband across the United Kingdom, the report adds.
The BBC also needs to recruit and retain more staff in order to help it be competitive in a digital world, says the committee, which adds that it currently has a 23 per cent turnover rate among staff in its digital section.
Due to licence fee changes and inflation, the BBC now estimates it will have a nearly £400 million a year funding gap by 2027-28.
The Public Affairs Committee said it is not convinced that the BBC currently knows the detail of the resources needed to achieve its digital plans or whether the £500 million it intends to invest annually by 2025 will be sufficient to also allow it to plan for an internet-only future. The BBC will need to “move more quickly” and in parallel develop its data security policies to ensure they are fit for purpose as it collects more user data, warned the committee.
Dame Meg Hillier MP chair of the committee said: “The BBC has a careful and difficult balance to strike here – it has committed to an internet-only future by the 2030s but knows it is essential that there are ways for people, especially children and others who cannot or do not easily access the internet, to access its services. Licence fee payers must be able to keep our options open.
“The BBC is being held back in a yesteryear of TV and radio by uncertainty over funding and regulation, and by the DCMS Department’s constant delays and down-scaling of national fast broadband rollout plans. The BBC fulfils an essential public service function – it must have the planning, resources and wider infrastructure support to do so,” she added.
