BBC should not have to justify ‘very existence’ every 10 years, says chairman

Transcript

00:00Well, let me first say that I'm raising these ideas

00:04for constitutional innovation,

00:05of which Permanent Charter is one of them.

00:07I do think it's just odd that we're the only chart body

00:10that's reviewed every 10 years.

00:12And the problem with that,

00:13it's not about judging our performance

00:16or measuring what we do or holding us to account.

00:18It's got nothing to do with that.

00:20It's about this constant every 10 years,

00:23but as it happens, it becomes almost regular.

00:27A root and branch review of everything we do,

00:30including our very existence.

00:32Now you take something like Channel 4,

00:34which is brought into being by statute.

00:36Well, they don't review whether it should exist or not,

00:38but it's still properly governed

00:39and there's a proper oversight.

00:43It just seems to me a distraction to have this.

00:47Of course, like with legislation,

00:48you can always repeal it,

00:50or you can always revoke a charter,

00:52but this is a really time-consuming thing

00:55where you're just going through the detail

00:58including, in reality, it is possible.

01:02On January 28th, BBC stops existing

01:04and the government just sells off its assets.

01:06I mean, what we should do,

01:08the government should have a confidence

01:11in saying the BBC is a really good thing.

01:15And we should, of course,

01:17review it and measure its performance,

01:19but we can't challenge its very existence

01:23and everything that it does, every little bit.

01:25And that's, we don't need to do that.

01:27We can maintain proper governance and oversight

01:30without having this 10-year review.