Soft power

 

I realise that it is hardly likely to come as a surprise that I am a paid up supporter of a BBC supported by the licence fee -- or by some modified version of it that would deliver appropriately generous public funding. And I applauded what Armando Ianucci had to say in his lecture the other week: if a private business was as successful as the BBC, it would be congratulated, not criticised for over-reaching or becoming bloated.

OK, you might say, I wouldn���t bite the hand that feeds me, would I? I can only reply that if you wanted to buy a yacht, making documentaries on the Romans wouldn���t be a sensible way to fund it. True there is decent compensation for the time, but it���s not the money that���s the reason for doing it.

I guess I am one of those who simply fails to understand why any government (even those who deny it) would want to unpick the basic rationale of the BBC as a public service broadcaster. Anyone who whinges about it should try a few months in the USA and see what the commercialised world of tv and radio is really like (with some plucky but underfunded bits of PBS on the margins). The idea of never being able to watch anything without an ad break every 15 minutes is not a happy one-- and even PBS radio is interrupted by regular appeals for the listeners/viewers to give money to keep the station on air.

But it is very striking to listen to what people abroad say about the BBC. Over the last few months I have been filming a new Roman history documentary, often on public archaeological sites in a number of different countries in what was the Roman empire. What is striking is how often people come up -- from as far afield as Ukraine and Australia -- who have watched and enjoyed our earlier BBC series and are keen to say so. And when, to others, we politely ask if we could have a little space to film, and they say 'who are you filming for?' and we reply 'the BBC', they almost say 'oh the BBC, yes of course'.

Now I realise there may be some preselection here. BBC haters are more likely to turn away and huff and puff than to engage in an argument about the vices of the corporation. But is still leaves you thinking that the BBC is one of the (few?) UK institutions that commands favour and respect overseas. Of course it does, try Italian tv!

So why wreck it?