Farewell, Tim

I don’t know anyone who does not like or rate Tim Davie.

From all I know and have heard, he’s a very decent chap who has tried to do the best he can. I hope he manages, very soon, to put his feet up at last. I cannot even begin to imagine the pressure of that job when no moment is your own and just about every weekend is disturbed by a text bluntly signalling another random major crisis.

The challenges he has faced are utterly unprecedented. He is not the first to resign amidst a major incident – but his is the first reign to have faced quite so many along the way. The writers of any drama about a national broadcaster could never have dreamed up quite so many twists and turns, mirroring a society pulled apart in so many ways.

He troubled to reply to my letters – and I was amused he texted me once in error thinking I was a journalist.

His job is too much for just about any human being, because the BBC itself is now unmanageable.

For clarity, I support the concept of the BBC utterly. It is one of the truly marvellous things about the United Kingdom. I know many who are infuriated by many aspects of what it does – but they would fight to the death to keep it. It is very special – and a huge number of gifted people go above and beyond when working there to do their very best work. They are quietly proud to have the lanyard around their neck.

But it is troubled. I doubt whether any one person can run the thing when too many crises distract you from actually making progress.

Like any large organisation, it is wholly dysfunctional and terminally ill. The great employees who defend the BBC vigorously, simultaneously confess quietly to friends that it’s a mad place which causes sensible people to shake their heads in disbelief.

Intelligent, talented BBC staff only manage to wend their careful, enduring career path with an enviable degree of tolerance, lip-biting and covering for others who care less.  The creative sorts are usually less tolerant and the BBC either spits them out or vice versa. The BBC doesn’t really get talent – so it’s stopped using the label. Then there is a rump of complacent over-paid, under-skilled BBC folk with the sole objective of rising through the ranks and lasting through to retirement, avoiding doing anything wrong by not doing very much at all.

It is so large, no manager can truly manage. They can look no employee in the eye and reassure them – as the influence of any one manager is so small. The BBC is too big, employing too many people, spending too much money on doing too many things. 

In essence, its role springs from the original Charter which said it had to do everything for everybody because there was no-one else around who would. That is no longer the case.

There is a question of regulation too. Although I had worries about the BBC Trust, it proved an effective regulator curbing some of the BBC executive silliness which spreads like a deathly virus when unchecked - in pursuit of the latest peculiarly-branded  objective for a few months until it forgets and then pursues another.

By comparison, Ofcom’s semi-detached approach – which suits some industries  and numerical matters ably and conscientiously - is simply not suited for judging what is high quality distinctive programming and what is not. That is not what Ofcom does best – and a new DG needs the right regulation around them to insulate them from all manner of challenges.

In a sense, it has been content/talent matters which has let the BBC down - and they were not Tim's field of expertise - and, aside from complaint-handling, they are not Ofcom's. Never has sound editorial judgement and effective regulation been quite as important as now. The BBC is under attack - sometimes unfairly. Amidst the political storms, I do not subscribe to the conspiracy theories about the BBC as it is frankly too complex an animal to pull any such plot off ably - but there are almost accidental biases which creep in when you get too many people of the same sort all working for the same huge influential broadcaster.

Given my views on BBC local radio, I have to attach some of the blame for its utter destruction at Tim’s door. I doubt it was ever top of his shopping list for consideration – and therein likely lies the problem. Tony Hall was a fan – albeit I would question his programming thinking - whilst Tim had a different vision. Like so many BBC management at Head Office through the ages, I am not persuaded he ever really understood it. The latest Ofcom consultation on the latest Operating Licence changes, riddled with material inaccuracies and naivety culled from the BBC’s case is evidence of that.  At a time when local democracy and communities are under threat, BBC local radio has failed.

The BBC’s scale and scope must be addressed in the new Charter period. The BBC now is supposed to do the best for local radio in Carlisle, whilst playing its role in a global communications market. It is trying to establish what role it should play online – in social media and podcasting alongside addressing huge audiences and challenges in traditional media. It doesn't have to do it all.

Its income is at an all-time high – albeit there are cost pressures and real concerns over licence fee refusers - and its budgets remain eye watering. Sometimes cash is spent fighting for properties commercial operators are more than happy to pay for.  And some of the public money could generate much more value in different hands.

It will be the next Charter rather than the next DG which will really govern the BBC’s future. Will its Mission - as a broadcaster or publisher - be the right one for the decades to come? I really, really hope so.

I hope Tim now gets a chance now to reflect on the things he's proud of - and I'd like to pre-order his biography now. I suspect ITV Studios would love to do the drama.