‘Now is the time to fight for public service broadcasting’ BBC Director General tells Wales Screen Summit
BBC Director General Tim Davie urged the industry to “fight for public service broadcasting” but admitted the “jeopardy is high” as he closed the Wales Screen Summit 2025.
In a sit-down interview with BBC TV and radio presenter Steffan Powell at the end of the two-day conference, Mr Davie said that the industry is facing a “mixed picture” but he remains optimistic for the future.
“It’s a fascinating, demanding, wonderful time, but it’s mixed,” he said.
“On the positive side of the picture there’s a couple of things. One is we have never been more needed.
“Pursuing truth with no agenda. Boy is that needed now. I don’t just mean that in news terms. I mean natural history, I mean that in documentary, some of the things we’ve seen come out of Wales in terms of investigative programming.”
Home grown content
He added: “I like Netflix, I really admire Disney, they are fantastic companies, but they are not doing what we are doing.
“We have this amazing benefit of a licence fee that everyone is in on and that means we can build from the ground up, we don’t have to do everything purely on global efficiency. We can actually create home grown content.”
When asked about the BBC’s competition with digital platforms like YouTube, Mr Davie acknowledged the need for better prominence and cooperation but remained confident that the BBC has a role to play.
“I think we have challenges,” he said. “Work is getting more expensive to deliver, the world is becoming more polarised, everybody has a view about the BBC – that has always been the case – but I think it’s getting tougher. You have just got more competition for your time.
“YouTube are on the march. I think you have got to be on your toes at the BBC and not take anything for granted.”
Jeopardy
Mr Davie expanded on the importance of serving the public, restoring societal trust in the BBC, and moving production of content towards England’s regions and the UK’s other nations.
“I think there’s been a little bit of ‘bring the BBC out of London’ as a favour. I don’t see it that way. I see it as essential to delivering value for the licence fee. It’s a very, very smart thing to do to be close to people.”
Closing the interview, Mr Davie said: “It is the time to fight for public service broadcasting. The jeopardy is high.”
Further information about the schedule of the summit can be found at walesscreensummit.com
The full interview can be viewed here.
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Why does BBC4 happily broadcast subtitled Danish, French, Swedish, Italian, Arabic and German dramas and films, but never Welsh, Irish or Gaelic content, Mr Davie?
Too much funding.
A competent organisation would use its’ excellent back catalogue of nature / science / open university courses and create a new news organisation with Tata Play to compete with Discovery Channel – instead BBC wants more handouts / no focus on making owning a TV easier for low-income individuals.
The content exists, the so-called British Broadcasting Corporation decides its audience in England shouldn’t see it.
The bloke needs to be replaced. Boosts for Tory and farage over all else. And Gibb, boot them out.
Back in 1990s BBC has news studios across Wales – now aggregated into the most expensive part of Wales in central Cardiff; BBC in England moved jobs from London to Manchesters media city – levelling-up. Clearly BBC in Wales has too much funding.
Ireland has lots of films made; BBC could fund if it was not paying such high office costs in Cardiff.
He has a captive audience who pay £4.5B per year for a license to watch drivel! This needs to be stopped and if there is a need for the BBC then they can introduce a subscription for viewing of its content. But that is strkngly opposed by the establishment because they would have to justify its content to shareholders and it would mean they would have to increase their level of competency as they compete against Disney, Netflix, Prime, Apple etc??