The Spectator’s Notes | 6 March 2010

Mark Thompson’s strategic review of the BBC may be momentous in its implications, even though its actual cutbacks are minor (admit it: had you ever heard of, much less listened to 6 Music?).

Mark Thompson’s strategic review of the BBC may be momentous in its implications, even though its actual cutbacks are minor (admit it: had you ever heard of, much less listened to 6 Music?). This is because it has abandoned the idea that the BBC has to do everything. Until now, the BBC has followed a ‘wider still and wider’ policy. It has defended every piece of junk and every market grab on the grounds that it must cater for the greatest possible variety of tastes and audiences in order to serve all licence-fee payers. That way madness — culminating in Jonathan Ross, his millions and his torment of Andrew Sachs — has lain. It has proved impossible to argue that the BBC has the distinctive values which it is pledged to uphold in its Charter.