Making the BBC worse

The BBC licence fee may be on its way out. Amid the partisan takes, Ed West offers a sobering assessment for conservatives of how a commercial BBC could be even more political and still dominate the market.

It could well be that a privatised BBC is even worse. We wouldn’t get a more impartial broadcaster aiming to steer a middle course, we’d get something like CNN, liberal-leaning but with far fewer constraints. The BBC would be far more biased as a private enterprise, and with its huge archives and cultural capital, it would still be a powerful force.

Without a state broadcaster, we’d end up with the American problem of having a “‘neutral’” (heavily ironic double scare-quotes) and a conservative media. Because of Britain’s size and its heavily urban population, the dominant broadcaster would still steer to the Left, but would try to maximise its revenue by flattering the metropolitan prejudices of its audiences. As in the US, conservatives would be the punchline, and now there would be no redress because, unlike the old BBC, it wouldn’t be burdened with the responsibility of caring what you think.

As I’ve written elsewhere, when you lose a culture war, even the blessings of private enterprise won’t save you from the consequences.

Read the whole thing, before Ed follows the trend and restricts his Substack to paying subscribers only.