Subject to budgetary restrictions which have caused massive cuts in its costs in recent years, the BBC is being dealt a new blow.

Boris Johnson's government announced on Monday January 17 that it had frozen for two years the amount of the audiovisual license fee which finances three quarters of the media institution's budget.

Eventually, the British Minister of Culture, Nadine Dorries, even wants to abolish this tax of 159 pounds sterling (190 euros). She believes in a tweet that "the time when the elderly were threatened with prison sentences and when bailiffs knocked on doors is over".

The freezing of this precious financial windfall should lead to a shortfall estimated at 2 billion pounds, even though the BBC had called for an increase in the license fee in a country where inflation is more than 5%.

"A freeze over the next two years means that the BBC will now have to absorb inflation," the bosses of the public group, chairman Richard Sharp and chief executive Tim Davie, said in a statement.

The BBC's "revenues for its UK services are already 30% lower than they were a decade ago," they said.

The BBC accused of interpersonality and elitism

Respected for its ten channels, its forty local stations and its 460 million listeners and viewers around the world, the BBC is a monument of the world of information which will celebrate its centenary this year. But the BBC is also a formidable machine for producing successful series (including "Peaky Blinders", "Sherlock" or more recently "Vigil") and documentaries translated and exported to all continents. However, the public group, which operates without advertising, "will have to reduce its expenditure by hundreds of millions of pounds in order to balance its accounts", warns the daily The Guardian. The cuts in the staffing of this behemoth therefore risk leading to closures of services, layoffs,even a reduction in the number of dramas and programs produced.

In the camp of Boris Johnson, these announcements were accompanied by attacks against a public service deemed too leftist, too elitist and too London.

“The era of public television is over,” said a close friend of Nadine Dorries in the Daily Mail.

The minister herself had already attacked the BBC in the weeks following her appointment in 2021, judging that the group's journalists "all come from the same background, they all have a certain political bias, they all think the same and they all have the same way of speaking. So, yes, they talk a lot about diversity, but not about children of working-class origin, and that has to change."

Brexit, breaking point with the Johnson camp

"Brexit marked a breaking point between the BBC and the Johnson camp among the Conservatives," notes Thibaud Harrois, lecturer in contemporary British civilization at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, interviewed by France 24. "Pro-Johnson believe that the The BBC campaigned against leaving the European Union and that they should sanction it, but this is not proven by any study or specific facts. In the weeks following the formation of Boris Johnson's government in 2019, some members of the executive even boycotted Radio 4, the media deemed "intellectual and elitist" which crystallizes the most tensions, refusing to intervene on its airwaves.

On the BBC side, accusations of bias are not taken lightly. The group made public in October 2021 a plan to improve its impartiality, with a regular review of its productions, increased transparency, a relocation of certain services to the provinces and a tightening of the rules governing the speaking out of its employees on social networks. A futile mea culpa, since it was ignored by the government, determined to attack the public information service.

And for good reason: according to many observers, the royalty freeze announcements are part of a political maneuver aimed at saving Boris Johnson, mired in party scandals organized in Downing Street in full confinement.

"These announcements do not occur at any time. In the current context, it is a way of diverting the attention of the British population", agrees Thibaud Harrois.

A possible privatization

These budget cuts are also part of a neoliberal logic specific to the conservative camp, says Sarah Pickard, lecturer in contemporary British civilization at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, contacted by France 24. "Why should we charge a fee when multiple media exist in the country? ', argues Boris Johnson's team. This de facto amounts to leaving more room for private channels, "she believes.

According to Boris Johnson's plan – a fee abolished in five years – the BBC will have to negotiate by 2027 with the government to define a new funding model.

However, among the possible options are a privatization of the group, the arrival of advertising on the air or the end of free access for certain content.

With its BBC World branch and its foreign-language editorial staff, the public institution nevertheless represents a model of success for British soft power, which risks being affected by the announced budget cut.

"Those who criticize the BBC in the government do not think of the soft power aspect. They are pro-Brexit, focused on national debates. The rest is not their priority", continues Sarah Pickard.

It remains to be seen whether the BBC will intend to pass on the cuts to its international programs, or whether it will decide to reduce its presence on the national level to calm things down and save the ship.

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