As one might expect from a 103-year-old organisation, the BBC has a very high opinion of itself. Outside Broadcasting House stands a statue of George Orwell. Inscribed next to it is a quotation by him: ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ A noble sentiment, and a more flattering testament to the corporation than Orwell’s description of it after working there during the second world war: ‘Something halfway between a girl’s school and a lunatic asylum.’
In his growing outspokenness, the football pundit Gary Lineker might have thought that he was channelling Orwell. Even before he was accused of sharing anti-Semitic emojis on Instagram, his handsome salary and his unwillingness to trim his social media output to fit his employer’s impartiality rules were making his role as Match of the Day presenter untenable. Yet the Lineker of today curiously embodies Auntie better than anyone else: smug, expensive, out of touch.
Our national broadcaster resembles the monasteries of Tudor England on the eve of their dissolution. Once a focal point for enlightenment, the BBC now houses a privileged and costly class that has forgotten its duty to the public. Mired in scandal, financially unviable and marooned in a changing world, the corporation is ripe for reformation.
The BBC was created in 1922 in response to the proliferation of radio. In the United States this had led to the swift creation of hundreds of stations. Frightened by this audio anarchy, Britain’s six leading radio firms established a single, state-approved broadcaster. Under John Reith’s direction, the BBC aimed to make available ‘the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere’ to the masses.
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