Bishops support the Beeb's ethos

by Angus Macdonald THE Catholic Church in England and Wales has thrown its weight behind a committedly public service BBC, funded by the licence fee, and providing high quality programmes for a wide variety of audiences.
In what amounted to a resounding vote of confidence in the existing public service ethos of the corporation, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales this week told National Heritage Secretary Peter Brooke: • The BBC should not try to limit itself to a narrow range of programmes, but should continue to "cater for people of many different tastes and interests".
• BBC local radio and regional television should be strengthened.
• The licence fee should be retained as the "best way" of funding the corporation whilst allowing it editorial independence.
• The BBC should continue to uphold its "traditionally high" standards of taste and decency, which had seen a general decline in recent years.
• Whilst the BBC should strive for value for money, quality should come before cost.
The hierarchy was responding to last year's Government green paper on the corporation which invited listeners and viewers, as well as interested bodies such as the Churches, to give their view of the corporation's future following the "revolutionary" changes of the 1990 Broadcasting Act. The act opened up the airwaves to commercial stations and sparked a national debate over the future of public service broadcasting.
Dr Jim McDonnell. director of the Catholic Communications Centre, said the Church was keen the BBC should not be slimmed down. "We mustn't throw out the baby with 'the bathwater. We mustn't treat the BBC as a mechanism you can tinker with it embodies a way of looking at broadcasting which is very precious," he said. Broadcasting should be seen as "primarily a cultural activity. rather than just a commercial one". hesaid.
In a veiled reference to the recent difficulties of the BBC Board of Governors, the bishops said: "We support moves to define clearly the respective functions of the BBC Governors and the Board of Management". They said "a wide range of interests" should be represented on the board. and stressed the need for appointment procedures which would ensure it was "genuinely representative of the public as a whole".
The Governors have faced criticism for becoming involved in the day-to-day running of the BBC and for their part in the recent scandal over Director General John Birt's pay.