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The perpetuation of the BBC in its dumbed-down, box-ticking form is damaging our national culture

Simon Heffer

As the BBC celebrates its centenary, it might be time to review its contribution to culture: which, currently, is unimpressive. Yet looking back, whether on wireless or television, the Corporation’s record is immense. It broadcast its first classical music concert in its first year, on Radio 3, which remains its cultural epicentre, continuing to champion live performances, new artists and contemporary composers: and so it must. Great documentary series (The Great War, Civilisation, The British Empire, The Ascent of Man) were conspicuous, but now all are in the distressingly distant past. The lone survivor is a veteran of that era, David Attenborough, with his stunning wildlife series. The Corporation has been subject to political forces, some self-inflicted. A determination to dilute anything that might be interpreted as elitism strongly prevails.

The BBC is nearing a fork in the road, but the direction it takes will not be of its choosing. Only the brave would assert that the Conservative Party, which is highly sceptical about the

BBC, will win the next general election, but if it does, the hitherto formal renewal of the Corporation’s charter will be in jeopardy. The entirely unsuitable and unthoughtful Nadine Dorries has, thank God, resigned as culture secretary: but a view remains in the Conservative

Party not so much that the BBC is institutionally Leftist (though in large tracts of it, it is) but that it is dumbed down and unworthy of the funds and support given to a state broadcaster.

However if, as seems likely, we have a Labour government, the BBC can relax. Labour will make a point of preserving it, not least because so many Conservatives dislike it. The long-overdue reassessment of using a household poll tax – the licence fee – to fund the BBC is unlikely to happen either. I hope there is someone sufficiently enlightened in the Labour Party to grasp that the perpetuation of the BBC in its present form is damaging our national culture, and that the determination to make it better should be a matter above politics. Sadly, there is no sign of its reaching that happy state.

The BBC’s defenders will refer, one supposes, to the immaculate job it did this year in presenting first the Platinum Jubilee, and then the late Queen’s funeral ceremonies: there is no question that the Corporation is still capable of rising to the occasion – even if, for the most solemn events, it has to call the great David Dimbleby out of retirement at the age of almost 84 to do them.

But there is simply too much trash on the BBC, whether on radio or television. I appreciate that tastes vary, not everyone holds a PhD and some people come to the BBC simply for entertainment; but what is now almost absent from the schedules (except on Radio 3 and, very occasionally, on the sharply deterioriating Radio 4) is anything that Lord Reith might have classed as educational, at whatever level. BBC Four is on the verge of closing down; the great 26-part adaptations (notably The Forsyte Saga and The Pallisers) are but a distant memory. Anything the BBC now does that calls itself “historical” is routinely riddled with laughable inaccuracies.

There is simply too much trash on the BBC, and a lack of anything educational

There is an unpleasant pressure to conform with the political fashions of the day. Even Radio 3 has been forced in on the act.

Its search for black composers to put in its schedules recently led to a Composer of the Week series (typically one of finest things on the BBC) on “The Harlem Renaissance”. I don’t dispute Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington’s talent, but they are not classical musicians. Non-classical music has plenty of space around the

BBC and classical has too little, so it is tiresome to see it eaten up in this way. Also tedious is the way in which the not especially good black composer Samuel ColeridgeTaylor is feted, as is the even more mediocre Florence Price, who ticks two boxes, being a woman.

One day, we shall have unquestionably great black classical composers who deserve routinely to elbow Bach out of the schedules. For now, we don’t. Engaging in tokenism is patronising and offensive, and does nothing to advance the cause of true high culture. But such advancement no longer seems to interest the BBC.

First Person

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2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/article/281638194230431

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