'Public needs the BBC more than ever', says corporation's director of vision

The BBC is part of the 'cultural common land' of Britain, highly and more increasingly valued by the public and needed more than ever, BBC director of vision Jana Bennett said last night.

Speaking at an LSE Media Group event, Bennett, who studied International Relations at the university, engaged in a sturdy defence of the embattered corporation.

She did not focus on recent remarks by James Murdoch and other commercial rivals about the corporation's licence fee funding. Instead Bennett said her study of military strategy at the LSE had proved very useful in her professional and corporate life: "It pays to know about military strategy in an organisation like the BBC."

Bennett, who is in charge of 4,000 staff and a spend of £1.4 billion annually (21 per cent of the licence fee collected), said her tactic for the survival of the BBC was simple: widespread public support and need.

She said BBC value polls had shown that the British public now valued and trusted the corporation more than they did five years ago. The market needs the BBC to maintain standards, she added.

"We've conditioned the market to expect quality," said Bennett, adding that the BBC increasingly fulfils its public service broadcasting with genres such as children's programming, which are now seen as PSB and 'the responsibility of the BBC'.

But Bennett did recognise the technological and cultural changes currently taking place in British broadcasting. "The ecology of PSB has changed dramatically," she said, while there is a need for other players in the game, in particular Channel 4, which is 'more important than ever as a public service broadcaster'.

The BBC takes its PSB responsibilities seriously and will continue to invest in this area despite the massive media recession, said Bennett.

But 'it [the BBC] could not and would not stand still', she stressed and must 'continue to reinvent itself'. The development of the iPlayer is an example of this strategy and is now 'a major viewing portal'.

The BBC's future may also reside in its past and the corporation must unlock its massive archive of programmers and documents for wider public use, said Bennett.

This 'national aide memoire' would ensure the corporation stays at the centre of the 'cultural common space' and that the current BBC Charter and licence fee settlement would not be the last 'even with a change of government'.

"The game is far from up. Britain needs the BBC more than ever," she told her audience.

John Mair is a television producer and associate senior lecturer in journalism at Coventry University.

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