BBC complacency is the summary of a slamming report on the publicly funded broadcaster

If you’ve yet to work you way through the various reports noted on the UK Parliament website, you may not picked up on the report of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), slamming the BBC complacency.

The full list of points noted is damning; with BBC, ‘at a critical juncture’ in its history, appears ‘complacent and unconcerned’ in the face of a series of commercial and financial challenges:

> the time people spend using its services is declining

> it recently lost its place as the media provider that young people spend most time with

> around 200,000 new households each year choose to opt out of paying for the TV licence

> licence fee sales have fallen by nearly half a million in the past two years

there is considerable uncertainty about the impact of the loss of government funding for free TV licences for the over-75s.

While we have no agenda against the BBC, and continually praise their output, we have ourselves noted (see our analysis) the BBC’s commercial plans don’t seem to stack up to the basic financials. The BBC recognises the need to evolve, but is it moving too slowly? This at a time when the BBC is also heavily criticised in the Dyson report. An organisation as big and complex as the BBC will also have challenges, but the consequences will have both direct and indirect impacts on the way we consume television in the UK. You can read the full comments from the PAC in their documents linked from this article.

As ever, we’ll keep you posted.