Tim Davie on “national asset” BBC World Service: “We should be doubling the funding”

During an appearance on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast with Richard Osman and Marina Hyde, Davie highlighted the importance of the BBC as a public-service institution in a media landscape transformed by global streamers, political pressure, and declining trust.

He emphasized: “[The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the World Service] get hit with the current situation and the financial constraints… Someone just needs to go, ‘Enough, we're going to make a big call here and support this thing properly’. I honestly think it's so short-sighted not to do that.”

When answering a question about his perception of political bias in the BBC, Davie added to this point: “The BBC’s superpower is that I don't have to make a P&L [profit and loss presentation] work every quarter, or report to a stock exchange. Therefore, I can make slightly longer-term decisions, which may not be the most economically tight in the short-term, but make total sense in the long-term.”

He went on to argue that while it is possible to cover some of the service’s costs through advertising on the news channel in the right market – pointing to the organisation's “£2bn commercial arm” and “subscription business in the US” – it isn't realistic to fund the whole operation in this manner. He said: “There's not money in the news business in this way… You're not going to do the world service without government funding. Do I think it was a mistake to put it on the BBC licence fee payer? Absolutely. It was.”

On the topic of mistakes, Davie also briefly touched on Trump's ongoing legal action, confirming the scandal as a key reason for his decision to step away from his role, while maintaining: “We're fighting the case. We're defending it aggressively”.

However, when addressing the recent BAFTA controversy, Davie took a more defined stance. He insisted: “It is very clear they didn't hear that instance. They heard another instance of the same word, and they took it straight out… We've had to have learnings, we've moved people, we've done things… We deeply regret it was aired.”

Building his defense, Davie called attention to the many other stories the organisation runs, asserting that that of the 1,000 stories it runs, the one that didn't go right is taken selectively out of context to make a case, without any effort towards proportionality. He stated: “We're in an age where weaponisation is rife… Look at the entirety of the BBC output as a simultaneous fact, not one that negates the error.” He added: “I'm not excusing it, but proportionality is sometimes a little hard to find.”

Further, Davie warned: “It as a full-on crisis that people do not trust too many of our institutions… Trust is built by people absolutely believing that someone is acting their interest and they listen to them.” When it came to avenues to solve this problem, Davie turned away from simplistic claims of left- or right-wing bias and towards unconscious biases within the BBC, as well as the importance of addressing them actively. In particular, the executive underlined his work in moving resources beyond London to deliver value for audiences and public wellbeing.

For example, he recalled: “The biggest thing that we've had trouble shifting is socio-economic diversity… One of the things I'm proudest about is the number of apprentices in the BBC who come from different backgrounds… The overall media industry is about 15% from lower socio-economic backgrounds [meanwhile] I think the population is about mid-30%… What's the bias? Sometimes it's the way you look at life… It's much deeper than a pantomime left/right. It's an institutional flavour, and I've really tried to work on that. We are better than we've been, but I think there is a lot of work to do.”

The interview was released on the same day as Davie’s keynote speech at a Royal Television Society (RTS) event in London, during which he said: “Partnerships like Freely are critical but we should go further. It makes no sense to have fragmentation in an environment where Netflix and others are looking to scale up.” However, he clarified: “For the record, I agree with the Channel 4 chair, the BBC should not own Channel 4, reducing UK commissioners makes no sense."

At this event, the director general also reportedly declared that his successor should “have the energy to do it, skipping to the office saying, ‘I just lucked out here’.” He also advised that the BBC as a whole should “develop a little bit of swagger,” saying “We are not victims of circumstances. We can shape things”.

In response to the UK government’s BBC Charter Review consultation, the broadcaster recently published a 100-page response, urging radical reforms to its independence and funding model. Discover more here.