&c1=usa&c2=(none)&c3=The+Guardian&c4=BBC,Edinburgh+festival+2000,Media,Edinburgh+festival,Culture+section,Festivals+(Culture)&c5=&c6=John+OFarrell&c7=2000_08_09){kind=small}
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 9 2000 17.46 BST
Later this month Greg Dyke will be making a major speech on the future of the BBC at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. Given the usual manic atmosphere of the Edinburgh festival, all he needs to do is open his speech with a couple of good gags and he'll land himself a job presenting a new panel show on Channel 5.
The new director general's plans include setting up two new BBC channels to supplement BBC1 and BBC2. After a long and expensive consultancy by media strategists it has finally been decided that these channels will be named BBC3 and BBC4. They will incorporate BBC Choice (which most of us are unable to choose) and BBC Knowledge (which no one knows about), forming two exciting new specialised youth and culture channels.
Why is it that we have to have certain types of programmes bundled together on theme nights or on designated channels? If I ever have a programme controller to dinner I'm going to announce: "It's pudding night at John's house! Tonight's sumptuous four-course meal starts off with rhubarb crumble and custard. Then the main course, apple pie and cream, and that's followed by jam roly-poly and then bread-and-butter pudding to finish off."
The BBC's charter states that the corporation has a duty "to provide a properly balanced service consisting of a wide range of subject matter". It goes on to say: "Oh, and the BBC must also give Noel Edmonds a job for life", though many suspect that this bit was scrawled in later by a bearded man in a Mr Blobby costume. If the BBC goes down the road of specialised channels it will be in danger of losing the universal appeal that justifies the licence fee. We don't need one channel for every type of programme there is, as BBC News 24 has proved. It's still not clear whether the "24" refers to hours broadcast, millions spent or total viewers.
The debate on the future of broadcasting is hotting up because this autumn the government will publish a white paper on the future of communications. Submissions have been made by everyone who is concerned about the future of quality television - and Denise van Outen as well. All the BBC's top executives were invited to give their thoughts, but most of them failed to read the letter because it was not headed "Proposal for new celebrity gardening quiz hosted by Carol Vorderman".
Meanwhile, members of the Commons select committee on broadcasting have been spending a lot of time seeing how the BBC works at close hand; for example, that was actually Gerald Kaufman inside the Tinky-Winky costume. One of the most controversial proposals being mooted by the government was the abolition of the BBC board of governors. This has now been shelved, though it has been suggested that the board should contain more people with direct experience of broadcasting. So out would go Baroness Young of Old Scone and in would go Charlie Dimmock, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Wolf from Gladiators.
Perhaps the answer would be to make the board of governors justify itself in terms of viewer appeal. Instead of meeting in a posh boardroom, they should all have to live together Big Brother-style; locked inside one communal house with fly-on-the-wall cameras everywhere. Then, as well as watching them discuss the future of public service broadcasting, we can also see who gets off with whom. "Midnight on day three and Baroness Hogg is tip-toeing across the corridor into Sir Christopher Bland's bedroom." Viewers could then vote to have members thrown off the board if they didn't have enough tattoos or hadn't been helping with the washing-up.
This approach has to be the way forward. Instead of spending lots of time and money changing the corporation, the process of reform itself should be made into a whole new raft of BBC programmes. The TV Regulators From Hell, Have I Got Select Committee Reports for You and then finally Ready, Steady, Murdoch!
That way the reinvention of the corporation will be left to the programme-makers. This will culminate in BBC1's most ambitious makeover show yet. Carol Smillie will introduce two teams who will have just one weekend to transform the BBC from a bureaucratic public service broadcaster into an dynamic modern communications provider using a bit of MDF and some stencils from Homebase. "Okay Red Team, how are you getting on?"
"Well, we found this cellar full of archive sports programmes so we've knocked up a little channel called BBC Sports Gold."
Perhaps this is the big idea that Greg Dyke will unveil at the end of the month. Sadly, most of us will never find out. Even if his ideas are announced on his own network, his exciting vision of a popular and commercial BBC will be completely upstaged that weekend. It is the start of the football season and everyone will be watching the new Match of the Day over on ITV.
