A Conservative victory at next year’s general election would have serious consequences for BBC Russell T. Davies has warned, suggesting the party would “dismantle” the BBC.
Speaking to The Mirror, Davies says that freezing the license fee would be only the beginning:
“It’s going to be appalling. Jeremy Hunt [Shadow Culture Secretary] has absolutely attacked the licence fee and then suddenly, a few weeks ago, he back-tracked and said, ‘Oh no, we won’t interfere with the charter’. They want the votes but once they get in they are going to be absolutely vicious. I think the BBC has got five or six years left. They’ll dismantle it slowly. It’ll get smaller and smaller until it just supports Radio 4 and some news.”
The outgoing showrunner suggests the Tories will be deceptive to get what they want:
“To them it’s a tax and they want to get rid of it. They’ll freeze the licence fee and persuade Daily Mail readers it’s the right thing to do by saying they’re getting rid of all those digital channels they don’t watch, that’s the language they’ll use.”
And Davies doesn’t believe politicians watch television the way normal citizens do:
“I think politicians only experience broadcasting through their own prism, through the Today programme and through the interviews they do. They don’t sit down and watch Coronation Street or EastEnders. They don’t live for television like the rest of us. It’ll go slowly, because if someone stood up and said, ‘We’re going to get rid of the BBC tomorrow’, the heartland of Britain would rise up. But things do disappear - look at the way children’s programmes went from ITV, they just slipped away quietly. When the politicians meet their constituents it’s the last thing they’ll talk about. The campaigns will be about hospitals and prisons and schools - not television, that’ll be very low down the list. No one’s going to win or lose an election because of television - but it is a huge part of our culture.”
Russell’s swansong as showrunner can be seen this Christmas and New Year’s Day on BBC One with The End of Time Parts one and Two.
