As Race To Replace Boris Johnson Moves Up A Gear, BBC & Channel 4 Focus Turns To Rishi Sunak & Liz Truss’s Record On Public Broadcasting – Analysis
deadline.comWith the race to replace Boris Johnson as next UK Prime Minister now down to the final two, bosses at BBC New Broadcasting House and Channel 4 Horseferry Road will be examining former Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s record on public broadcasting in minute detail.Both broadcasters took a battering from Johnson’s firebrand Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, via a recently announced review into the future of the BBC licence fee and, more existentially, legislation to privatize Channel 4.
The pubcasters will now be hoping these drastic moves can be reversed.Of concern to the BBC, however, Politico reported last week that Sunak has said in private that he would be willing to scrap the £159 ($190) per year annual licence fee and look to alternative funding models when the BBC Charter expires in 2027.
BBC bosses have said they are open to new models and are due to set out the principles of future funding in the coming weeks but losing a guaranteed £3.8B ($4.6B) a year would be a blow.During his seven years as an MP, Sunak has said little about the BBC in parliament, bar taking the time to praise stalwart BBC presenters Julia Bradbury and Eric Robson in a debate about coastal walks soon after he was elected.Both Sunak and Truss are free marketeers, a political ideology that does not lend itself to well-funded public broadcasting.
And both are admirers of Margaret Thatcher, who was a BBC sceptic throughout her 11-year reign.Since the war in Ukraine started, Truss has, however, taken the time to praise BBC News on several occasions for its ability to inform and counter fake news narratives from state-sponsored organizations such as Russia’s RT.“It is absolutely right to talk about the importance of the BBC
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