The Great British Bake off is moving from BBC to Channel 4. You'd think aliens had just eaten all our children.
The grief and outrage that our midweek comfort blanket will be swiped from collective laps and shifted three channels along has dominated the news. The BBC couldn’t compete financially with the Channel 4 package and the show’s producers have run off into the sunset on a horse worth about £10m more than the BBC could afford.
There’s a sense of crazy irony that the detractors of the BBC, those competing media outlets that insist its funding is cut and our licence payers pound be spent more carefully, are now the very same so upset that the BBC has let this one go.
The Great British Bake off has become a national treasure in a way only us Brits could. It’s a show about sturdy bottoms and perky peaks, of charming country scenes and tea ‘n’ scones. It’s so delightfully British that we couldn’t help but fall in love with it.
The BBC, despite the impressive enormity of it's outputs, needs to change how it operates before it's left with nothing to us but soggy bottoms.
But now the BBC, a national institution in itself, isn’t in a place to be able to hang onto such treasures. Along with the likes of the British Open Golf, which it also had to let go this year, it just can’t compete. As wonderful and as big a supporter I am of the BBC, it surely has to review its operations in order to survive.
What the BBC offers for its nominal annual licence is vast. Compared to an average of what people might happily pay monthly for Sky or other providers like BT or Virgin, the value proposition is with the BBC. But with others, you get to pick and chose what you want.
Keen on the sport? Pay a premium. Want all the films? That’s extra. BBC’s remit is enormously wide, but even its most ardent fans cant possibly consume it all. As good a value as it is, its akin to going into a restaurant and being asked to pay for the full menu. “Waiter, I only had the fish.” “Yes, but everything else was available to you, sir.”
Last month the BBC closed a loophole that had been exploited by many for some time. Now you need a licence to view content on the BBC iPlayer. It’s a paltry acknowledgement from the Corporation, policed in ways that still aren’t entirely clear, that viewing habits and methods of consumption have changed dramatically. But more needs to be done.
Match of the Day presenter Gary Linker has often argued that were football fans to willingly pay £30 or £40 per month to the BBC like it does to Sky for all the amazing coverage, then it too could produces 24/7 sports coverage across multi channels.
So the BBC Ð and us, the licence payer Ð must accept that the way we now consume our media, is very different to when there were no more than a couple of other channels to compete with.
Through social, through online media and through digital TV we can bespoke our preferences. We chose to consume, follow and read exactly what we want when we want without the need for any wastage.
