While the BBC claims to lack bias, its structure makes it highly susceptible to government influence. The BBC was founded in 1922 and millions of people use the service to access news every day. The Royal Charter is the constitutional basis for the BBC and states that the BBC ought to remain impartial. However, the BBC is not structured in a manner that ensures impartiality.

Before addressing the issue of the government’s influence on the BBC, there is also an issue with the way it is funded. The BBC is funded by forcing people to pay licensing fees – which is essentially a TV tax. The BBC should not be funded by tax money and should instead be a private corporation that makes money because people choose to use their service. By forcing people to pay TV licenses, people will spend less money on other items that they would prefer to purchase.

The license fee that pays for the BBC is set by the government and the BBC chair is appointed by the government. Both of these would incentivize the BBC to refrain from publishing content that would negatively impact the current government. However, there is a bigger censorship issue here, which is the fact that the BBC is regulated by Ofcom.

Many in the UK cite the BBC as one of the most trusted media sources. While I agree that the BBC has actually been less biased than the majority of news sources in the past, this is still a dangerous situation to be in as it allows the government the power to alter the public perception of its population subtly if it wishes to. Ofcom is the UK’s independent regulator for communication services.  Ofcom regulated services are not allowed to publish any hate speech on their platforms. The issue with censoring hate speech is that hate speech here is defined by the government. This can lead to the censorship of genuine discussion and also the suppression of facts because it may ‘promote intolerance’ of a group of people. A bigger issue is that the Secretary of State has the authority to issue a notice to Ofcom requiring them to instruct broadcasters not to broadcast content on a specific topic. This can have negative consequences on society as it gives the government the power to suppress anything it wants to on various broadcasters, such as the BBC.

Many will counteract statements that call into question the government’s influence on the BBC with the fact that the BBC was critical of Thatcher’s government, particularly the Falklands war. During this period of time, the Thatcher government put extreme pressure on the BBC to be less critical but the BBC didn’t budge. While this is a valid argument that the BBC has been impartial in the past, the dangers of the government being able to influence the BBC are still present.

Presently, the BBC will have much less of an influence on public perception due to the rise of social media. Many people get news from apps such as X, Instagram, and TikTok, which means that even if the government is able to censor the BBC, most people will still be able to figure out the truth. However, the BBC’s influence is still dangerous as it could still have a slight impact in concealing the truth and altering public perception. The BBC should also certainly not be funded by TV licenses as people have worked hard to earn that money and the TV license would mean that they have less money to spend on other things that they want to buy.