Why don't you agree with me?
Clint Eastwood isn’t happy about it. Nor are a whole bunch of leftie actors, like James McAvoy and Bill Nighy. But the Conservatives seem determined to abolish the UK Film Council, the public body that provides a bit of seed money to get films like Bend It Like Beckham, Gosford Park and Made In Dagenham (see trailer below) on our screens even though the story will run and run during the August silly season.
It is a row, though, that bodes well for the BBC – in much the same way as the 6 Music closure row was good news for the Corporation. Yes, the Tories have gone and whacked the film funding quango – but they have also been forced to commit to continuing with the £15 million a year of lottery money that goes in to funding film making (and indeed rejigging lottery funds so that a further £3 million a year is on the table).
Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, has also come out in favour of the £100 milllion a year tax break that the film business uniquely enjoys (by contrast a parallel computer game tax break was one of the first to be deleted when the Blues got in power). All that he seems to be against is a body that paid eight of its executives in excess of £100k last year (the UK FC retorts that the correct number is in fact six after a couple of departures).
It is hardly a very complicated strategy of divide et impera – keep the content funding, slash the bureaucrats. And it is what the BBC ought to expect too. If the Tories have any smarts they would try to split out what the Beeb actually spends on screen/on air and behind the scenes and work out a way of bashing the editorial bureaucrats, whilst keeping content spending constant.
The Beeb even helps a bit, revealing that the total spend on overheads is £406 million in 2009/10 – up from the previous year’s £387 million. Cut that by a third and it is worth a million licence fees, although how you do that in practice is about 7,000 times more complicated. But if everybody in management were forced to swallow a 20 per cent pay cut, that would be a start in the eyes of simple politicians.
As for the rest, though, the Hunt message seems to be spending on content should be broadly protected. He already is soft pedalling on demands for named stars to have their pay made public (although it helps that the BBC is offering some sort of limited disclosure). Curiously, while the public seem to mind what BBC bosses are paid, people are far more tolerant of high pay for stars. They are stars after all.
All of which suggests that the BBC has a chance of getting through the licence fee settlement in not such bad shape – if it can offer up more savings behind the scenes. As for the Tories (and the rest of the Government), it is not much fun duking it out with Clint, but if he and other on screen talent can be persuaded that it is not their funding that is being cut, then the Tories will get through this and anything they want to do to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
