‘It’s really important the BBC doesn’t just have a perspective from one country…we are not just a company broadcasting from London’: Tim Davie

I think one of the most important things for the BBC is to stay true to its values. If you go back to the basics, we are a public-service organisation, absolutely driven by impartial, fair news coverage, and content in many genres. So, in a very busy market, the last thing you want to do is do what everyone else is doing. You want to double down on where you’re different. And the BBC is different, in that it’s largely publicly funded, and it cares about the truth. What I’ve tried to do as leader of the BBC is be innovative in how we deliver things through digital means, making sure we were very, very fast-moving. But our values stay true and hold firm. We’re 100 years old, and we’re still growing. This year, we’re close to 500 million people in terms of our reach globally. It’s growing in India — we’re up to 72 million. So, I think, the appetite for trusted news sources and trusted content has remained strong. You could argue in this modern world, where everything is disputed, there’s so much noise, the value of a trusted source is going to become higher, not lower.

The BBC model — a public broadcaster, paid for through a licence fee by citizens — appears to be under threat. Last year, the UK Treasury Secretary said the BBC model would be reviewed in six years, in 2027. How, as BBC’s head, do you navigate being a public broadcaster and a major subject of partisan politics?

I think the BBC, if you look at its history, has always been at the centre of political debates: Does it lean one way politically or another? With social media and hundreds of new channels, you’ve got lots of competition. So, there is absolutely going to be a valid debate about what the purpose of a public broadcaster is at this point. But my personal view is, this is all about what people and the public want. It’s not about what politicians ultimately want. In that sense, the BBC is in a pretty decent position. We have to healthily be worried about staying relevant. But in the UK, we believe a universal mission where everyone pays for the broadcaster is critical. And it’s important to emphasise we’re not a state broadcaster. We’re a public-service broadcaster, paid for by the public, and most of the public get value from the BBC, which is why it stays. That’s the model that we’ve got to keep relevant to the public.

How do you see the Indian market and its news ecosystems in terms of hyperbole and misinformation?

Every market is different. But there are great similarities around the world now emerging. And that is enormous amounts of voices and channels, hyper-competition. We’re in a world where the barriers to entry are now severely reduced. The competition for audiences puts enormous pressure on the economics of businesses and increases the temptation to become more polarised, noisier. The Indian market is incredibly competitive. The BBC is playing a different game. We don’t need all of your media time. I think the danger for us, as I said earlier, is that impartial, fair reporting begins to be seen as slightly dull. In my experience, our journalists look at the facts, at the truth, they can also have an opinion. But what they are not trying to do is just generate conflict for a short term, to try and push shares. I say that not to be critical. I think there’s a place in the market for all of this. My role is not to come from London and criticise the Indian market. But I think we have a place that isn’t the same as everyone else’s.

One of the main criticisms of the BBC, in recent times, has been in its ‘Western’ coverage of the Ukraine crisis, in contrast with, say, the wars and humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Syria. How do you respond to these questions emerging from the global South?

I’m very proud of our coverage in Ukraine. I think we’ve seen some incredibly brave journalism. Second, of course, we need to listen hard as the BBC. It’s really important that the BBC doesn’t just have a perspective from one country. My objective is that as a global media organisation we deeply understand some of these issues and reflect on them. I think we do that carefully. And we listen hard. The BBC is not just a company broadcasting from London.
Take India, for instance: a vast majority of our team here are Indians. I was just with some of my Indian teams that were showing analysis of how this war is viewed from an Indian perspective. While I understand some of those concerns, if you look across the breadth of our coverage, some of these issues are debated. We engage in the topic and look at the West itself. Have we got frameworks of thinking in various places that are limiting our reporting? I think, simultaneously, I’ll rigorously defend our reporting and the balance of our reporting, while also saying, we need to listen hard to our Indian colleagues, make sure we’re reporting from an Indian perspective and places outside of London that clearly identify that there are different ways of looking at situations and different things to consider. I think great journalists are always suspicious of simplistic narratives, simplistic storytelling.

How are new technologies contributing to BBC’s tackling of misinformation? Given BBC’s growing digital presence and big tech acting as a gatekeeper, how do you balance distribution platforms?

It’s important that we are in a lot of services and platforms. My worry and task is to make sure we don’t chase views for their own sake. We don’t just do more sensationalist videos for their sake. We know what gets big reach on YouTube but we’ve got to get the balance right. We’ve been pioneers, quite deliberately, in putting significant resources in place to look at areas where there is substantial disinformation and try to get the facts. In the UK, we began this by hiring people who work solely on this. In India, we have a pilot project on checking misinformation. Realistically, I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of disinformation or misinformation.
Our role is to see where that disinformation is happening at scale, digging into it, and expose where things are just not true. There’s no doubt that there’s an incredibly positive effect of some of the technology companies to enable us to get to new audiences. But at the BBC, we also believe our future is not wholly where everything is in bits, and not on our own services. That means that the overwhelming priority for us is to build branded services where people come to the BBC to get the fullest offer, with exclusive content. For the long-term future of brands, it’s not just about the individual pieces of journalism or content. It’s also about trusted services.

To move away from news, when will the iPlayer come to India? Will there be more fiction and cultural programming?

The limitation at the moment is one of rights to programme. Second, the economic models — which countries you go to, at what speed are determined by this. We may sell the rights around the world to different broadcasters and they may pay, for instance, 80 per cent of the programming cost. What’s interesting is that there’s just such huge potential in India. With the cultural connections we’ve got, and the quality programming, there’s a lot to be done with the sheer scale of India. We’re ambitious about our commercial businesses here. And we want to keep expanding.