Don’t decide the BBC’s fate behind closed doors | Letter

The Guardian is right to bring the future of the BBC and its funding back into the spotlight (‘A completely unique opportunity’: the secretive process that will decide the BBC’s future, 10 September). This is too important an issue and the BBC is too important an institution for this to be decided behind the closed doors of Whitehall.

Many things have been altered radically by the recent drastic changes in communications technology, but others still have a very familiar feel to them. Chief among these is the extent to which the BBC should eschew ratings and stick only to the cultural Olympian heights. This dilemma was best summed up by the BBC’s former director of programmes, Huw Wheldon, when he said that it was the job of the BBC “to make the popular good and make the good popular”. It still stands today.
Phil Harding
Former editor, Today programme, and former controller of BBC editorial policy