Davie speech and annual plan light on detail about future cuts

The speculation was intense. The BBC Director-General’s speech on Tuesday was, the headlines said, set to announce some of the biggest changes in the corporation’s history.

Meanwhile the corporation’s annual plan, published later in the week, was presumed to be set to reveal the fate of some significant programmes and services.

There was, at least in retrospect, more than a bit of hyperbole by some commentators.

Tim Davie’s speech was genuinely significant and set out a blueprint for the way forward.

There are important questions about the BBC’s future role. News coverage focused on the question of the future of the TV licence.

It is certainly interesting that the corporation is not wedded to the licence in its traditional form and is open to the possibility of reform.

But this is very different to suggestions of subscription funding, direct government funding or advertising.

Rather the question is whether there might be a way of making the fee fairer and how to ensure those who don’t have TV sets can stop taking advantage of BBC content for free.

As I said last week, the mood music around the BBC’s future is likely to be very different if Labour is in power after the General Election.

Mr Davie did highlight some tough choices to decommission programmes in recent months.

To be fair though, most of the programmes he mentioned had probably come to the end of their natural runs. But pressure on budgets means less overall is being made so axed programmes may not be directly replaced.

Then on Thursday, came the annual plan.

In the detail, again, were some potentially controversial decisions to reduce the hours of certain kinds of new programmes.

But it was just as significant there was no word of any potentially controversial decisions to axe any popular programmes.

There has been much speculation recently over the future of Casualty. It wasn’t even mentioned.

And it would appear BBC Four and CBBC as linear channels are safe for another year.

No doubt more genuinely difficult decisions are coming.

In the case of Casualty, will the number of episodes be cut further or could it – despite denials – be coming towards, hopefully, a dignified end?

We will see in the fullness of time.

But it is, again, a reminder not to be carried away by speculation or see certain changes as inevitable.

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