LONDON – Richard Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker and British government adviser, is expected to be appointed the next BBC president to lead the public broadcaster for a critical period while his purpose, funding and sustainability are being revised.
Sharp will take charge of the broadcaster amid long-standing complaints from the governing Conservative Party about its coverage and the mandatory license fees paid by families to finance it. The BBC reported on Sharp’s appointment after an initial Sky News report. An official announcement is expected in the coming days.
The future of the annual license fee paid by listeners and viewers (£ 157.50, or about $ 214) will be one of Sharp’s most pressing issues as he begins negotiations with the government on the size of the fee from 2022 to 2027 .
He took no public position on the fee or on how to guarantee the broadcaster’s financial viability as more viewers turn to streaming services. But his connections to the party can help to smooth out the negotiation process. Sharp, 64, donated more than £ 400,000 ($ 542,000) to the Conservative Party between 2001 and 2010, according to public records.
“The role of the president is, on some level, primarily to be the central interlocutor if there are problems with the government,” said Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, a London-based media research company. “A president who is not politically connected is not a president who will ultimately be able to support and help the BBC.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government is naming Sharp, questioned the justification for the license fee, which contributed £ 3.7 billion to the BBC in 2019, accounting for about three-quarters of its revenue. Johnson became one of the network’s biggest critics after winning the last election in late 2019, refusing to do any interviews and reportedly preventing his ministers from appearing on other shows for a while.
At the beginning of last year, the Conservative government put forward a proposal to decriminalize non-payment of the license fee, a measure that was shelved during the search for new leadership at the BBC when the terms of its two main bosses ended.
In September, a new director general took office: Tim Davie, a former conservative candidate for the local council who has been with the station since 2005.
Government criticism of the BBC has eased in recent months. For many, Sharp’s appointment will be considered a relief compared to another candidate for the job: Charles Moore, former editor of the conservative newspaper The Daily Telegraph and staunch critic of the BBC, who went to court a decade ago because of his refusal to license payment. Mr. Moore supposedly left the race.
Sharp will replace David Clementi, whose four-year term ends next month. Many older Britons will remember Clementi as the president who, last summer, ended free TV licenses for most people over 75. He argued that it was necessary to charge older viewers to make up for lost money without cutting back on more programs and services.
As it stands, the organization has been cutting jobs as part of a 2016 plan to save £ 800 million. Last year, it announced 520 layoffs on BBC News and another 600 layoffs in regional services in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Mr. Sharp and Mr. Davie will play critical roles as the BBC’s charter, which sets out its mission and public purpose, is subject to an interim review in the coming years and a complete renovation in 2027.
Mr. Sharp, who spent more than two decades at Goldman Sachs until 2007 and was a member of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee from 2013 to 2019, would have advised one of his former Goldman employees, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the the treasure.
The BBC faces three main challenges, according to Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism: how to reach a younger audience and consolidate its future commercial success; how to suppress concerns that it is not diverse, both politically and ethnically; and, a particular task for the president, how to guarantee his future independence.
“The BBC is and remains a political creation, and a precondition for its existence is that the BBC is able to convince not only the public, but also politicians, that it is in fact fulfilling its role and mission, and that it must maintain independence, ”said Nielsen.