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BBC is putting revenue-seeking media companies ‘at a disadvantage’- The Times deputy editor Emma Tucker

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By Natalie Mortimer | N/A

March 23, 2015 | 3 min read

The BBC is putting media companies that are seeking to make a profit “at a disadvantage” when the publicly funded body acts as a publisher, according to The Times’ deputy editor Emma Tucker.

Hosting a panel on the predictions for the future of the media, at Advertising Week Europe this morning (23 March) Tucker lambasted the BBC’s ability to draw in a huge, global audience to its website and called for the remit of the licence fee to be “redefined”.

“It does distort the market, she said. “Everybody agrees that the BBC does wonderful things but when it acts as publisher, and I’m not clear the licence fee was ever intended to allow the BBC to act as a publisher, it puts media companies who are trying to make money, and invest in their own journalism at a disadvantage.”

Tucker continued that The Times “simply can’t compete” with the BBC website and called for the licence fee and how it is used to be “redefined”.

Rowland Manthorpe co-founder of the Think Tank Review, agreed and called out the disparity between the BBC’s purpose of providing journalism for the public good, but via a model that is measured by “hits and clicks”.

“I agree the model needs tweaking,” he added.

Meanwhile Paul Bay, founder of marketing communications company Citizen Bay warned that if the current remit of the BBC license fee was to be reimagined, the corporation itself could be at risk, as well as the talent it fosters and trains.

“The BBC continues to train amazing people and they end up at lots of different private companies,” he stressed. “There are so many great creators that have come out of that huge megalith called the BBC, and I don’t think we should run too quickly to effectively close it down like we have done for many national institutions in this country.”

Douglas McCabe, opinion leader at Enders Analysis and James MacLeod, founder of news service Clippet also took part in the panel.

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