Britain also has many excellent local newspapers (as well as many dull ones), weekly specialist newspapers, weekly and monthly serious magazines, and a similar range of popular magazines to those which you can find in Russia.
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is a unique and specifically British solution to an international problem. As soon as radio was invented and could be commercially exploited, it turned out to be an immensely powerful tool for news, information and propaganda. Governments were eager to get their hands on this new technology in order to reinforce their power; businessmen were eager to buy channels and make profits through advertising; advertisers were eager to sell products by getting time and space on radio and television. In most countries one or other of these 'interested parties' has taken over control of the major news and information channels. The BBC is different. It is truly independent. In the 1920s when radio began to be used widely, the government of the day quickly realized that another government might take power after the coming election. So if radio became state broadcasting, whoever was in power would have many more opportunities to broadcast their views than opposition parties. So the BBC arrangement was devised.
I explain this in some detail, because even it if seems boring, it is actually a very clever way of making sure that broadcasting media are used for the benefit of the people and not the politicians or rich men.
We pay for the BBC by a licence fee. Each year every household in Britain with a radio or television (which means 99.9% of us) has to buy a licence, currently costing £142.50. This gives us the right to view and listen to BBC programmes for 39 pence a day (about 20 roubles). The Government sets the amount of the fee every six years, but each year Parliament has to approve the amount. The fees go directly to the BBC.
The BBC Trust consists of twelve people, appointed after independent scrutiny for periods of five years. As Trustees they cannot be paid for their work which is expected to take around three days a week. Their responsibility is to see that the licence fee money is spent properly for the fee-payers - i.e. us, the people - according to the principles set out in the BBC Charter. They discuss difficult and controversial issues and examine in detail the work of the Executive Board - the committee of Directors of the BBC who actually organise and direct the work of the BBC. The Director General and the other directors are responsible for making sure that their producers, programme planners, journalists, presenters and so on provide programmes according to the principles of the BBC Charter. And what are these principles? The BBC has to 'inform, educate and entertain' the British people while 'remaining independent, resisting pressure and influence from any source in all matters concerning the content of its output, the times and manner in which this is supplied and in the management of its affairs'. It has a duty to produce 'comprehensive, authoritative and impartial coverage of news and current affairs in the UK and throughout the world in order to support fair and informed debate'. It has to 'treat controversial subjects with due accuracy and impartiality in its news services and other programmes dealing with matters of public policy or of political or industrial controversy'. Unlike newspapers the BBC is forbidden from expressing an opinion on current affairs or matters of public policy. There is no editorial which tells viewers and listeners what the BBC 'thinks'.
The key words are 'independent' and 'impartiality'. The government cannot announce 'We are angry with what the BBC has done and therefore we will reduce the fee' because the BBC has a duty to be impartial - and that means balancing approval and criticism of the government. Once Parliament has agreed on the licence fee, all the money goes to the BBC; it is not doled out in bits and pieces by any of the ministries depending on how pleased they are with the state broadcaster.
Setting up an independent Trust which is responsible for overseeing an independent Executive Board, is called 'the arms' length principle'. This is a British method of keeping institutions independent of the government and state powers. Although the government is often very concerned, anxious and even outraged by the 'comprehensive, authoritative and impartial coverage of news', it cannot interfere except through a long and complicated judicial process in which it will almost certainly lose.
Equally, the BBC has to be independent of business, so businesses cannot sponsor programmes. Finally, advertising on the BBC is illegal.
Public service broadcasting, independent and impartial, paid for by a universal licence fee has been our system since the 1920s. By and large the public trust the BBC, particularly when there is an argument between the government and the BBC about a particular news story. For example the Government in 2003 would have liked the BBC to support our military occupation of Iraq. What the BBC did was to produce programmes in which the opinions of Middle East experts, the military, peace groups, intelligence officers, Iraqis, other peoples from the Middle East, Americans, other Europeans, historians and ordinary people expressed their views. Sometimes these programmes clearly did not support the government; sometimes they did. Not every programme can be impartial; the point is that the whole range of programmes should, overall, be impartial. This made the government angry and unhappy; but the BBC does not speak for the government.
We also have commercial channels which are funded by advertising; the advertising used to be tightly controlled with all sorts of rules about what can be shown and at what times. Now control is difficult because hundreds of different channels can reach us by cable or satellite. However, the British public uses the BBC for their main source of information about national and international political affairs.
The BBC has an extensive and informative website <www.bbc.co.uk>
The fact that the BBC has to be impartial in its news coverage does not mean that it is always 'right'. Even responsible and experienced journalists can misunderstand situations, especially abroad. But the BBC is challenged every day, every minute to justify what it is telling us, and the BBC Trust has to make sure that complaints, including international complaints are listened to and answered - publicly. Inevitably journalists are influenced by what they think they know and by what they see; and there is always another point of view which should be represented. Hence there are many public debates, questions, challenges and sometimes apologies.
The BBC has responsibilities to inform, educate and entertain. How well does the organisation carry out its responsibilities for educating and entertaining its audiences? Twenty years ago the BBC was renowned for the quality of its television; it produced excellent documentaries and educational programmes; it provided much-loved children's programmes; it produced good original drama, high-quality soap operas and decent light entertainment. In 2009 that reputation is considerably lower. Good programmes and some excellent programmes are made, but the BBC is eager, probably unwisely, to compete with all the commercial channels. The problem is that most of the commercial channels produce rubbish, and it is not clear to many viewers why the BBC has to imitate them. BBC news editors conscientiously try to be impartial and responsible, but too often the news is uninspired and narrow in its range; good investigations are cut short, not because the BBC is afraid of speaking out, but because editors believe their viewers will not want serious programmes. Overall, its television is still probably as good as most places in the world, but alas that is not a strong endorsement.