There are “lots of people out there” who would “rather have Fox News on BBC One than BBC News,” according to the new UK minister responsible for TV and film.
Ian Murray delivered the proclamation at the British Screen Forum (BSF) as his governing Labour party faces a challenge from Reform UK, the party led by right-leaning GB News lead anchor Nigel Farage, who is no fan of the 100-year-old British broadcaster and who is a friend of Donald Trump. Deadline understands that Murray’s reference to “lots of people out there” was a reference to certain high-profile critics of the BBC and to institutions like Reform UK, as opposed to the British public.
Off the back of a fortnight of crisis at the BBC with the Trump Panorama editing scandal, Murray was passionate about how the government and British public “has to save the BBC.”
“Be under no illusions, there are lots of people out there who want to see it go,” he added. “They would rather see Fox News on BBC One than BBC News. But if we go down that route then our national story will be diminished. That is not an easy fight to win but the ecosystem has to help us with that argument.”
Ian Murray. Image: Leon Neal/Getty
Murray noted that “the public and parliamentarians have shown their support for a fiercely independent BBC that continues to be trusted and truthful.”
Murray was delivering a staunch defense of the BBC although he did note that the Trump scandal, which has seen the Director General (DG) and news chief resign and the POTUS threaten $1B legal action, “reminds us of the responsibility the BBC has to uphold editorial standards.”
With the BBC’s charter renewal coming up under a new DG – an existential moment as it will set the corporation’s future funding model – Murray said the whole episode has “given insight into what will be prominent in the charter review.”
“The BBC is a big organization,” he added. “It will make mistakes and have editorial challenges, but let’s set that aside and say that the positive thing that has happened over the past year is people have come out to support the BBC.”
Speaking on a BSF panel after Murray, former ITV chair Peter Bazalgette said the government investing another £200M ($262M) to £300M in the BBC World Service is the key here. The soft power news org could therefore reach anything up to one billion people around the world (it currently reaches around 450 billion), he explained. “It has a once in a generation opportunity when Trump has defunded the Voice of America,’ he added. “We need to back the BBC World Service. I doubt we will do it though.”
Speaking about the BBC brouhaha last week, Murray’s boss Lisa Nandy blasted fellow politicians for “launching a sustained attack” on the corporation amid claims of institutional bias. But earlier this week, Farage told the Telegraph the BBC should only do news and that the current license fee funding model is “completely unacceptable.”
Murray recently replaced the popular Chris Bryant as Labour’s Minister of State in the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He was speaking at the BSF after TikTok UK boss Dominic Burns and before Prime Video Europe chief Andrew Bennett and director Richard Curtis.