ABSTRACT

If the BBC, and by emulation the IBA, are to claim as part of their mandate to produce television programmes that they are performing a public service, then it is our opinion that the public must be provided with means to demand accountability from those institutions, and that this should include the possibility of access by academic researchers. Constitutionally at the moment the advisory boards form the only partial means of external inspection. Of these, Stuart Hood has said:

These councils are the gesture the organizations make to accountability to the community. Like the Board of Governors they are chosen from a restricted section of the community in terms of social provenance, interests and age. It is the broadcasting organizations themselves who pick the members to serve on the councils, they have no representatives, no constituencies, and no responsibilities; it follows that their influence is minimal.1