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CHAPTER 16
Reputation and leadership in a public
broadcast company
Sandra M. Oliver and Anthony Clive Allen
In this chapter, the concepts of image, identity and reputation are explored theoretically
through Grunig’s excellence model prior to addressing them in relation to the case of
the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Three issues illustrate public perception
of this organizational icon: the statutory licence fee; the use of infotainment trails; and
employee responses to a former director general’s memoirs. While all three issues have
come together in the United Kingdom to present a national debate about public broadcasting
per se, it is outside this chapter’s frame of reference to discuss issues of state
propaganda and control. What is of interest for best practice, is whether or not an organization
such as the BBC, with its well established worldwide reputation developed over
many years, can be eroded or indeed stand up to today’s vigorous but democratic public
debate and challenges from diverse stakeholders at home and abroad, including government,
journalists and employees alike.
From its beginnings in 1922 as the United
Kingdom’s first domestic broadcaster the BBC
established itself as one of the leading international
media players, first with the World
Service Radio and more recently with television
channels such as BBC World or BBC
Prime. As a public corporation the BBC has
always been formally independent of government,
and to this day its main source of revenue
is a licence fee payable by everyone who
owns a television set. However, the level of
the licence fee is determined periodically by
parliament, as is the general regulatory framework
within which the corporation operates.
The BBC’s remit has always been to ‘inform,
educate and entertain’ by providing a mixed
schedule of high quality programmes to the
population as a whole (Birt, 2002). As such it
has been responsible for providing a model of
public service broadcasting which has had a
far-reaching influence at home and abroad.
The BBC has built its global reputation above
all on the fairness, impartiality, accuracy and
authority of journalism. But its output extends
far beyond simply news programmes to cover
all categories of programming and various
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors