Handbook of Corporate Communication and Public ... - Blogs Unpad

modes of delivery – it supports amongst other
things, two national analogue television channels,
one international, five national, three
national and thirty-nine local radio stations,
a range of digital television channels and
600,000 pages on BBC online, (the most visited
non-portal website outside the United
States). Today the BBC is one of the bestknown
media brands in the world. (‘It’s
Creative Darling’, Internal Communications
Practice at the BBC, 2001).
Yet this venerable institution still has its
critics. Even before the advent of the digital
age criticism had been growing over the funding
of the organization and in particular the
principle of the licence fee. Most vocal have
been the BBC’s media competitors, notably
by newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s
News International, which also has a 40 per
cent stake in BSkyB, the subscription based
satellite broadcaster and direct competitor to
the BBC. Many politicians have also condemned
the licence fee as a regressive tax
(Sunday Times, 20 October 02) and even journalists
are jumping on the bandwagon crying
for reform (Guardian, 7 November 02). With
the emergence of the third age of communication
(Blumler, 2001), e.g. the explosion of
new digital channels, commercial and political
groups are asking the question ‘Why should
the BBC continue to be treated as
a special case’
Critics both inside and outside the BBC cite
the corporation as being overstaffed, bureaucratic
and out of touch (Sunday Times, 3
November 02). Even the BBC’s chairperson,
Sir Christopher Bland, in the corporation’s
annual report said: ‘We must be more open
and accountable, finding better ways of interacting
with the public’ (BBC Report, 2000).
In recent years the BBC’s high-profile loss
of broadcasting talent and sporting rights to
commercial rivals, e.g. Match of the Day to ITV,
has provided its critics with yet more ammunition.
It has also done little to restore the low
morale of many staff resulting from the
management culture of the 1990s.
In recent years UK television broadcasting
organizations have increasingly come to realize
the importance of building relationships
with their various stakeholders. The reasons
for these changes are not hard to find.
Technological developments, an increasingly
deregulated media environment and fiercer
competition for audiences, advertisers and
staff, have challenged much of the world the
UK media once operated in.
Before the advent of satellite broadcaster
BSkyB in 1989 there were just four UK terrestrial
channels (two run by the BBC) plus a
small number of moderately successful cable
stations. In the intervening period satellite
and cable penetration has been substantial:
in 2001, nine million households had domestic
dishes and connected cable out of a total
of 23 million homes (Media Week). Digital
technology capable of offering hundreds of
channels of viewing has been available since
1998, further fragmenting audiences, and it is
expected to replace analogue services before
2010. This is the environment that the BBC
now operates in.
In this competitive age in which the BBC
now finds itself, its stakeholders are increasingly
faced with a plethora of alternatives to
the BBC. In such a competitive market, it is
clear that any stakeholder’s decision to support
the BBC will only be successful if they
identify positive reputation of the corporation
through the corporation’s image of an organization
producing quality services and identifying
that quality with value for money.
Knowing that a strong identity has a number
of potential benefits for an organization, e.g.
adding value, generating consumer confidence
and loyalty, stimulating investments,
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors