Best Consumer Campaign

Save our BBC campaign

attacking our public broadcaster was a mistake, especially during a pandemic when the BBC was giving us trusted information nightly, entertaining us at home and helping to educate our children.

The Campaign

In February 2020, government sources told the Sunday Times that they wanted to whack the BBC, as leaks revealed plans to cut huge swathes of the BBC’s national and regional services. 

Anti-BBC sentiments continued throughout 2020, with Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden questioning the future of the corporation, setting up a panel of industry experts to review the future of public broadcasting, and launching a review into decriminalising the licence fee that would have cost the BBC hundreds of millions of pounds. 

38 Degrees had campaigned to defend the principle of independent, public broadcasting for years. So, when the comments from a senior government adviser were leaked, the team pivoted overnight to run a fastpaced, reactive campaign that would help members of the public to take a stand against the Government’s plans and defend our public broadcaster.   

Twitter: @38_degrees

Facebook: @peoplepowerchange

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The Change

A 38 Degrees petition was quickly set up and has secured over 300,000 signatures to dateThe scale of the public backlash helped to prove this was not just a ‘Westminster bubble’ issue but was coming from all corners of the country. 

Public opinion polling helped them to craft an important narrative – attacking our public broadcaster was a mistake, especially during a pandemic when the BBC was giving us trusted information nightly, entertaining us at home and helping to educate our children. 

38 Degrees also empowered more than 106,000 people to feed into the Government consultation on decriminalising the licence fee. Over 80% of the public responses expressed concern that decriminalising licence fee payment would negatively impact the BBC’s funding. A further 70,000 people were supported to submit their views to the DCMS Select Committee’s own independent consultation into the future of public broadcasting. 

In January 2021, the Government shelved its licence fee decriminalisation plans and 38 Degrees’ role was cited in national broadsheets as being pivotal in affecting its decision. 

 

The Future

The threat to the BBC’s funding and independence continues, and 38 Degrees is continuing to campaign for independent, trusted public broadcasting. It has already built a huge body of public supportwith more than 430,000 members of the public, plus critical stakeholders, engaged in the campaign to date.   

Who else was involved?