The BBC and “public value”

Abstract

The paper identifies the roots of public value management in the work of the American scholar Mark Moore, describes its mediation to the UK and its adoption by the BBC as a regulatory as well as a management doctrine. The author proposes that the BBCs adoption of public value doctrine responds to critiques of the BBCs divergence from public service principles in its broadcasting practice and to the challenges of the contemporaneous review of the BBCs Charter. The paper describes the Work Foundations public value model of authorisation, creation and measurement of public value and its application to the BBC. It evaluates the concepts of co-production and contestation (derived from Mark Moore) and reach, impact, quality and value for money (the four public value drivers adopted by the BBC) and considers Hirschmans exit, voice and loyalty model of institutional responsiveness to users and the applicability of the concepts consumer and citizen to the BBCs public value doctrine and practice. The paper concludes that the Moorean core concepts co-production and contestation are of limited applicability to the BBC and that the BBCs distinctive status and scale may limit the relevance of its pathbreaking implementation of public value management to other parts of the UKs public cultural sector.