经济学人下载:经营BBC 姨妈的困境

Running the BBC
经营BBC

Auntie's dilemma
姨妈的困境

Lord Patten's successor will be transient
彭定康爵士的继任者的位子肯定坐不久

A BBC comedy, “W1A”, sends up blame-shifting managers and corporate gobbledygook at the nation's broadcaster. Real life in the upper echelons of the British Broadcasting Corporation has been similar, albeit with fewer laughs. Now the resignation of Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, which governs the Beeb, has thrown up fresh uncertainty.
BBC的一台喜剧节目“W1A”将国家广播电台中善于推卸责任的管理者以及该组织内的官样文章披露给民众。英国广播公司的上层实际上差不多就是那样，尽管很少有人能笑出来了。如今，BBC的负责人、其信托基金主席彭定康辞职了，让该企业更加风雨飘摇。

The timing of Lord Patten's resignation, following a heart bypass operation, is inconvenient. The former member of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet was due to oversee talks with politicians over the renewal of the corporation's ten-year royal charter, which expires at the end of 2016. But even those who admired his unruffled style could not claim that his three years at the helm have been an unqualified success.
彭定康爵士的引退紧接着他的心脏搭桥手术，时间颇不凑巧。这位玛格丽特.撒切尔时期的内阁成员，原本要监督与政府领导人之间的就十年皇家特许执照更新展开的磋商。此特许证将于2016年到期。但即使那些嫉妒其仕途平顺的人也不能说他掌舵这三年表现不及格。

A laggardly response to revelations of sexual abuse by the late Jimmy Savile, a TV presenter, looked complacent. The Savile affair also did for George Entwistle, Lord Patten's candidate for the post of director-general, after only 54 days in the job. A digital media project cost 100m and never worked. Few now believe the Trust's multiple remit of representing the interests of viewers as well as regulating and cheerleading for the BBC is sustainable. As new technology and changing viewing habits make the annual licence fee harder to justify, better accountability is called for.
该台对电视主持人吉米.萨维尔最近的性丑闻反应很慢，看上去相当骄傲自满。萨维尔事件也让乔治.恩特维斯尔措手不及。他是彭定康钦点的总裁候选人，刚接手工作54天。一个数字媒体计划花了1亿英镑（1亿7千万），但却没起什么作用。几乎没人相信信托基金数次拨款代表了观众的利益，或有助于BBC的管理，或者鼓舞BBC发挥作用。新技术和变动不居的观看习惯都让按年收取的牌照费愈发难以计算，因此需要更高的透明性。

The priority for the next BBC chairman will probably be to find the smoothest way to oversee the transition from the Trust to an outside regulator. Favoured candidates for this evanescent role might include Sir Howard Stringer, erstwhile boss of Sony, or Marjorie Scardino, former chief executive of the Pearson Group (part-owner of The Economist).
下一任BBC主席的首要任务可能是找到最快捷的方法，来监督完成从信托基金到某个独立的外部监管的转换。这个难坐的位子有几个候选人，最可能的包括曾任索尼CEO的霍华德.斯特林格爵士，或者强生集团的前任董事长马乔里?斯卡迪诺（经济学人的所有者之一）。

Bequeathing the main supervisory role to Ofcom, the regulator which already oversees privacy and taste and decency at the BBC, might appear sensible. But that would create an alarmingly mighty regulator: Ofcom also deals with telecoms as well as all commercial broadcasting.
大部分监管权将移交给通信管理局。而这个新的监管者早已经进驻BBC，对其保密性、品味和庄重都有所了解，因此可能会十分理智。但这也可能导致权力过度集中，因此值得警惕：通信管理局既监督电信部门，也监管商业电台。

Some, including the present director-general, Lord Hall, would prefer a more bespoke solution—a kind of “OfBeeb”, to keep Auntie in line and ensure the corporation does not crush commercial competition. Whatever the final outcome, Lord Patten's resignation looks like the end of an era, in which the BBC's good health was guaranteed by benign, if barely accountable, Establishment types.
现任总裁霍尔男爵在内的一些人更倾向于一个更有的放矢的解决办法—“OfBeeb”方案。该方案可以让BBC维持原样运行，又保证其不会破坏商业竞争。无论最终结果如何，彭定康的辞职看上去都是一个时代的结束。那时BBC的良好运作都由平易近人的通情达理的规定来支撑，虽然不那么透明。