2021年经济学人 BBC大厦将倾,溃在旦夕(2)（在线收听）

Conservative politicians have long suspected the BBC of closet liberal leanings. Boris Johnson’s government uses the “Brexit-Bashing Corporation” as a punchbag, as part of a strategy of drawing cultural dividing lines rather than economic ones. But the real danger posed by political skirmishes such as that over Mr Bashir is one of distraction. The more the BBC focuses on government assaults, the less it is able to cope with bigger threats emanating mostly from America.

长期以来，保守派政客一直怀疑BBC暗地里有自由主义倾向。鲍里斯·约翰逊政府把这家“恶评脱欧公司”当作众矢之的，作为划定文化分界线而非经济分界线战略的一部分。但像巴希尔问题这样的政治冲突所带来的真正危险之一是分散注意力。BBC越是关注政府的攻击，就越无法应对主要来自美国的更大威胁。

More than six out of ten British homes now subscribe to an American videostreaming service. The result is more competition for eyeballs. In the past decade Britons have gone from watching four hours a day of broadcast television to just under three. Among under-35s, broadcast TV accounts for less than a third of video viewing.

超过六成的英国家庭现在订阅了美国的视频流服务。这引发了眼球竞争加剧。在过去的十年里，英国人每天看广播电视的时间已经从四个小时变成了不到三个小时。在35岁以下人群中，广播电视在视频观看中所占比例不到三分之一。

The BBC is good at new media. Its website is Britain’s fourth-most visited after Google, YouTube and Facebook. The iPlayer streaming service, which the BBC launched in 2007 (the same year Netflix began streaming) is used by more people in Britain than any subscription platform. It is not enough. In 2019 under-35s spent less than an hour a day consuming BBC output, across television, radio and the internet, down by 17 minutes in just two years.

BBC擅长新媒体。该网站是英国第四大访问量网站，仅次于谷歌、YouTube和Facebook。BBC2007年推出的iPlayer流媒体服务（Netflix在同一年开始推出流媒体服务）在英国的使用人数超过了任何订阅平台。但这是不够的。2019年，35岁以下人群每天通过电视、广播和互联网的形式访问BBC节目的时间不到一小时，在短短两年内减少了17分钟。

The compulsory licence fee through which it is funded is not cheap: at 159 pounds ($225) a year, it would be enough for a basic subscription to both Netflix and Disney+, with money left over for popcorn. But the BBC is limited to about 25m fee-paying households and cannot borrow. Streaming companies have the world to fish in—Netflix has over 200m subscribers, Disney+ 100m—and are willing to lose money for years in the pursuit of market share. Whereas the BBC commissioned 2.8bn pounds of content in 2020, Netflix and Disney+ have a combined budget this year of more than $20bn. Amazon recently earmarked nearly half a billion dollars for a single “Lord of the Rings” series.

为其提供资金的强制许可费并不便宜：每年159英镑（合225美元），足够基本订阅Netflix和Disney+，剩下的钱还可以用来买爆米花。但BBC仅限于约2500万付费家庭使用，还不能借用。流媒体公司可以在全世界发展用户，Netflix拥有超过2亿的用户，Disney+拥有超过1亿的用户，它们愿意为了争夺市场份额而多年亏损。鉴于BBC在2020年委托制作了价值28亿英镑的内容，Netflix和Disney+今年的内容合计预算将超过200亿美元。亚马逊最近单为《指环王》系列就拨款了近5亿美元。