Better Media and Decentered Media are collecting views about BBC Charter Renewal. Here are our Frequently Asked Questions.
Complete the survey here:
https://forms.gle/URnPgckbYbFPkPFQ8
What is the BBC Charter Renewal, and why does it matter?
The BBC Charter Renewal process sets the framework for how the BBC is governed, funded, regulated, and held to account for the next Charter period. Its implications extend beyond the BBC, shaping how public interest media is defined and supported across the UK media system.
Why are Decentered Media and Better Media engaging with this process?
We are engaging because Charter Renewal raises fundamental questions about public trust, accountability, plurality, and how media serves civic life. Decisions made now will influence whether the future media environment is centralised and institutional, or more open, distributed, and responsive to public purpose.
What are the main concerns with the current Charter Renewal approach?
A central concern is that the discussion remains largely framed around the BBC as a single institution delivering “services,” rather than around the public purposes media should serve and the range of actors that could contribute to those outcomes. This risks reinforcing centralised models at a time when trust, engagement, and legitimacy require more distributed and networked approaches.
What does “public purpose” mean in this context?
Public purpose refers to the social and civic outcomes media should support, such as informed citizenship, cultural expression, social cohesion, accountability, and resilience against misinformation. Focusing on purpose shifts the conversation from who provides a service to whether the intended public outcomes are being achieved.
Why is a decentralised and civic approach important?
Media ecosystems are no longer defined by scarcity or single providers. Civic, community, independent, and local media already play important roles in building trust, reflecting lived experience, and supporting place-based identity. A decentralised approach recognises this reality and reduces over-reliance on any single institution.
Does this mean reducing or weakening the BBC?
No. The issue is not about weakening the BBC, but about ensuring it operates as part of a healthy, plural media ecology. A strong BBC can coexist with, and benefit from, a wider network of civic and independent media if policy frameworks support openness, collaboration, and clear public-purpose outcomes.
What are the risks of not rethinking the model?
If Charter Renewal focuses narrowly on institutional reform, there is a risk of reinforcing centralisation, limiting innovation, and failing to address declining trust. There is also a risk that global, unregulated media platforms will continue to shape public discourse without sufficient counterbalance from trusted, accountable, place-based media.
How does this relate to global media and misinformation?
Unregulated global media platforms and deliberate misinformation pose clear risks to democratic culture and social cohesion. Addressing this requires more than regulation alone. It requires trusted, locally grounded, and publicly accountable media networks that can operate at different scales and respond quickly to community needs.
What are Decentered Media and Better Media calling for?
We are calling for Charter Renewal to explicitly recognise public-purpose media as a distributed system, not just an institutional service. This includes clearer accountability, meaningful public engagement, openness to multiple providers, and policy frameworks that support civic capacity, plurality, and resilience.
How will contributions to this work be used?
Views gathered through engagement and surveys will be used, in anonymised form, to inform discussion and to shape Better Media’s consultation response. The aim is to ensure that policy submissions are grounded in evidence, experience, and a shared understanding of how media systems function in practice.