Former BBC Chair Richard Sharp Urges Tim Davie To Make “Tough” Decisions In Order To Spend More On Content

Former BBC Chair Richard Sharp, who resigned in disgrace over his role in the Boris Johnson loan affair, has urged Director General Tim Davie to make tough decisions in order to give his content department more money.

In the face of “significant competition,” Sharp used an RTS London panel to proclaim that BBC content boss Charlotte Moore “doesn’t have the budget she should have” to spend on TV shows in order that “people aren’t declining in terms of their engagement with [the BBC] as a platform.”

“There should be tough budget chats happening,” added Sharp, who left a year ago. The BBC has been losing linear audience share by small amounts over the past few years, although it published research over the weekend saying it is now the fastest growing VoD platform in the UK, beating Netflix, ITVX and Channel 4.

Speaking earlier today, Davie praised Sharp and current Chair Samir Shah. But Sharp countered during his panel by saying “if that’s the case then I didn’t do my job properly.”

“In reality Tim has to make big decisions and the board should be requiring that,” he added. “The BBC needs content for its customers so to engage that budget, and in constrained circumstances, it has to make tough decisions.”

Commercial outfit BBC Studios, which Davie used to run, “has a mandate to create value as an indie studio” but is “facing the same winter as others have faced,” added Sharp.

Privatization wasn’t the end, says JP Morgan banker

Speaking alongside Sharp at RTS, Harry Hampson, a senior JP Morgan banker who was working on the Channel 4 sale before privatization was reversed, defended the sale that never happened and its potential impact.

“I was optimistic we could achieve a good price but could also impose conditions that would have allowed many things that you hold dear about Channel 4 to survive,” he said. “I simply don’t believe it was either ‘privatize and Channel 4 loses everything’ or ‘stay as it was’.”

“Ironically,” Hampson added, the sellers felt that it was important Channel 4 owned IP in the future, which has since been rubberstamped by the government.

The pair were speaking on a panel at RTS London after the likes of Ted Sarandos, David Beckham and Channel 4 boss Alex Mahon.