Some members of the British Parliament are questioning the government’s funding of a charity operated by BBC, the country’s main public broadcast service, after discovering that it was supporting the production and broadcast of soap operas and films as parts of efforts toward “changing lives through media and education.”
The BBC World Service Trust is a London-based charity with more than 600 employees stationed worldwide. It receives funding from BBC, the U.K. Foreign Office-funded British Council and the European Union, among other sources. The Telegraph says the charity spent 28 million pounds ($45.2 million) last year on media and communication-related initiatives.
The parliamentarians raised concern over why U.K. taxpayer’s money was spent in this manner and questioned whether the relationship of BBC World Service Trust with other donors like the United Nations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has affected the broadcast service’s independence, The Telegraph says.
“You imagine that our foreign aid budget is being spent to save lives by pumping fresh water to a drought-ridden village, not to make soap operas,” the newspaper quotes Philip Davies, a Tory member of the House of Commons’ culture committee.
Among the initiatives supported by the charity are a 2.6 million pounds television and radio program in Bangladesh, a health-focused soap opera in Myanmar and a project that highlights “the importance of Information and Communications for Development,” The Telegraph notes.
U.K. Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell said in letter to parliament released last week that he plans to keep a closer watch on the charity.
“All initiatives funded under such a strategic relationship would be focused on the international development priorities the Coalition Government has set out, and be subject to the same value for money, impact and results tests that apply across the whole of the [Department for International Development] program,” he told The Telegraph, while also emphasizing the importance of media to advancing development and democracy.
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