1. Analyse the culture of the BBC at the time that Dyke took over. To what degree is it facilitating the success of the BBC?
The BBC was set up in 1922 as a public service broadcaster. The BBC quickly became a household name and played a part in shaping British culture. Company culture is the values and beliefs shared by the members of a ‘group’ and the BBC is a ‘group’ which has both internal (BBC employees) and external (general public) members. The BBC is financed by a TV license fee paid by each household and represents the cultural artefacts: the concrete aspect of the BBC which is its ability to maintain its ‘independence and impartiality’ (Keys, 2006) due to public funding and a not for public service ethos. The BBC’s biggest critic: the UK press, are always at the helm of every attack and question over the quality – guarding the BBC on behalf of every person. The public values and principles that the BBC is based on were publically declared by the first director general. The BBC’s role was in ‘inform, educate and entertain’ and to ‘bring the best of everything to the greatest number of homes’ (Keys, 2006) and this became the espoused values for BBC culture.
The culture of the BBC is so deeply ingrained in its employees that Dyke commented that what the BBC ‘does has enormous value and helps to define culture. People work at the BBC because of this value. Their commitment to the BBC, not necessarily to management, is very strong-at a level other companies would only dream of’ (Keys, 2006). These basic underlying assumptions of unconscious commitment to the organisation result in an unwillingness to tolerate change, whether good or bad, as it is an unconscious belief that it is interfering with the national heritage that belongs to each and every British person.
The BBC culture is so strong that it has the ability to transport the general