The Financial Times reported this week that the BBC has agreed a deal with YouTube to produce programmes specifically tailored for the online platform. The deal forms part of a strategy to boost international online revenue, compete with streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and engage digitally native younger audiences.

Admittedly, the BBC is in a tough spot. It’s been embroiled in multiple scandals that have greatly damaged its credibility. From the doctoring of Trump’s January 6 quotes, which led to the resignation of its two most senior staff, to a Gaza documentary that uncritically highlighted figures close to Hamas and the handling of Gregg Wallace’s improprieties, the organisation has faced repeated controversies. Moreover, license fee income has declined. Last year, it was reported the BBC lost £1.1 billion in revenue. It simply needs to adapt to the evolving media landscape. It needed to do so yesterday.

But this deal won’t be the cure to the BBC’s ailments. It will end up chasing Netflix-style rom-com hits, further degrading the BBC’s output in a way that will alienate more people than it will draw.

Instead, it must renew itself by rediscovering its founding principles. That is to inform and educate the public; to be independent from both government and commercial influence; and to strive for accuracy and objectivity, which is not the same thing as being cautious to the point of equivocation.

What this means in practice is that the BBC should lead in matters of taste, not follow it. It should go back to producing high-quality television that the nation can watch together, hopefully subsidised with revenue gained from this deal. Only five years ago, Line of Duty’s final series was watched on BBC One by 15.24 million people, the highest figure in the 21st century. So, it is still possible for mainstream television to attract a mass audience.

Turn your TV on now and scroll through the BBC channels. It consists of shows about cooking with celebrity chatter, people buying and selling property, tedious game shows, and politically correct adaptations of the same classical novels which are worse than the last one. It still puts out some decent dramas, but too many of them are formulaic and boring.

No surprise, then, its audiences are fragmenting and migrating to other platforms. Back when I was a teenager, it seemed to better understand young people. BBC Three thrived with programmes like Gavin and Stacey and Free Speech, the latter of which actually engaged young people with current affairs.

But the way to gain back young people from Netflix and YouTube is not by “getting down with the kids”, or by aping short-form content they can get elsewhere. It’s simpler than that: make TV that is funny, captivating and original. That is how The Traitors became a hit. Audiences want and like a diverse range of programmes that respect them. Young people will come to the BBC for something they won’t and can’t find elsewhere. The Corporation can fill that niche in their media diet.

The BBC must adapt to the digital age without abandoning its mission to serve the British public. It can remain a ‘prestige’ broadcaster without succumbing to the slop of click-driven content or pandering to ideologically narrow echo chambers. In an increasingly extreme and fractious online world, the BBC needs to rise above the noise. Perhaps audiences do not want to stare at screens all day at work and then come home to more of the same. Shared culture may feel dead in our fragmented online silos, but if we are ever to climb out of them, the BBC is likely to play a vital role.

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Ralph Leonard is a British-Nigerian writer on international politics, religion, culture and humanism.

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