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Ofcom's mission to destroy...
publications |Posted by Michael Darlow
Independent film-maker, Michael Darlow, invoked the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson in raising the spectreof trash television. Ofcom, says Darlow, has a lot to be ashamed of.Hunter. S Thompson once described the television business as “a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs."
Amid the relief over the reprieve for the BBC licence fee in the recent government Green Paper too many of us seem to have lost sight of the even more pressing threat to public service broadcasting posed by recent pronouncements from the new super-regulator Ofcom.
Last month, on the same day as Hunter S. Thompson’s death was being announced in the press there was another, less prominent story about the successful flotation, after only a few months on air, of TV Commerce. TV Commerce is operator of two out of the total of 162 new channels licensed by Ofcom in the fourteen months since it took over TV regulation from the ITC. With a full time staff of just four working from a studio in Feltham, Middlesex, TV Commerce owns the Your Destiny and Advert channels. The Advert Channel offers a schedule made up of adverts old and new, while Your Destiny earns its income from offering viewers who call in on its premium rate phone lines on-screen psychic messages. Hunter S. Thompson was talking about TV in the USA, but commentators and TV people are becoming fearful that our TV could heading in the same direction.
Ofcom’s Review of Public Service Broadcasting, which was published last month was called “Competition for Quality". And a remarkable document it is too! Remarkable! In it Ofcom sort of admits that all the new stations and competition which it is encouraging, threaten to squeeze out high quality programmes and undermine Britain’s eighty year long heritage of public service broadcasting. “Competition for Quality" offers Ofcom’s proposals for dealing with this.
When Ofcom started its Chief Executive, Stephen Carter, promised that public service broadcasting would be subjected to what he described as “detailed authorative research and analysis". Addressing the RTS in Cambridge in 2003, he damned all earlier descriptions and understandings about the nature of public service broadcasting, dismissing them as “soundbites from the 1930s". Mantras such as “inform, educate and entertain", would, Carter said, “no longer suffice." Instead, he promised, Ofcom would provide “a written constitution for public service broadcasting" and extend the mechanisms of market trading to the fulfilment of public service obligations. Accordingly, has now unveiled Ofcom’s new definition of Public Service Broadcasting. Instead of three straightforward words, “inform, educate and entertain", Ofcom gives us more than 170 words, broken up into ten paragraphs, six of them describing public service broadcasting’s “characteristics". These include “High Quality" – meaning, says Ofcom, “well funded and well produced" (Amazing! I’m so glad you told me that, Ofcom! Only, I thought you were going to get away from such subjective concepts as “well produced"?) However, what I find really significant is that, unlike the Government in its Green Paper on the future of the BBC, the word “educate" appears nowhere among all Ofcom’s 170 words. Why not?
Ofcom goes on to outline its plans to counter the threat to public service broadcasting, devoting most of the document’s 112 pages to ITV. Once one has cut through all the marketing speak and other verbiage what one is left with is not a plan to tackle the root cause of the problem, the burgeoning competition from new channels, but a set of proposals and justifications for removing nearly all of the public service obligations taken on by the ITV contractors when they accepted their contracts and for dumping most of those obligations onto the BBC. In particular Ofcom announces the immediate implementation of changes outlined in Phase II of its review, published last autumn, where it proposed halving the amount of regional non-news programmes ITV contractors are obliged to show in the English regions, with a further reduction to follow.
Ofcom justifies these decisions with research – the kind of “detailed authorative research and analysis" that Stephen Carter promised. Or at least that is what one ought to have a right to assume. However, since Ofcom published Phase II of its Review another agency, Northern Film & Media, the screen development agency for north east of England, has commissioned its own research and analysis of Ofcom’s figures. NFM’s investigation was carried out by the respected media research organisation, David Graham Associates. They found that the figures which Ofcom used to justify its decisions is suspect, some might think deliberately misleading. In particular, the so-called “Opportunity Costs" of these programmes (that is to say the difference in cost per viewer hour to the contractors of being obliged to show the required volume of regional non-news programmes rather than ordinary ITV network programmes), as stated by Ofcom are inaccurate. Ofcom claims, based on its own research, that these “Opportunity Costs" are almost three times as great as those that would arise if the contractors were allowed to show ordinary ITV network programmes. Ofcom makes the very size of this difference a central plank in its argument for slashing the contractors regional obligations. It suggests that these costs represent “around two thirds of the total cost of ITV1’s PSB activities." But, as David Graham Associates points out, Ofcom took as the baseline on which it calculated the Opportunity Costs figures published by its predecessor the ITC in 2002 – that is one year before the ITC agreed to a decrease of 35% in the amount regional off-peak, non-news hours that the ITV contractors were obliged to transmit. Had Ofcom used the current starting point for its calculation it is likely, says David Graham Associates, that the actual cost of providing those programmes is at least one third less than those used by Ofcom to justify its decision.
David Graham Associates also discovered that the so-called Opportunity Costs were derived by ofcom from work described by those who actually carried it out as “pilot studies" and “needing further work" (a fact not disclosed by Ofcom). One begins to wonder whether of some of Ofcom’s smart young men were previously employed in Downing Street to work through old PhD theses in search of evidence of WMDs.
One also has to wonder at the huge discrepancies between the costs reported by the different ITV contractors for making regional non-news programmes: costs of more than £25,000 an hour reported by Border, HTV West and West Country, against little more than £10,500 by Scottish and Ulster. Surely this warrants proper investigation?
Another justification used by Ofcom for cutting non-news regional programmes is that they “receive low audiences" and “do not secure audiences as large as ITV1’s average network audience." Yet, in the very next section of the same review Ofcom tells us that “regional output performs slightly better than network programming in similar slots". Confused? Yes, me too. But then, maybe we’re meant to be.
With regional programmes a lot depends on what programmes they are scheduled against. All too often ITV’s regional programmes are scheduled against the BBC’s strongest performers – shows like East Enders. So isn’t the scheduling of regional non-news programmes something that Ofcom should have addressed before simply slashing them? The Review also seems to disregard the considerable variations in viewership for such programmes between different regions. For instance, David Graham Associates found that in the Tyne Tees area in the 12 months until 30th September 2004 more than half the transmissions of regional non-news programmes in the 11 to 11.30pm slot on Friday nights achieved audiences almost 15% higher than other ITV network programmes shown by Tyne Tees in the same slot. One series of regional non-news programmes shown by Tyne Tees in that slot achieved an audience which was almost double the ITV average for programmes shown in the slot.
DGA also found that in the Tyne Tees area while only 3% of viewers thought that there was “too much" non-news programming, 53% believed that the amount was “about right" and 29% actually wanted more. Support for such programmes was particularly strong among older people – a group for whom I have some fellow feeling, but whom Ofcom often seems to ignore.
And what of the likely effect of cutting such programmes on independent production companies in the regions? For many such companies, and the people who work in them, particularly younger programme makers, these programmes, especially when they are shown in non-peak hours, provide a unique opportunity to develop their skills in a relatively low-risk environment and to build up the experience they will need if they are eventually to win network commissions. This is a particular concern in my own region, the south west, where as South West Screen has pointed out in a press release attacking Ofcom’s proposals, the creative industries employ more people than in any other region outside London.
Add to this the findings of new research undertaken for PACT and the Film Council by the Institute of Employment Studies. This found that independent production companies led by members of the minority ethnic communities face particular difficulties in trying to break into the sector and secure those all important early commissions – exactly the sort of commissions provided by regional non-news programmes.
When one considers all this together one begins to appreciate the extent of the vandalism being proposed by Ofcom. Estelle Morris, the Arts Minister, commenting on the IES research, has said that “The UK has a rich and diverse culture and it is essential that it is reflected in film and on television." She calls for more doors to be opened for this new and emerging talent. Ofcom, by its proposals, is preparing to close them.
Ofcom’s own Content Board strongly recommended delaying the reductions in non-news regional programmes until at least 2006, but the main Ofcom Board over-ruled it, even though two years ago, while the Communications Act was going through parliament, we were repeatedly assured by Tessa Jowell that the Content Board would be “central" to Ofcom and would “have teeth". Some centre! Some teeth!
Ofcom’s main proposal for repairing the damage they are about to inflict on regional diversity is to increase the percentage of network programmes ITV has to source from outside the M25. However the main beneficiaries of this are likely to be ITV plc and the handful of large independents rather than smaller, genuinely regional independents. The most likely scenario is that large London based independents will open additional provincial offices through which to hover up the increased regional network production.
Ofcom attaches particular importance to the independent sector, which it regards as a source of plurality in programme supply, of economic growth and what it calls “creative competition". It plans to bring forward a wide ranging review of what it calls “the content production sector". That being so, perhaps it is time to start dispelling a few illusions about the independent sector, illusions which I admit I had some hand in fostering. Back in the 1980s, when I was arguing with Mrs Thatcher for the introduction of the 25% independent production quota, I told her that it was needed in order force the doors of the ITV companies and the BBC open and allow the independents to “get airborne" as a source of real competition in programme supply. I told her, however, that once that had been achieved a quota of the current form would no longer be either necessary or desirable. That point has long since been reached and it is only due to extremely skilful lobbying by PACT that it survives. Today the independent sector accounts for 40% of all new non-news commissions and more than 50% of the UK market in factual entertainment. A recent analysis by the media consultants Oliver and Ohlbaum projects that by 2014 the BBC will account for just 22% of the new production market and be only 40% of the size of the independent sector. It is time that the quota was either dropped or modified to meet new, more relevant, cultural goals.
Where once the independent sector could fairly be characterised as representing a range of small, creatively motivated enterprises which were completely separate from the broadcasters and run by programme makers more interested in the creative quality of the programmes they made than in the profits they generated, today the sector is split between a mass of small producers who struggle to survive at all and twenty or so large companies which make as many programmes as all the rest put together. Originally an independent was completely distinct from a broadcaster, defined as a producer in which no broadcaster had any shares or other financial interest and vice-versa. Over the last fifteen years that distinction has been progressively watered down. Today many of the leading independents are almost indistinguishable from any other multi-national media conglomerate broadcaster. Big Brother producer Endemol, for instance, is a subsidiary of large Dutch company which is in turn owned by the Spanish broadcasting and telecoms giant Telefonica. Today many of the large independents see themselves, in the words of the Chairman of one of the most successful, David Frank of RDF, as “like a large rights factory. Our production side creates product that we can sell. How and where we vend them is driven by what the markets are like at any time." The ultimate goals of large companies like RDF are in no doubt. In the words of RDF’s Director of Programmes: “We are trying to create a company of value … one that will either float or be bought." Only last year David Frank, who is also one of PACT’s Vice Chairmen, said that having more than 600 separate independent companies was “crackers". “There’s always room for boutique suppliers", he said, but there should only be 40 or 50 of them. (With vice chairmen like that I wonder that PACT’s members going on paying their subs!) Ofcom should ask itself whether encouraging a concentration of independents into ever fewer bigger companies, their eyes fixed firmly on foreign markets and the bottom line, is really likely to benefit the overall quality and range of original production for British audiences. I seriously doubt it.
A further danger in the increase in independent production envisaged by Ofcom is the effect this is likely to have on those who work in the industry. Already there is growing evidence of exploitative and bullying employment practices. Independent producers appear to be among the worst offenders. Young, fully trained, people at the start of their careers are increasingly being forced to work unpaid; more experienced people, in order to work at all, increasingly find themselves forced to work on rates below those agreed between the industry’s unions and employers, and for hours far in excess of the Working Time Directive. Neither the broadcasters nor the independents trade associations have taken effective action to stamp out such abuses. This is a matter which any responsible industry regulator ought to address.
Ofcom has correctly diagnosed the disease threatening public service broadcasting as the increasing competition arising from the massive increase in channels. The effect of this can be seen in microcosm in television for children, a genre which, while the Communications Act was being debated in Parliament we were specifically assured by the Secretary of State would be protected under the Act and by the new regulator. Currently there are around 20 children’s channels. The competition between these channels and the resultant pressure on broadcasters to reduce costs has resulted in stagnation in programme budgets. Many of the new children’s channels commission no original programmes at all and today it is really only the BBC that can afford to produce new programmes in expensive genres like children’s drama – the BBC recently launched a new version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. ITV used to give the BBC a good run for its money in the provision of high quality children’s programmes, but no longer. It now concentrates mainly on lower cost programmes. And what does Ofcom plan to do about this? Despite having highlighted the problem in its public service broadcasting review and having specific responsibilities in this area, last week Ofcom reduced ITV’s obligations in children’s programmes from 11½ hours a week to 8 hours. On this form, we can look forward to a further string of similarly perverse Ofcom interventions across a range of other areas vital to the survival of public service broadcasting – from documentaries to arts programmes, religious broadcasting to current affairs, regional programmes to single drama.
Ofcom’s one positive proposal for tackling the problems facing public service broadcasting is the creation of the so-called PSP – Public Service Publisher. This, we are told, will bring “a burst of innovative, creative energy to the communications landscape" and “underpin the provision of high-quality, distinctive and ambitious content". Really? Across the whole communications landscape, a landscape in which 162 new channels are licensed in just one year and broadcasters are being relieved of their public service obligations across the board? By the production of probably no more than three hours of programmes a day, spread either across a range of channels or concentrated onto one? Come off it!
Instead of coming up with screeds of paper with nonsensical titles like “Competition for Quality" or high sounding, untried schemes of doubtful benefit such as PSP, Ofcom would be better employed focusing on what it itself diagnoses as the cause of the problem – the burgeoning, unfettered and virtually unregulated competition from new channels. Before blowing any of that £300 million on their new PSP Ofcom ought to look carefully at the powers vested in itself and in the Secretary of State and spend just a little time and effort on tightening up the requirements placed on existing broadcasters and new entrants. As John Willis, then an ITV executive, wrote in 2002: “The only way of ensuring quality on behalf of the viewers is to inflict significant regulation on the modern media company." British television has only been as good as it has been because of strict regulation.
I admit to having been hard on Ofcom. Its powers are restricted and inadequate for dealing with the problems facing public service broadcasting. The real blame for the mess which we find ourselves in lies with the Government – in fact with successive governments – and their irrational belief in the over-riding virtue of unfettered competition in all spheres, including broadcasting. It is the Blair government that has instigated the mad rush for digital switchover – a change which, far from netting the Treasury the looked for billions from selling off spectrum envisaged when the policy was born, is now forecast as likely to cost the tax payer and the viewing public £7 billion and wipe out all the benefits of all the energy saving measures introduced to meet our obligations under the Kyoto Treaty.
This month it is 75 years since the BBC started to transmit this country’s first television service – for half an hour each day, on its London and Midland Regional transmitters. A fitting way to mark that anniversary is for all of us to start to campaign for a halt in our television’s descent into Hunter S. Thompson’s “shallow money trench". A few years ago Peter McGhee, the head of the largest PBS station in America described the situation in his own country. He said: “Most television enters our people and our body politic not as food for thought but as embalming fluid." So take heed, while there is still time to stop ourselves from joining our American colleagues on the embalmer’s slab.
DATELINE: 25 January, 2010
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