BBC Conference Warns Against Complacency

Posted by 145/Ros Bayley

:Opening the conference, Bectu President Tony Lennon said the new BBC Director General Mark Thompson and Chairman Michael Grade had taken ‘a big gamble’ by introducing their own drastic changes to buy off the BBC’s critics ahead of the green paper.

Grade had concentrated on distancing the governors from the BBC and was rewarded with a proposal for a new BBC Trust that would be accountable to licence payers rather than handing the regulatory role to Ofcom.

Thompson had promised an across the board 15% budget cut and offered to increase the proportion of TV programmes made by independent companies from the present 25% to 40%.

A chunk of production, including sport, children’s programmes and Radio Five Live, was being moved to Manchester. And Thompson had ‘rolled over’ in the face of the charge that the BBC was providing unfair competition to commercial companies by offering to sell BBC Broadcast, BBC Resources and parts of BBC Worldwide.

The danger was that the government had accepted this programme of reform – parts of the green paper could have been written by Thompson, Lennon said – and the BBC would now have to deliver it.

Former BBC political correspondent Nicholas Jones said the BBC had had a narrow escape and had been given another chance to focus on its priorities. ‘My fear is it could be the start of death by 1,000 cuts.’

The political correspondents, who lunch regularly with ministers, were certain that this was the last throw of the licence fee. After the 10 years of the next charter were up, the licence fee would be top-sliced, with some of it going to other broadcasters. The BBC was likely to become a subscription service.

‘So already we are witnessing the first steps towards the sidelining of the BBC along the lines of national public broadcasting in America… a marginalised BBC on subscription serving a minority audience.’

BBC Scotland reporter Peter Murray said the first priority of the unions was to fight job cuts and to try to ensure that the BBC had the resources to deliver quality.

One of the proposals from his managers, for instance, was to cut the number of correspondents, the experts who gave the BBC a distinctive edge.

Media and Heritage Minister Andrew McIntosh sought to reassure the audience that public sector broadcasting was safe in his hands. ‘A strong, BBC, independent of the government’ was the starting point for the green paper.

In the government’s view, public service broadcasting was not about market failure, ‘doing the things that commercial broadcasters can’t and don’t want to do’. It was ‘top quality news and current affairs, all the high brow stuff, entertainment, drama and everything else’.

But the end of terrestrial broadcasting – the challenge of the switch to digital – meant that the BBC had to change.

Some parts of the green paper were ‘white’ and not up for discussion, Lord McIntosh said. ‘The charter and the 10 year licence fee is inviolable.’ Ministers were unanimous on this.

Where the paper was genuinely ‘green’, and the government had not made up its mind, was on the detail of the accountability structure and how licence fee payers would have a say in it; the level of the licence fee; how it should be collected; value for money and the cost of regional expansion; the archives; new ultra-local services; and how to ensure fair competition in production and commissioning.

The government was also ‘green’ about how public service broadcasting should be funded beyond the next 10 years.

Professor Tom O’Malley was concerned that Ofcom wanted to limit total spending on public service broadcasting in the UK at £3bn, effectively freezing the BBC’s income while commercial companies grew.

The BBC must be allowed to sustain and expand into new areas in the next decade. And contrary to what the BBC had offered and the government had accepted, the commercial sector, not the BBC, should be made to pay for digital roll out, via a levy, as the benefit in the medium term would accrue to commercial operators.

Since the 1980s, the commercial lobby had ‘howled for even more liberalisation’ and had argued for the BBC to be cut back, without any evidence that it caused unfair competition. The expansion of the independent sector had led to poor working conditions, a growth in casualised labour, lack of training and a decline in equal opportunities.

Professor Jean Seaton of Westminster University said: ‘A society that doesn’t understand its own reality will either become totalitarian or die.’ Public service broadcasting helped people to perceive reality, through both news and through popular drama, and provided a way ‘of discussing accurately where it is that we are and what problems we have’.

There was nothing more urgent but public service broadcasting ‘was under fantastic duress’. Look at America, a society ‘that doesn’t understand that the ghettos are there’.

‘It is not a moral issue but a question of survival,’ she said.

Ofcom Partner Strategy and Market Development Robin Foster said there was ‘no secret hidden commercial agenda in Ofcom’s approach to public service broadcasting’.

Public service broadcasting shouldn’t be ‘a marginalised, ghettoised approach’. It should have reach and impact. ‘Programmes have to be popular, engaging and attract a reasonable number of viewers,’ he said.

But the existing model, where ITV and Five were part of public service broadcasting, would end with digital switchover. If Ofcom tried to impose costly public service broadcasting requirements thereafter, the companies would find alternative means of broadcasting that avoided regulation.

The most important public service role for ITV and Five was to provide ‘high quality, original programmes made in the UK’. If they did that, the UK would be in a far better position than most other parts of the world.

As the pressures of a multi-channel world increased, Channel Four might be forced to provide more popular programming. If Ofcom did nothing, the BBC would then become a near monopoly of public service broadcasting.

Ofcom would review Channel Four’s funding in 2006/07 to see if a new approach was needed. The priority for the duration of the existing commercial television licences would be to sustain regional news while the most exciting proposal was to creat a new publicly funded public service publisher, to focus on new media.

CPBF National Secretary Jonathan Hardy said Ofcom’s plans would be bad for public service broadcasting. ITV would not be required to carry arts, religious or children’s programmes – it was already negotiating to reduce its output– and the regional news service was almost certain to go.

‘But it will retreat with the archives, facilities and a brand name, which are all, in part at least, public assets, built up with public money.’ Ofcom should try to recover the brand name and gain a stake in the exploitation of the archive, he suggested.

Jim Pines, Senior Lecturer at Luton University, said the one thing that connected ethnic minority viewers was their dissatisfaction with terrestrial television. ‘People say I pay a licence fee but there is nothing on TV that reflects anything about me.’

He suggested jettisoning the idea of public service broadcasting. Programmes could be made that were only of interest to a minority audience. ‘A lot of people are arguing that cable and satellite are the future.’

Dorothy Byrne, Director of News and Current Affairs at Channel Four, was upbeat about public service broadcasting at the channel. The amount of news had just gone up from five to eight hours a week and a new channel was about to be launched.

She didn’t see the BBC as a threat. ‘The key to the future of Channel Four is a strong BBC.’

But she was worried about the loss of ITV’s regional current affairs output. The regional programmes had been the training ground for the freelances and independent companies that were now making the flagship national current affairs programmes.

Independent director Michael Darlow thought part of the problem stemmed from Ofcom licensing too many channels, including one that you could dial up to hear a psychic message on a premium telephone line.

Losing regional programmes would destroy ‘the seedbed for young people, young companies and particularly companies led by people from ethnic minorities’.

Increasing production outside London would not compensate as ITV and the large independents would move out and ‘Hoover the stuff up’. Independents used to be just that but now many were part of large corporations, which viewed them as a ‘rights’ factory’ to make money by selling programmes abroad.

NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear called on the conference to back the joint unions’ call for the BBC to halt the cuts. ‘The colossal job cuts, reductions in programme budgets and commitments, of the sale and privatisation of a core section of the BBC, risk destroying the BBC’s position as the cornerstone of public service broadcasting and pose a substantial risk in the future to the BBC’s continuing right to the licence fee.’

But it wasn’t just a battle about jobs. ‘It is a battle of ideas. We believe market driven broadcasting and media alone is bound to fail citizens in the digital TV age, as well as the terrestrial TV age.’