Ofcom's remedy is not ours...

Posted by Jonathan Hardy

CPBF's Jonathan Hardy argues that Ofcom's proposals will, if implemented, be the kiss of death to public service broadcasting. The Campaign itself has an important part to play in promoting an alternative approach to PSB, aimed at creating quality, democratic media in the digital future.

Our analysis in the CPBF is that Ofcom's proposals as a whole will have a negative impact on public service broadcasting (PSB). It is unlikely that the recommendations in the final Ofcom report, if implemented, will strengthen and maintain the quality of public service broadcasting.

There are real pressures on all the public service broadcasters in the UK and Ofcom’s research has helped to identify these. But while we may agree on the diagnosis, we are divided on the remedies.

In Ofcom's vision, PSB will develop alongside commercial provision, but is not allowed to grow in real terms over the next ten years. Public service broadcasting by the commercial companies becomes increasingly unsustainable.

Ofcom accepts ITV's argument that it can relocate to a cheaper property with no service charges or more precisely PSB obligations. In accepting this argument, Ofcom proposes a massive redefinition and restructuring of ITV's output and the burden of public service obligations falls increasingly on the BBC.

There are promises for expansion - local digital services or the proposed Public Service Publisher. But the overall share of PSB income as a proportion of the total in the broadcasting market will reduce.

The alternative vision – the Campaign's and others' – justifies quite a different response to the evident problems of PSB.

The first principle is supported by the Communications Act's call on Ofcom to ensure that PSB is maintained and strengthened; if PSB matters then ways must be found to sustain it in future.

That is fundamentally a political - not an economic - imperative. More concretely, it is an argument for regulation in support of PSB. This is not part of Ofcom's vision.

ITV and regional production

PSB programme obligations are specifically weakened for ITV. Ofcom recommends that ITV should 'focus on its core strengths' but endorses the controversial proposals to slash regional programming to 1.5 hours a week, and gives the green light for further cuts to half an hour per week after digital switchover.

After digital switchover, ITV's public service remit will be limited to producing 'high-value UK programming, news, current affairs and, if financially sustainable, a core regional news service.' It will no longer be required to carry arts, religious or children's programmes. In fact, ITV is currently negotiating with Ofcom to reduce its obligations further – and its regional news service is almost certain to go.

ITV has the outcome it lobbied for. It has been let off the hook, and the BBC has been given the responsibility to fill the gap left by ITV abandoning its regional remit.

These proposals fly in the face of Ofcom's own research evidence.

Ninety six per cent of viewers are very or quite interested in programming which reflects what is going on in their immediate local area. Under Ofcom’s proposals the half an hour per week could include parliamentary news or current affairs. So there could cease to be any programmes on ITV dealing with anything other than UK-wide news.

If Ofcom allows it to, ITV plc will retreat from providing proper public service programming for the nations and the regions in the UK. However, it will retreat with archives, facilities and a brand name, which are all, in part at least, public assets, built up with public money.

If ITV seeks to retreat from PSB, Ofcom should take steps to recover the brand name from the company for public use on the digital platforms of the future, and Ofcom should also seek the powers to take a majority stake, for the public, in the exploitation of ITV's archives. The regulator has many of the tools already, including tax incentives, grants, Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) prominence, 'must carry' rules, and multiplex capacity.

There is no serious effort to use its muscle envisaged in Ofcom's report. However, as ITV renegotiates its fees of £200m in June there is an opportunity to campaign for a new settlement in the way ITV (or an alternative provider ) is regulated in future.

The Public Service Publisher (PSP) concept still remains extremely vague and we do not see how its funding arrangements and implementation will compensate for a weakening of PSB programming requirements on ITV and Channel 5.

The proposal that the BBC licence fee be increased to cover the costs of running the BBC and the new PSP service will, we believe, create confusion and give additional impetus to the campaign against the licence fee.

If the PSP concept does get government support, it should have a separate and transparent source of funding, either from direct taxation or, if state aid rules prevent this, from a levy on the media industry.

We welcome the recommendation that the BBC should remain the cornerstone of PSB:  strong, independent and properly funded by the licence fee.

In our view, however, Ofcom's proposals concerning the BBC, far from protecting its future, will serve to weaken and marginalize its presence as a major and positive force in UK broadcasting.

Ofcom's vision of PSB is a deficit model, often called 'market failure', based on the idea that public service means programmes that the market would not provide if left to itself. It would, however, be disastrous for the BBC to produce only those programmes that could not survive in a commercial market. No PSB in Europe has gone down that route, for good reason; the retreat to serving only elite interests would destroy the role (and legitimacy) of PSB.

Suggesting that the BBC should not be involved in ratings-driven programming is to deny the very basis on which the BBC has built public support over the years.

In five years time, Ofcom will conduct yet another review of PSB television and the government seems to have implicitly accepted Ofcom's logic by proposing that the BBC consider subscription over the next ten year licence fee period.

Concluding remarks: CPBF and the radical democratic tradition

There has been a long struggle to realise the vision of a dynamic, more open and diverse PSB system – one with the resources to produce high quality programmes, available to all, able to reach all tastes and interests, and able to produce news and information for citizens of high quality.

But public service is not just a question of programme types or quality. It is also about the way in which the organisation and structure of broadcasting institutions shape programme-making. Public service broadcasters must be independent of political or commercial control. In consequence, they will be open to the broadest range of voices and will combine the highest production values with the most democratic involvement with the public. Public service broadcasting demands accessibility to all and institutional support for full range of voices and local community media.

Drawing it all together

The point is often made, but nonetheless vital, that PSB is more than an approach to programme making. It is about institutions and the conditions and culture in which people in those institutions work; it is about who provides media content, and about how far provision embodies values we consider important - political and cultural diversity; openness and responsiveness; independence; accuracy and completeness of information.

The radical tradition is concerned, above all, with who has access to the powerful means of communication and what they can do with them.

Who provides matters just as much as the provision.

Ofcom promotes a system in which PSB content may increasingly be supplied by purely commercial organisations. But it has almost nothing to say about the long list of problems identified with corporate media influence. It was concern about relying on purely commercial interests that gave rise to PSB in the first place.

The radical tradition recognises that institutional arrangements have a vital influence on culture and content – that's at the heart of the battle against job cuts across the public service broadcasters; it's why we fight for training, equal opportunities and wider access as integral, protected features of PSB.

We must recognise Ofcom as an important agency which will shape future provision of public service media. We must register our determination to ensure that opportunities for the expansion of new local, non-commercial services are fully realised, and not simply developed on the outer margins of the system.

At the heart of Ofcom's proposals, there is a major contradiction. The establishment of the PSP requires a range of regulatory tools (including finance of £300m per year) which it is argued elsewhere cannot be realistically sustained.

Ofcom should be using the resources it has at its disposal to build on and develop the various public service platforms we have in the UK (ITV, BBC, S4C, C4, C5) so that they are a strong presence in the digital future. And it should add to this mix a commitment to local TV on a non-commercial basis.