The BBC’s director general Tony Hall appeared to confirm that ITV had poached The Voice from the BBC in comments to parliament in which he also said he saw “no reason” to move the News at 10.
In his first comment about BBC1’s announcement that its hit show The Voice had been bought by a rival producer, Hall told the House of Lords communication committee that The Voice had been a “really good programme” when the BBC bought it.
“We’ve made it, it’s brilliant,” he added. “I’m sad it is going but there you are. ITV are taking one of our programmes, that’s fine. I hope ITV will run with it and keep making it a success.”
Although now considered an open secret that The Voice will go to ITV, the commercial channel has said that no deal has been signed for the show, which starts its fifth and final series for the BBC in January. The Voice is produced by Wall 2 Wall and Talpa, which was bought by ITV earlier this year.
When asked the row between the BBC and ITV over whether the state broadcaster should move its flagship nightly bulletin in order to avoid “crowding out” rivals Hall said: “When it comes to news I’m slightly at odds with what has been said about our News at Ten and ITV’s news at ten.” He said audiences are best served by having two news programmes to choose from.
“I see no reason to move the news. Next week I think there are four times ITV News is not at 10pm. We want to maintain [from] Monday to Friday the news at ten. [The] changes to ITN news are really interesting and good and I believe in choice.”
BBC news anchor Huw Edwards started a public tit-for-tat over ratings after he made gleeful claims on Twitter and Facebook that his ITV rival Tom Bradby attracted just 2 million viewers as presenter of the new-look bulletin.
Bradby, who relaunched the ITV news bulletin last month, hit back in the Sunday Times likening the BBC’s behaviour to imperial Rome, and suggesting the corporation wants to put its rivals out of business.
ITV News has also appointed Robert Peston, the BBC’s economics editor, to replace Bradby as political editor and take on a new weekly political programme that will compete against The Andrew Marr Show.
Hall reminded the committee that in 2000 he was director of BBC News under director general Greg Dyke when the corporation and ITV were involved in shifting their bulletins in a saga that became known as “news at when”.
“ITV had moved [its news programme] from 10pm to all over the place to suit the schedule. Greg coined the very Greg-ish phrase it’s “news at when”.
In September, culture secretary John Whittingdale surprised the TV industry by raising the prospect of the BBC being forced to move its main 10pm news programme as part of a review of its impact on commercial rivals.
Hall was also quizzed on the BBC making popular programmes that are available on other channels, ITV makes The Voice rival X Factor.
“I think people fly to quality,” he said. “We are about originating great British content. Compared to 20 or 30 years ago things like [US import] Kojak. You are not finding that anymore. There is a commitment to fresh new content on the BBC, and ITV, for that matter.
Hall also appeared to be against the idea of Channel 4 being sold off and altering its model as a state-owned, commercially-funded broadcaster.
“We have an extremely good media ecology in this country,” he said. “ITV is funded by advertising. Sky is funded by subscriptions. Channel 4 is funded by advertising with its own remit, and there is the licence fee funded BBC. I sat on the Channel 4 board for nine years… I believe in what Channel 4 is doing. I think the test for any future change in Channel 4… is how do you ensure the public continue to get the [public service] remit delivered by Channel 4 as part of that mix. It has a very specific remit that is very important for the broadcasting ecology in this country.”
Speaking later Dan Brooke, the chief marketing and communications officer at Channel 4, felt that it would be impossible in practice for a commercial owner to adhere to Channel 4’s “Robin Hood” approach to funding public service content.
“You could retain it on the page [of a sell-off agreement] but what ended up on the screen would be quite different,” he said. “We do not have shareholders that we pay dividends to. We operate a ‘Robin Hood’ model. We have a variety of programmes that make money. Come Dine With Me… is very profitable, [such shows] enable you to pay for a considerable number of programmes that don’t make money. Channel 4 News, Dispatches…the London Paralympics… they don’t make money.”
