John Whittingdale’s speech to the RTS Cambridge convention was notable for a couple of reasons. Firstly because, unusually for a secretary of state, he actually said something specific – several things in fact. Secondly, because almost everything he said saw industry eyebrows rising.
He announced a major review of the BBC’s market impact – not in itself a huge surprise given the questions asked in his own charter review green paper. But the question was couched in terms of whether it was appropriate for the BBC to run its main evening news at the same time as ITV’s.
The BBC’s schedules may indeed affect commercial rivals – although rarely in a way that can be demonstrated to result in commercial loss. But no one thinks that applies to News at Ten, not even, apparently, ITV.
Indeed the only reason the BBC’s news is at 10 o’clock is that some years back ITV moved its news from 10pm to 10.30pm (it was subsequently dubbed “News at When” as it drifted uncertainly around its new slot). The BBC took the opportunity to move its news from 9pm to 10pm and that was that.
Whittingdale also announced a new review of BBC governance. Again not entirely surprising given the charter review context and widely shared concerns over the way the current BBC Trust arrangements have worked – or not. But in saying that the BBC had “made some bad mistakes in the last few years” he went on to mention Savile, McAlpine and Ross/Brand alongside executive pay offs. As if it was the BBC’s editorial record that necessitated a review of its governance arrangements. When asked whether that is what he meant he appeared to suggest it wasn’t.
And then he announced a third new review, this time of the terms of trade under which Britain’s independent producers and broadcasters do business. This did come as a genuine surprise not least to producers’ organisation Pact who immediately pointed out that Ofcom had only just looked at the issue – the fifth such review in the last 10 years Pact claimed – and declared current arrangements broadly satisfactory. Pact were clearly furious and almost everyone else left wondering what was going on. I say almost because one man who could barely disguise his delight was Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham.
That’s because he’s been campaigning publicly for some time now questioning whether the terms of trade – which currently protect qualifying independent producers by guaranteeing them ownership of all the secondary rights to their programmes – should still apply to so-called “super-indies”.
His line – supported recently by BBC director general Tony Hall – is that consolidation amongst indies and increasing foreign ownership – often by companies that dwarf Channel 4 and even in some cases the BBC – needs to addressed if the health and welfare of Britain’s world–renowned creative economy is to be assured.
His arguments, which range from the threat posed by US and corporate ownership to the creative health of the companies they buy to the potential impact on Britain’s unique broadcasting ecology of US ownership of key components (Viacom has just bought Channel 5from Richard Desmond remember), sound plausible. And if what he’s really saying is don’t privatise Channel 4 they might appear to be ringing the right bell. But in themselves they struggle to stand detailed scrutiny.
Asked repeatedly to cite examples of where Channel 4 had been forced to make commissioning decisions it would rather not have done on account of the size or ownership of the producer concerned, he couldn’t. And asked to quantify the problem in terms of indies that are now so big as to not need their terms of trade protecting but that are not part-owned by broadcasters – which means they no longer qualify for the regulated terms of trade at all – again, no candidates forthcoming.
As for the concern over creativity in companies once they are consolidated and/or foreign owned, provided broadcasters remain free to commission the best ideas from wherever they come, it’s hard to see how creative failure in one company no matter how regrettable – not least for the big spending corporates who bought it – will not be matched by new creative success elsewhere.
Meanwhile the BBC announced its long-awaited plan to reframe most of its in-house production division as “BBC Studios” and to launch it into the market as a commercial subsidiary. It’s a move that really does have the potential to fundamentally change British TV’s creative ecology – and not necessarily for the better. Time for another review anyone?
