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Mr. Rowlands: Compare that with the £23 million cost of the HTV licence. That cost is a major drain on the development of English language broadcasts in Wales.
Many of the changes in the Bill are most welcome in relation to S4C, but we must consider the disadvantages that may be suffered by English language programme making in Wales, particularly that of HTV.
There is one simple solution to the problem. The renegotiation of the licence should coincide with the changes that will result from the Bill. The disadvantages that HTV will suffer as a result of the Bill could be compensated by changes to the licensing arrangements. That alteration, combined with the demands that we should rightly be making upon the BBC nationally to amend its attitude to English language broadcasting in Wales, would offer a solution. We should have a much more balanced view of broadcasting in Wales.
I hope that, if nothing else, we have impressed upon the Minister and the Department today, as we did in Committee, that broadcasting in Wales is not just a matter of the Welsh language. It goes much broader than that, relating to the opportunity and potential talent of so many people in Wales to express their skills also in the English language.
Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby):
I support the new clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I was the second Member to put my name to it, and, emboldened by my presence, others more distinguished than I followed. Perhaps they did not have the courage to do so until they saw our joint names on the new clause.
As my hon. Friend would expect, I express my support from a slightly different point of view, as someone--here I must declare an interest--who presents a political programme on Sky Television. I speak for freedom, truth and justice, and Lord Tebbit speaks from his point of view. We discuss the issues of the week.
I support the new clause because it is right in principle. I support it because the trade union representatives who came to speak to us about the Bill want some quality control and quality influence on the part of the ITC to be included in the Bill. It is right that that should be done.
I support the new clause because, at the moment, the ITC's powers are inadequate. Its basic powers are to see that people live up to the terms of their submission for a contract, and to exercise an effective control over regional programmes and the amount of production for local viewing in the regions. It should have some power over quality, and have the ability to edge companies up-market. It is not good enough merely to give it the negative power to say, "You've departed from your contract."
The quality power enshrined in the new clause is appropriate, because we have seen a deterioration in the quality of current affair programmes in particular. The production of such programmes is always difficult, because they do not win audiences as news and entertainment programmes do. When I used to work in current affairs, it was a golden rule that such a programme lost between one third and a half of the audience, perhaps because I was on such programmes, that it started out with. It would be difficult to persuade companies to produce quality current affairs programmes unless the ITC had some power to demand it.
I also support the new clause because digital represents a whole new ball game, in which we must try to seek some guarantee of standards. Competition in television is intensifying, and it is possible that we will see the same remorseless slide down-market as we have seen in the press.
The standards of popular television in this country are higher than those of the popular press. We have the least worst television in the world, and perhaps the least best popular press. Why? Because the competition is not as intense in television, and because television is regulated to maintain standards in a way that is not possible in the press. We need that type of regulation. The new clause addresses that important issue directly. That is why it is necessary.
I must enter a caveat, because satellite needs a slightly different approach. One cannot achieve a level playing field in respect of the British percentage of programmes
or the definition of quality between satellite and cable on the one hand and terrestrial television on the other. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) has pointed out the differences, and said that many satellite programmes represent high quality and British production. It is certainly true that Sky One and Sky News have not gone down market as many people expected.
Satellite is different, because it does not have access to the privileged channels that terrestrial represents. Those channels are privileged, powerful and universal channels. Satellite has had to build its own audience in its own way, and in doing so, it has responded to different needs. One means of building an audience is through massive investment in British productions, because people here like British-produced programmes.
Given the way in which satellite was launched, however, it was impossible to fulfil that requirement in the same way as terrestrial has managed to do. Satellite has therefore built up its audience by approaching the task differently and by providing a different kind of programme. It will not be able to jump suddenly into the same kind of box of requirements now met by the terrestrial channels.
The future of television must lie in the fact that most people will turn for their basic viewing to the terrestrial channels. That is what happens still in the United States. There is a multiplicity of channels in that country, but between 60 and 70 per cent. of the audience still watch basic network television. The same will happen here. People will rely for basic viewing on network television--the bread and butter of television.
It is right for the ITC to have power and influence, but it cannot have what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South urged it to have--an absolutely level playing field, with the same requirements imposed on both sides. Indeed, as I read it, the new clause does not require that, because it uses the words
Admittedly, quality is intangible. Some people assume that quality is taste. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South would admit "Blind Date" as a quality programme. I regard it as a quality programme. It has high production values, and it is entertaining and extremely well done. I am compelled to watch it because my wife loves it, so I do not have much alternative. Quality lies in production values, in training, as my hon. Friend said, and in the approach to programming, rather than in taste.
Television's role is to educate, inform and entertain. To do so, we must be able to ensure quality programming, maintain quality standards and give the ITC the power to keep pushing them up, to maintain the pressure, to review the position continually and to keep reviewing the British content. That is extremely important, because commercial pressures, which will intensify as we get more channels, are pushing things the other way. We want the ITC to have the power to combat that, to have its own role as it once did and should again, to maintain the quality we believe we have in British television, which we are entitled to maintain.
Mr. Stephen Timms (Newham, North-East):
I support the new clause. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said, in Committee the Minister's position on quality was initially somewhat confused, but in discussion it became much clearer. He was pressed by Opposition members of the Committee on that point and, in response, said that, in his view, the Bill did allow the ITC to apply quality criteria by inheritance from the Broadcasting Act 1990, and that, other things being equal, the ITC could use quality as one of its criteria in determining digital licence applications. That is explicit, for example, in columns 66 and 68 of the Committee Hansard.
However, the ITC advised us throughout that that interpretation of the Bill was factually incorrect, and that the Bill did not give those powers to the commission. The Minister assured us that those fears were groundless, but now, in the letter that my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) mentioned a few moments ago, the Minister has accepted that the ITC was right, that he was mistaken, and that he inadvertently misled the Committee on that point.
What is really worrying is the part of the Minister's letter in which he spells out to the Committee the reality of this inheritance from the 1990 Act. I know, because I spoke to the ITC this afternoon, that it is dismayed about what the letter says. It says:
"taking the relevant service as a whole"--
that could be the channel in cable and satellite--and the requirement is to obtain
"a suitable proportion of original material".
Suitability
"shall have the meaning assigned to it in guidance which shall be issued".
Inevitably, that suitability will be different for different channels on cable and satellite. We are saying not that the British content should be the same throughout, but that the ITC should have the power to edge up and raise standards.
"the ITC will be constrained in awarding licences to do so on the basis of the criteria set out in Clause 8".
That is exactly what worried members on both sides of the Committee who were concerned about quality, because clause 8 does not mention quality, regionality or originality.
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