APPENDIX 1
Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from the Director of Programming, General Cable
Thank you for the opportunity of giving evidence
to the Broadcasting Committee today.
Telewest, General Cable and CWC will be providing
the breakdown of up-to-date financial information requested by
the Committee within the next 24 hours. However, given the imminent
PARBUL meeting, we thought it appropriate to respond immediately
on your request for information concerning the choice of the BBC's
proposal over that of NTL. We would also like the opportunity
to clarify some points which arose in evidence.
As we submitted in our written evidence, the
outcome of the strategic review for our companies was to ensure
that we provided a valuable and accessible service which could
be developed to benefit in digital transmission from enhanced
and interactive services. In addition, we wanted to extend the
initiatives in the area of education to build on the cable industry's
commitment to connect every school to our networks.
We compared the stability, resources and experience
offered by the BBC as opposed to NTL and concluded that the BBC
are in a much better position to deliver the underlying objectives.
Furthermore, the BBC has agreed to establish a forum with us to
discuss how this service may be developed, in order that the contribution
cable has to make—for example, our understanding of our
customers and the capabilities of our networks—is not lost.
The point of clarification concerns the presentation
of evidence which may have appeared to present conflicting opinions
regarding the commitment of certain cable operators to present
conflicting opinions regarding the commitment of certain cable
operators to carriage of Parliamentary coverage, when in fact
this is not the case.
The strategic review of the channel prompted
by the imminent arrival of digital transmission included consideration
of various alternatives. Flextech found unacceptable this level
of uncertainty and, in their view, lack of clear commitment, which
led to the resignation of their management.
Their resignation accelarated the shareholders'
need to reach a conclusion. By this time, some of the companies
represented at the early stages of this review no longer existed,
following consolidation. This of itself required the new cable
operators' entities to review their commitments, and the unanimous
conclusion was that Parliamentary coverage should continue.
We began to discuss how the channel might be
provided with other programmers, which included the BBC. For the
reasons outlined above, this became the preferred option of the
majority of shareholders, and it was established at this stage
that the cable operators were prepared to commit full carriage
for an enhanced service such as that proposed by the BBC.
I hope this explains any apparent contradiction
between evidence suggesting full commitment to carriage from the
cable operators, and that suggesting a lack of commitment sufficient
to prompt Flextech's resignation.
We are anxious to maintain momentum of continuous
coverage, and are confident that the granting of a PARBUL licence
to the BBC at tommorow's meeting will guarantee a seamless transmission
of Parliamentary coverage to our customers. We are looking forward
to developing the service with them.
15 July 1998
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