Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 146)
WEDNESDAY 30 JUNE 1999
MR DOMINIC
MORRIS CBE AND
MR HENRY
PRICE
Mr Stunell
140. Can I ask a different question which is
technologically naive? There is a lot of split screen technology
and so on around at the moment, does that in any way provide an
easier route for getting multiple choices into people's homes
in terms of the channels which you transmit?
(Mr Morris) I think the answer is probably no. It
is a bit cheaper to transmit and it is more convenient for people
to be able to flick through and say, "Yes, I would like that
Select Committee room rather than that one". It is an excellent
service but it is still a bandwidth problem. It is as if there
were 12 channels. We have just demonstrated in a different context
our Wimbledon interactive service, and I raise it because it has
one similarity in that there is action going on in a variety of
different courts at any given time. The viewers who have been
to see it at Wimbledon have said, "Yes, we love that and
we would like to be able to flick between that court and that
court". It is great on cable and satellite where the bandwidth
is there to do it—one can just pump eight or nine channels
out to give you that if you can afford the money—but you
cannot do it on DTT because there are still eight or nine channels
pumping out. So split screen is great for consumer or viewer attractiveness
and meets the individual preferences but technologically it is
the same as if you were sending out eight or nine channels.
141. Leaving aside terrestrial, are there advantages
in using the split screen technology for what we have been talking
about as far as on-line and other services go?
(Mr Morris) Yes, we believe there are, and as we are
developing what we call our enhanced and interactive television
the use of split screen technology of the sort you are talking
about is firmly uppermost in our mind.
142. Does that have any significant cost impact?
(Mr Morris) Yes, it does. Each one of those—and
Henry will correct me if I am wrong—is, as it were, a channel
and each one of those on satellite has so much transponder capacity,
so much up-link capacity required, and you are into the half a
million or 1 million per channel.
143. So there are no economies of scale?
(Mr Morris) There are no great economies of scale.
There are economies of scale, if you like, at the transmission
end as you capture the pictures. For example, if one has crews
down at Wimbledon and one has one or two sets of crews, you have
lots of cameras there anyway, instead of just picking the one
which we think is the best shot on one channel, we would make
better use of the assets we have already got there, but there
are no other economies of scale, no.
Mr Hopkins
144. I was interested in the suggestion of a
ring-fenced grant to cover parliamentary broadcasting, as the
World Service is financed. It seems to me that is a good idea
and I was rather surprised you rejected it. It would overcome
some of the problems of competing over finance with other entertainment
programmes, if you like. Because it is of fundamental importance
to democracy to have people knowing what is going on in Parliament
and in Government circles, it seems to me that it is very important
that we do not have Parliamentary broadcasting squeezed or under-financed.
It should be presented and available to everyone. Finances underlie
the problem I think and I want to try another radical thought
on you, if I may. The terrestrial programmes are limited. You
would like one or two more channels, which means we have to think
in terms of cable or satellite, but they are essentially private
and have to be paid for separately and many people do not have
them. I do not know but what are the possibilities of perhaps
some degree of Government subsidy for cabling or bringing satellite
to every home in the country, whichever is appropriate, over a
period, and in return the cable and satellite companies allocating
small parts of their spectrum to public service broadcasting?
The cable and satellite companies would benefit because they have
cable and satellite going to more homes. Public service broadcasters
would benefit because they would have access to additional channels.
There would be advantage on both sides. If that happened, the
BBC could have access to more channels, for other things apart
from parliamentary broadcasting, and it would seem to me to expand
the possibilities of public service broadcasting. It could also
be done by grant rather than through the licence fee. These are
just thoughts, I am just throwing out ideas, I do not know anything
about the practicalities. Are these the sort of things which in
a radical world one could think about?
(Mr Morris) May I answer that by saying that the Government,
I know, has had and entertained thoughts along those lines when
it has thought about what the world will be like when one moves
towards analogue switch-off in 10 or 15 years' time. There is
an issue of the bits of the country DTT cannot reach because it
will not have the 99 point whatever it is which analogue gets
easily. Secondly, there is the simple question of converters for
those families who are on very low incomes, and no Government
would want to hit them with a sudden bill for £199 for a
set top box.
145. I was thinking of the Government subsidising
that.
(Mr Morris) The Government looked at models for subsidy,
we understand, in that context rather than, say, in the parliamentary
broadcasting context, and they flinched. The sums involved, even
when set top boxes come down to, perhaps, £40 or £50—and
in time they could be down as low as £25 or £30—and
the number of households, and one is talking about 2, 3, 4 million
households, are of sufficient magnitude that the Chancellor of
the Exchequer wakes up and says, "I am not sure I am entirely
enamoured of that one".
146. It looks like a Treasury problem in the
end.
(Mr Morris) Yes. I think the same principles would
apply to us to say that we know there are 30 per cent or 40 per
cent of people who have chosen DTT as their mode of delivery who
are also going to be given a free satellite dish and converter
box. It is an attractive thought but I think the Chancellor may
gulp a bit!
Mr Hopkins: I will pursue it again!
Mr Gale: Thank you very much indeed.
We clearly have questions which arise directly from what you have
told us which we are going to have to put to both the Parliamentary
Channel and to PARBUL and we shall want to do that. I suspect
you have told us this afternoon what we need to hear rather than
what we want to hear. We all want to hear we can have universal
coverage on digital and terrestrial television without too much
difficulty and at minimal cost. Patently the world is not like
that. We are very grateful to you for coming and for bringing
the demonstration. I understand you are going to write to us with
certain other matters which will become part of the formal evidence.
If, with hindsight, we have any other questions, we may write
to you. Thank you both very much indeed.
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