Examination of Witnesses (Questions 147
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 14 JULY 1999
MR MARK
DAMAZER AND
MR NIGEL
CHARTERS
Mr Gale
147. Mr Charters and Mr Damazer, welcome. As
you know, the Broadcasting Committee is conducting an inquiry
entitled "The development of Parliamentary Broadcasting",
which includes consideration of matters such as the implications
for the House of the introduction of digital television. You have
very kindly submitted a memorandum which we have had the opportunity
to study and for which I thank you. Before I invite questions
from the Committee, do you have any opening remarks, perhaps referring
to any general developments which have taken place since you wrote
it?
(Mr Damazer) Thank you for your welcome;
we are very pleased to be here. May I commence with a quick one
or two minute skim through the paper we circulated, not word for
word but highlighting one or two principal points and where appropriate
supplementing information we provided. Our overall view of the
performance of BBC Parliament within the BBC is that we are delighted
that we have the channel and that we took it on. We think that
we have made genuine editorial improvements, though we are aware
of the fact that the way the Palace of Westminster itself works
means that there are other opportunities to discuss other developments.
We are running seven or eight select committees a week in addition
to the gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House of Commons. I should
say straightaway that we have no plans whatsoever to resile from
the commitment we gave you and your Committee when we started
up with BBC Parliament that gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House
of Commons will continue. Should you wish to discuss in the next
hour whether there are other ways in which the channel can be
constructed or configured, we should be delighted to hear what
you have to say. However, there is no dilution of our commitment
that the full chamber of the House of Commons will be covered
gavel-to-gavel. On the distribution of the channel, this week
saw the launch of the first fully fledged digital cable system
in the United Kingdom in the North West Region, in Manchester,
and I am delighted to say that BBC Parliament is on that system.
Our view from talks with the digital cable companies is that there
will be no difficulty when the big switch occurs from analogue
cable to digital cable in getting BBC Parliament accepted as part
of the offering which the digital companies wish to provide. The
distribution of BBC Parliament in the United Kingdom is now in
17 per cent of homes in the United Kingdom and that compares to
12 per cent a year ago; things are clearly moving in the right
direction. You may wish to choose in the next hour to discuss
listening figures and we shall try to give you our best information
on that although I am afraid it is a very imprecise science. We
shall try to explain why that is the case. Clearly we would wish
to point out in the context of our respect for the institution
in which we are currently sitting and indeed the total BBC offering
that BBC Parliament is very important. It is a very valuable addition
to the BBC's public service portfolio but in discussing the way
we broadcast Parliament there is clearly a variety of other means
which we use in our mainstream terrestrial output and we can discuss
that and how it complements and supplements the way we choose
to run BBC Parliament. In the document we submitted in advance
we pointed out the fact that politics in the United Kingdom is
going through a fascinating phase and the constitutional developments
are things we need to take note of in the body of our coverage.
And in the way we choose to develop BBC Parliament we need to
be acutely aware of the way business is conducted here and to
think very hard about the priorities we give to the limited amount
of air time, money and spectrum space we have available. I ought
to say here that although the money we are currently providing
for BBC Parliament as a service is money which we think is very
well spent, we clearly have to be aware of the fact that the BBC
has a variety of obligations and that any money which we spend
on one obligation always means, sadly, less money for another
obligation. In deciding the development of the broadcasting of
Parliament, we must always bear in mind the fact that we have
to compete with various other priorities. That may be a theme
we shall choose to develop during the course of the next hour.
I have read through the evidence given by my colleagues Mr Price
and Mr Morris last week to this Committee and second everything
they say. The thrust of their evidence to you was that one way
in which real development may occur in the course of the next
one year, five years and ten years in different ways is via online.
Mr Charters and I would be only too keen to discuss with you the
way in which that technology could be harnessed to the benefit
of the Houses of Parliament. Finally, we thought that it might
be useful if during the course of the hour you could browse through
a couple of the existing pages we have on BBC News Online site
which are devoted to politics and which give you examples of where
you can click and link into the coverage we already provide both
for the channel BBC Parliament and in other programmes which feature
activities in the Palace of Westminster available on BBC2, Radio
4, and so on. May I distribute these documents?
148. Please do. Thank you for that. (The
witness distributed the documents)[1].
You touched on the matter of funding, which is of course all important.
You will have noticed, having read the evidence we took last week,
that the subject of the possibility of ring-fenced funding on
the lines of that granted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
to the World Service was raised. What is your view of that?
(Mr Damazer) I believe
that it would be a very, very significant move for the BBC to
make to extend its funding arrangements outside the World Service
to other activities. Let me explain why. The World Service is
a fundamentally different proposition, not only because of the
history of its funding, but also of course because of its audience.
It is broadly accepted that where activities are for a United
Kingdom audience, the licence fee is the best way of assuring
the public that the BBC is independent. Although it could be argued
that Parliament is a special case, we would be extremely nervous
about the possibility of other people beginning to mount arguments
that they too might be funded in a special way. They might be
speciality or niche audiences of a particular kind, for the deaf
or the blind. It may be that political parties feel that this
is an appropriate way of covering conferences. It might be that
the TUC thinks it an appropriate way of covering their activities.
Each of these arguments could of course be addressed and I am
not suggesting that at the moment one extends the principle the
floodgates immediately burst. I do think that the need for the
BBC's independence to be transparent to the licence payer is so
great that to breach the existing way in which the BBC is funded
would from our point of view be a risky and dangerous enterprise.
In addition to that there is the whole line of accountability
currently established by the licence fee and various reporting
mechanisms which the BBC operates via the Board of Governors to
ensure that there is a degree of accountability in the way the
BBC is currently run which matches the standards that the House
of Commons would wish to set. Again, if we went to a different
method of funding it would clearly open the debate about the most
appropriate accountability mechanisms, which might lead to a view
that the BBC's independence was not being as firmly buttressed
as is the case with the licence fee.
149. At the moment that independence which you
proudly proclaim is subject to internal pressures from within
the BBC, from straightforward editorial demand. The News Editor
says he would like a particular committee covered, so it is covered.
The News Editor says he is not remotely interested in that committee,
that committee is not covered. It is perhaps significant that
the cameras are in this room when we are discussing the future
of the broadcasting of Parliament, whereas most of us have sat
in committees time after time after time where there are no cameras
present. What we are seeking is a way forward to provide a broader
C-SPAN style service which if it is to be achieved quite clearly
has to be paid for as will the re-equipment of the old committee
rooms, the equipment of the new committee rooms which are being
built over the road, the coverage of the regional assemblies and
the coverage of the second chamber, whatever that is going to
be called. One way forward it seems to some of us is to have a
ring-fenced grant. If that is not going to happen, unless there
is going to be a burden on the licence payer and the licence fee,
bearing in mind the priorities that you yourself described, how
do you suggest we are going to pay for it?
(Mr Damazer) We the BBC outlined in the evidence we
gave last week the way in which a wider range of parliamentary
activities can be made available to a wider public by using tremendous
opportunities which arise out of digital technology. We could
explore that later on. In the context of the BBC exercising editorial
choices, yes, it is a world where we have to decide between editorial
priorities. When those decisions are exercised by the BBC, the
public can be reassured that they are being exercised by a body
which is not the same as the Government or even the Palace of
Westminster. Should the House of Parliament itself decide to change
the way in which it operates so that it sets up, if I may give
an example, its own website, taking the advantages that technology
is going to offer and will continue to offer, then Parliament
itself could choose, if it so wished, to become responsible for
distributing more widely the workings of the Palace of Westminster.
For the BBC to do that without being seen to exercise editorial
control for itself is, I contend, something which breaches the
way in which the BBC has operated and with all its imperfections
has operated successfully, for a long enough period of time that
we would worry about where it would lead to.
150. You have not answered the question. What
I said was that if we are not going to go down ring-fenced funding
then where is the money going to come from? It is all very well
saying we are going to take advantage of new technology. We are
all in favour of that; every single person sitting round this
table, probably everybody in the room, is aware of the exciting
potential but somebody has to pay for it. Surely you are not suggesting
that the integrity of the World Service has ever been compromised
by its direct funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
I have never heard anybody complain that the FCO leans on the
World Service.
(Mr Damazer) No, but there is a different historical
arrangement and a different audience. Although the arrangement
has worked perfectly successfully, as I am sure you, Mr Chairman
and members of the Committee, will know, when it comes to choosing
which languages and the number of hours in which those languages
are transmitted in the World Service, that is something which
has to be worked out with the World Service and the Foreign Office.
That has not compromised the final product, I would agree. By
the same token, if one were to extend that into the domestic sphere,
it would be a breach of the way in which the BBC has operated
which we would instinctively feel anxious and uncomfortable about
and would certainly want to have a very, very close look regarding
its consequences and its operation to ensure that the BBC was
not in a position where the licence payer felt that its independence
had been breached in the United Kingdom.
151. I ask the same question once more and then
move on because others wish to question you. You still have not
answered. The fundamental question is: where is the money going
to come from? Are we satisfied that those currently contributing
to the Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit are going to go on paying
larger sums to achieve what we want to achieve?
(Mr Damazer) That ought to be a question for PARBUL
itself and although the BBC is a significant contributor and participant
in PARBUL's activities, I do not feel that I am qualified to answer
that. In terms of the BBC's own effort, there is no change I can
see to indicate that the BBC will diminish its current commitment
to the reporting of Parliament across the range of the BBC services.
Our only plans are to think very hard about how best to increase
it, using the digital technology which is available and with a
particular emphasis on what we might do to encourage growth on
the net and to make sure that people know the BBC is providing
that service at a far lower cost than if we were to establish
other television channels to do so. In one attempt I hope to allay
your anxieties. If we come to the conclusion that the web has
the capacity to take more of the activities of this House and
the House of Lords, it may well be that the amount of money that
is needed to do that is not so large that the BBC will not be
able to find it or that the House itself may feel that it can
find a way of funding it and putting it out under its own site,
under its own rubric, under its own terms.
Mrs Gordon
152. You are saying you have a commitment to
gavel-to-gavel coverage. In your memorandum you say, "The
House could agree that live coverage of the Floor could be broken
to allow other coverage to take precedence". Could you tell
me a bit more about how you foresee that might happen and who
in fact would make the editorial decisions about when to leave
the live coverage and who decide what actually takes precedence?
(Mr Damazer) My colleague Jenny Abramsky, who at that
time was in charge of the service setting up BBC Parliament within
BBC News, made the commitment when she was here over a year ago
that the BBC would run the BBC Parliament channel and would guarantee
that there would be gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House of Commons.
Should there be a desire within the House for the BBC to exercise
editorial discretion and break away from the activity in the chamber
to a particularly important Select Committee or indeed another
activity going on inside the Palace, then the BBC would feel that
it had the editorial ability and the editorial experience to do
that, though of course there will always be room for debate about
whether the decision was correct or not and that discretion could
be had after the event. By the same token I must emphasise that
I have not come to the Committee today asking the Committee at
this particular juncture to say that is what they wish the BBC
to do. Given the importance of other activities in the House other
than the full chamber, it may be that one way in which the channel
could change over a period of time is precisely for that editorial
discretion to be exercised by the people running that channel.
Forgive me if I am saying this slightly later than I should have.
I am substituting today for the BBC Editorial Manager, who is
responsible for the channel, Mr Roger Mosey, who is currently
out of the country. He and his team and Mr Charters are intimately
involved with the running of the channel, I am sure have the editorial
wisdom to do it, but we absolute concede the point that at this
juncture, this is nothing we would wish to do without full consideration
having been given by this Committee as to its desirability.
153. It actually sounds like an argument for
having a second channel, does it not really?
(Mr Charters) From my perspective, I think that is
an obvious conclusion. What worries me is that, taking the evidence
of Mr Price and Mr Morris at the last sitting of this Committee,
we get into the problems of not being able to offer universal
coverage and therefore with the growth in web penetration, we
would come back to the point that rather than a second traditional
broadcast channel, we believe a very fruitful way forward would
be to investigate other means of disseminating the coverage of
committees, Westminster Hall, whatever it ends up being called,
rather than a mainstream traditional television channel, the costs
of which, because of the scarcity of spectrum, would rise disproportionately
compared to BBC Parliament at present.
Mr Lepper
154. Is built into your answer the argument
that it is cheaper to develop the internet service? Could you
give us some idea of the scale of difference in costings?
(Mr Charters) A very broad difference. I cannot dot
"i"s and cross "t"s, but our experience has
been that setting up web casting, which we do quite considerably
on the BBC Online site—and I must say this is a guestimate,
but I have been a little bit involved with it—it is possibly
one twentieth ballpark figure of the cost. There are constraints
of course and one of the things one must remember with traditional
even digital channels is that there is a very high upfront cost,
that is you must get the satellite or you must lay the cables
or you must get the DTT transmitters. Before you have an audience
of one the cost is the same as for an audience of one million.
Whereas we perceive the great advantage in the expansion of web
casting is that actually one can grow the technology and the size
of the operation on demand. This is very much the future. One
can increase gently as opposed to the step changes implicit in
traditional broadcast channels.
Mr Gale
155. I do not know whether you can help us with
this further, but we seem to be between a rock and a hard place.
We were told last week that spectrum, even digital spectrum, is
going to be scarce.
(Mr Charters) With respect, I think you mean DTT.
156. I am sorry, yes, digital terrestrial spectrum
is going to be scarce. There does not seem to be much room for
manoeuvre. Colleagues have indicated that the solution really
is not to diminish the parliamentary coverage of the chamber but
to have a second channel, as indeed C-SPAN has a second channel,
to come back to that example.
(Mr Charters) Cable only, with respect, as well.
157. Yes, that is absolutely true but of course
the United States is far more heavily cabled than the United Kingdom
is. What you may be able to help us with is some indication as
to what you think can be done to develop the coverage while we
work out technologically the wider delivery of that enhanced coverage.
At the moment we are getting the worst of all worlds. We are getting
narrow coverage—that is no criticism of the unit; you are
doing what you are required to do—and not many people can
see it.
(Mr Charters) The first thing I would say to that
is while the audience base is low it is growing now we have moved
to digital satellite and to a certain extent to DTT. The second
thing is that although this would need to be investigated, and
has not been investigated within the BBC, there is a possibility
that we are not using the full 24 hours. One of the developments
which we will see quite soon in our shops will be televisions
which are semi-intelligent and will within themselves effectively
be able to store material for later reclamation like a solid-state
video recorder. One of the possibilities is that we could expand
our coverage slightly by running the channel 24 hours. I have
anecdotal evidence from people who ask why we do not. The sort
of people who are interested in the coverage we provide are the
sort of people who will record something, stay up, etcetera. We
believe there are limited opportunities for exploring.
Mrs Gordon
158. What additional cost would that entail?
I think it is quite a good idea to cover 24 hours. Having heard
from people who saw my adjournment debate at half past midnight,
there were obviously people watching it through the night. What
would be the additional costs of that?
(Mr Charters) We have put a figure on it in here of
about £500,000. It would mostly be staffing costs. The problem
with this is that our staffing costs are not just putting on extra
technical staff to transmit the material, but the more labour
intensive job of captioning, because it would all be on tape.
I believe most of you came and visited our operation when you
saw people researching each individual committee, captioning it
and actually laying those captions on the tape. While it seems
quite a lot, the effort involved is exponential. It is not just
an extra engineer overnight to press the buttons, there is quite
a bit more preparation.
159. If Parliament is not sitting, will those
extra hours not just be showing committee work and material you
already have stored?
(Mr Charters) Yes. I must admit that my view on this
would be that extra hours should not be for repeats. If—and
I stress it is "if" and is not anywhere near a certainty
and we have not done investigations to any level—then the
use of that would be for material which is not seen currently:
more select committees, perhaps an attempt to look at covering
standing committees.
1 Not reported. Back
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