APPENDIX 26
Memorandum submitted by Artsworld Channels
Ltd
FUTURE FUNDING
OF THE
BBC: CULTURAL AND
CREATIVE PROGRAMMES
This company (Artsworld Channels Ltd) has an
ITC licence and an agreement with one of the principal digital
TV platforms to broadcast a new privately-financed UK channel
devoted to the arts. Completion of our financing is in progress,
and we plan to launch in the second half of next year.
We would therefore like to make some brief observations
to your Committee in relation to that section of the BBC's response
to the Davies Panel which refers to "access for all to cultural
and creative programmes".
1. The BBC's false premise
The BBC is asking for an extra £640million[111]
in licence receipts to fund four proposals: increased investment
in drama and entertainment on BBC1, BBC2 and BBC Choice; some
unspecified "enhanced and interactive TV"; new music
and speech radio services on digital radio and online; and a BBC
arts channel.
It proposes that the BBC must be funded by licence
payers to provide these services, because the private sector will
not do so. This is as false a premise in relation to cultural
and creative programmes as it is for, say, sport. Had the present
reviews of financing come a decade ago, the BBC might then have
argued similarly for massive extra finance for its sports coverage.
But that would have been a plea to create a BBC monopoly paid
for out of the public purse. Instead, the private sector has in
recent years revolutionised and massively increased sports broadcasting
and made it available to all—and not only through subscription
and pay channels. Cricket on Channel 4 and football on Channel
5 could not have happened if the BBC had asked for and received
massive extra licence funding to monopolise sport and, as a likely
consequence, ossify its coverage.
2. Arts and culture on television
The same is now true of cultural and creative
programmes. The BBC says it will "continue to give the arts
prominence on its core television networks, especially BBC2",
but wants licence payers to provide extra funding for a new BBC
arts channel too. The truth is that BBC does not give the
arts prominence on either of its networks. A glance at any typical
week's evening schedules for BBC1 will find no arts programmes
at all. On BBC2, arts performances are a rarity (next week's Covent
Garden Gala notwithstanding) and the occasional factual series
does not constitute "prominence" over the regular programme
parade of gardening, snooker, cooking, cars, comedy and cop shows.
This dearth of arts coverage is not a matter
of available finance. The BBC has had quite enough money to "give
the arts prominence" if it had so wished. Instead it has
chosen to invest elsewhere, and to reduce its staff and expenditure
devoted to arts programmes. It should not now be able to call
upon extra revenue from the public to provide services that are
within its present financial capability.
3. Channels for the arts
There is a need for, and a market for, at least
one dedicated channel which will provide a daily television service
of and about the classic and modern arts: performances of music,
opera, dance, song; programmes about painting, sculpture, design,
architecture, fashion, antiques, literature; programmes that celebrate
the arts and educate children and adults about the arts and give
daily news about the arts. Such a channel will be launched by
this company as a commercial venture without a penny of taxpayers'
or licence payers' money. In the future, as digital services burgeon,
audiences grow, and the real cost of provision and subscription
decreases, there may well also be narrow-cast channels devoted
to opera or ballet or books or jazz.
But there is no reason why the BBC should be
given extra funds from licence payers to compete with such channels.
To do so would usher in the principle of limitless demand for
public funding of the BBC's ambitions.
4. Alternative use of public resources
In the new world of multi-channel digital services
which will be commonplace in the coming century, consideration
must be given to new methods of allocating public resources. It
is no longer reasonable to believe that the BBC represents publicly-funded
virtue and the private sector commercially-funded vice.
There are two ways of using public resources
to ensure an adequate provision of desirable television services,
each of which involves the BBC but neither of which assumes its
monopoly:
A. PUBLIC SERVICES
BY PUBLIC
TENDER
At present, if the Government accepts the BBC's
proposals for additional funding, it will also be endorsing decisively
the BBC's own prescription of what services should be provided
to the public in coming years.
Instead, if the Government or regulatory bodies
wish to be prescriptive about the types of television or of Internet
service people should receive, then such services should be open
to tender from both the BBC and the private sector. The competition
should be based on quality of service and value for money to the
taxpayer/licence payer. This will provide an opportunity for the
proposed services to be described in detail and for the public
to comment upon them (both notably missing from the BBC's current
demands for public finance). It would also make the process fully
and publicly accountable, while giving the BBC every opportunity
to fulfil its ambitions if they are properly considered and properly
costed.
B. PUBLIC ACCESS
AND COMMERCIAL
REVENUE
In addition, the BBC's library of programmes
should be treated as a public and not a private archive. It should
be opened to maximum access while generating maximum revenue for
the BBC.
At present the BBC's policy is to keep the vast
majority of its programme libraries from public view in the UK,
against the day when it might be funded to make further use of
them on its own services. The result is a hoard of publicly-funded
programme riches to which the BBC is denying any access, and therefore
refusing a massive potential source of income while at the same
time demanding higher licence fees.
It should be a condition of future BBC funding
that it opens its archive to purchasers who wish, on proper financial
terms, to provide access to BBC programmes for consumers of other
public or private channels in the UK.
It will be clear from the above that we have
a commercial interest in all these matters. But we hope that the
Committee will consider these representations as a contribution
to a debate which goes to the heart of how, by whom and at what
cost UK television services will be provided in the coming decades.
We would be glad to provide further information should the Committee
require it.
November 1999
111 Extrapolated from the BBC's submission p7: "around
£40 million in 2000-01, £140 million in 2003-04 and
£200 million in 2206-07. Back
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