Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 51)
THURSDAY 2 MARCH 2000
MR LESLIE
HILL, MS
KATE STROSS,
AND MR
MALCOLM WALL
40. You have not explained to me why that is
to do with News at Ten rather than Who wants to be a
Millionaire.
(Ms Stross) Millionaire launched before we
moved the news. The first series of Millionaire went out
in late 1998. It is not something that coincided with the change
in our schedule pattern. Clearly, it has contributed to our audience
performance but we were doing it anyway.
(Mr Wall) Advertisers decide which television channel
they are going to use depending upon the nature of supply, the
proportion of supply of that channel, the nature of the programmes
and the type of people that they are delivering. They are also
particularly drawn to the larger audiences because that achieves
the targets for communication messages at a faster rate. The redesign
of the schedule was based upon our perceived need to add diversity
to our overall schedule and in response to fast declining audiences
for News at Ten. It is hard to say that we have gained
300,000 at 10.00 pm. What is more important is to have a look
at what the overall shape, particularly of our peak audiences,
is. We have grown our overall peak audiences by whatever definition
we spoke about. The Chairman talked about 0.1 per cent growth
compared to our 0.9 per cent growth on the different time zone.
By growing that audience, we have attracted more advertising.
It is not just the overall size of the audience. What we have
seen between nine and 11 o'clock is a substantial investment by
ITV. We have increased our factual programming by 112 per cent.
We have increased the amount of current affairs we put out from
seven to 50 hours. All this is home produced programming. We have
enriched that area. We have made them more diverse. We are attracting
a younger audience to that. That has also appealed to the advertiser.
It is the schedule change in total that has to be seen rather
than the specific move of the news programmes.
(Mr Hill) Bear in mind that if we had not made this
change it would not be a question of how much the peak-time audience
had gone up, whether it was 6-10.30 or 7-10.30 or whatever. It
would have gone down almost certainly by another one or two per
cent. You referred to increased advertising revenue of over 100
million. Nobody is saying that that is all to do with this particular
change. It is quite impossible to identify exactly what that change
meant. I have asked one of the heads of one of the sales houses
this and he agrees. He says that a minimum increase arising from
this change was 50 million and it may have been as much as 70
million of that 100 million plus. You are right. Advertising revenue
is buoyant but there is certainly a substantial part of our increase
which has come from that change in the schedule. If we had not
made that change, we would have been on the slippery slope to
even further decline from that substantial decline. We had lost
15 per cent from 44 to 37 point something in five years. What
kind of business can continue to let that happen?
41. Your franchise is a very lucrative and valuable
franchise given that, unlike Sky, you do not have to persuade
people to buy your platform and invest their money. You do it
entirely by funding your programmes from advertising. In return
for that there is a public service remit which you have already
referred to, quite rightly, because there is a quid pro quo here.
Your principal problem therefore is to justify why you are happy
to provide over a loss of whether it is two million or slightly
less viewers for news, which is a wholesome thing perhaps, in
return for 300,000 viewers that you would get in return at the
ten o'clock slot.
(Mr Hill) We have already said we do not accept the
two million figure. We are certainly not happy.
42. It is big.
(Mr Hill) I do not want to repeat myself, I have tried
hard to explain that we are not satisfied with the inheritance
that the nightly news is getting. If we can make that better we
should get more viewers for that news. I also said I believe we
should continue to improve the 6.30 situation because, as we have
heard from Mr Keen, a year is not a long time for people to change
their habits. I believe that we need up to three years on this.
I cannot guarantee it is three years, it might be two years. I
think we need up to three years to deal with this change, it is
a big change.
43. If in five years' time you were not able
to restore the previous audiences you have, what are you prepared
to offer?
(Mr Hill) One thing that has happened whilst all this
has been going on is, I read that, for example, the reach of BBC
News 24 and Sky News is 4.9 million. People even get
their news down their mobile phone—I cannot get it on mine
because I do not know how to do it, but some people can—there
is a whole lot of changes taking place out there. What the situation
would be like in two years' time I do not know; we will be striving
to improve and justify everything that we have ever said about
this, but the year is not long enough.
(Mr Wall) We are absolutely committed to public service
broadcasting and the public service broadcasting includes a commitment
to regionality, a commitment to diversity, a commitment to news
and the plurality of news. At the same time we are facing, ultimately,
a decline in the overall share of advertising revenue because
of the increased choice to all viewers. We have to keep the balance
between ensuring that we can continue to attract revenue to invest
in the schedule at a time when more and more viewers have the
opportunity to see more and more programme services and also gain
news from the wide variety of other sources, whether it be technology
or the Internet. Public service broadcasting cannot be set in
stone. Television viewing habits change day-in and day-out and
we have to move forward and adjust with them, while retaining
and observing the basic principles of public service broadcasting.
44. You are still given a franchise—which
is very, very lucrative -in return for some kind of public service
remit. As was said earlier, your own peak-time is really defined
as 7.00-10.30 pm in terms of how you stick to your advertising.
Do you accept that in your public service remit a news programme
ought to go out during that peak-time, which I know is defined
separately by the ITC? In your own lexicon peak-time is 7.00-10.00
pm.
(Mr Wall) That is only because it is an area where
we charged the Network Centre. The Network Centre are a group
of people who have the responsibility to put out a network schedule
in certain times. They do not have the full responsibility after
10.30 because there are a lot of regional programmes going out.
This was originally defined at a time when regional programming
was also being played at 6.30 pm. It was defined so the Network
Centre could work towards a target, to satisfy advertisers and
retain advertiser confidence. We have always recognised that in
terms of the ITC definition that peak is for the wider time slot.
45. Can I take you up on diversity. In your
own submission you talk about The Grimleys, Casting
Couch and Dr Willoughby. When you are talking about
your own diversity, perhaps the Committee would see diversity
as something slightly broader than those three programmes, which
I notice did not include Mr & Mrs with Julian Clary.
(Mr Hill) There is a new documentary series, Real
Life, looked after by Stephen Lambert, the previous editor
of Modern Times, that has been a successful programme which
has brought in all kinds of interesting subjects to the population—I
have a list here, if you are interested, in the subjects dealt
with. We have Tonight with Trevor MacDonald, the most watched
programme of its kind on television, an average of 4.7 million
viewers. We have more sport, we have more football matches, and
we will have even more football matches, we have had more single
plays, we have seventeen new dramas. I could go on, we have all
of the detail if you want more. There is no question in our minds
that we have provided more diversity. The ITC has been critical
of us before on this particular issue. We have been able to do
that getting, against the grain, more viewers at a certain time
period.
46. One final question, there is a rumour about
that, perhaps, a 10.30 slot for "News at Ten Thirty"
might be an acceptable compromise in all this. How do you feel
about that?
(Mr Hill) This is a rumour, it is no more than a rumour.
It is not a serious proposition at this point because it would
still leave us with many of the same problems that we have about
the "News at Ten", because an hour and a half
is not long enough to do the things that we need to do in that
time period.
Chairman
47. If the ITC decided that a change was to
be made then, of course, you would not quarrel with the idea of
10 o'clock as distinct from 10.30, because it would be all the
same to you?
(Mr Hill) We would oppose both because it would mean
that we would go back to decline.
Mr Faber
48. Very briefly, historically the news on ITV
has always been very strongly associated with ITN and ITN has
always been very strongly branded. I was struck when reading your
submission to us as to how ITN is virtually white-washed out of
this submission. There are a couple of mentions of ITN, our news
suppliers, but basically it is the ITV News and the ITV
Evening News. In the submissions we have had from Sir Alistair
Burnet, along with Nigel Ryan and Sir David Nicholas they say
the news is now being deliberately disassociated from its originator
and it is the ITV companies who are presented as initiating the
news, not ITN. They criticise that, meaning that the news is appearing
less independent than it might otherwise be.
(Mr Wall) The policy has been to call it the ITV News
on air. We refer to it being produced by ITN and indeed at the
end of each programme the ITN website, URL, also appears, so for
those people who wish to follow-up and have means for that technology
they can do so via the ITN website. The major difference has been
that since ITN was established ITN is no longer just a news supplier
to ITV but it is a news supplier to Channel 5 and to Channel Four.
We think it is very important that whilst drawing on the expertise
and the skill base of ITN we strongly brand ITV as a news provider.
There has been a change of policy in that. It is not in any way
a diminution of our respect or the importance we put on our relationship
with ITN. Indeed the major ITV companies all hold equity stakes
in ITN and work closely with ITN in other areas.
49. Sir Alastair also suggests, "The removal
of News at Ten has led to a reduction in the intake of
promising young journalists, cameramen and designers who are attracted
by its reputation and opportunities." He also talks about
the significant decline in ITN morale amongst staff who had been
used to beating their rivals.
(Mr Hill) The only thing I would say on that is we
have recently attracted such distinguished people as Kirsty Young
and John Sergeant to ITN. We have won a whole string of awards
against international competition, people like Mark Austin are
doing a brilliant job in Mozambique, Julian Manyon and many others.
As you say, you must ask ITN, but we feel that ITN continues to
provide us with a news service which is distinguished, of high
quality and the quality is as good as ever, despite these changes.
I have been watching the 11 o'clock Nightly News and I
think it is a much more watchable programme than any of the news
programmes we have ever had from ITN, but that is just me. I think
that is why it is attracting the younger audience and the ABC1
audience because of the kind of programme it is. We do not have
those concerns. I cannot talk to you about the detail of the new
intake, that is a question for ITN, but all of the signs are that
ITN continues to perform in a very distinguished way with a wonderful
group of journalists.
Chairman: One little question.
Mr Faber
50. I was going to finish by saying, Chairman,
that I belong to what is probably a minute minority in this House
who thinks that there is far too much coverage of politicians
on the television and politics in general. Is it true that the
News at Ten will return to cover the next general election?
(Mr Hill) On the first point may I just say, it is
interesting to compare the proportion of different kinds of news
between now and what happened before. The coverage of home versus
international stories is exactly the same, 65 per cent international
35 per cent home. The coverage of politics has gone up from 9
per cent to 16 per cent. That may not please you, Mr Faber, but
I hope it will please others.
51. It is not that it does not please me, but
it would be ironic if the public were to have politicians rammed
down their throats for a three-week general election campaign
when they are not allowed to see their everyday news at 10 o'clock.
(Mr Hill) There is no proposal to do that.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
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