Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Fifth Report

FIFTH REPORT

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has agreed to the following Report:

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO NEWS AT TEN?

Introduction

1. On 19 November 1998, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) gave qualified approval to a request from Independent Television (ITV) Network Limited to change its week-day evening schedule.[6] Accordingly, on Monday 8 March 1999, News at Ten, a corner-stone of that evening schedule, disappeared from the nation's television screens.[7] In giving its consent to this change, the ITC stated that it would conduct a first review of the schedule changes after 12 months.[8]

2. We decided to conduct a short inquiry in the light of the timetable for the ITC's own review of its earlier decision. On 2 March 2000 we took oral evidence from ITV Network Limited, from Independent Television News (ITN) and from the ITC. We also received written evidence from others which is published with this Report. We are grateful to all those who submitted evidence during the inquiry.

The previous Report of this Committee

3. In September 1998, ITV sought the agreement of the ITC to move its peak-time news programme from 10.00 pm to 6.30 pm as part of proposals for "a new look to weekday evenings".[9] The ITC established a period for consultation on that request.[10] This Committee took evidence and issued a Report during that consultation period. Our principal conclusions in that Report can be summarised as follows:

• a decline in audience was not a characteristic particular to News at Ten, but a factor affecting other terrestrial television news bulletins;

• ITV's contention that it would match or exceed its then current news audience with the new schedule was doubtful;

• ITV's concerns about the composition of its audience were not directly relevant to considerations about its public service remit;

• regional news programming was likely to be adversely affected by the change; and

• ITV had not convincingly demonstrated the linkage between its proposed scheduling changes and the additional investment in programming which was considered by ITV to be important to its future success.[11]

In the light of these conclusions, we recommended that the ITC reject the application from ITV to, in effect, abolish News at Ten.[12]

The legal and regulatory background

4. The Broadcasting Act 1990, which laid the framework for the allocation of ITV franchises, required Channel 3 franchisees "to broadcast ... news programmes of high quality dealing with national and international matters ... at intervals ... and in particular ... at peak viewing times".[13] The ITC's long-standing definition of peak viewing time is the period from 6.00 pm to 10.30 pm.[14]

5. In its invitations to apply for regional Channel 3 licences, the ITC specified "that there should be an early evening news and a 30-minute news programme in peak".[15] In their applications to become Channel 3 licence holders, all successful applicants undertook to provide news bulletins in the early evening and during peak-time.[16] Eight of the fifteen relevant licensees specifically indicated that they intended their peak-time bulletin to be News at Ten. The ITC translated this into a licence requirement.[17]

6. The legal and regulatory background to the proposal by ITV to replace its news bulletins at 10.00 pm and 5.40 pm with bulletins at 6.30 pm and 11.00 pm respectively is thus clear-cut. There was no statutory barrier to the change, but there was a regulatory barrier to change. The ITC had to remove the regulatory barrier by releasing Channel 3 licensees from an explicit licence condition.[18]

The ITC's decision

7. On 19 November 1998 the ITC announced its decision on ITV's request. The ITC decided that "ITV should have the opportunity to put their proposals for change to the test".[19] The ITC granted approval subject to conditions relating to the funding, range and quality of national and international news, the scheduling of a regular headline service in the nearest commercial break to 10.00 pm on week-days, the continued commitment of ITV to public service values, an enhanced commitment to diversity of programming from 9.00 pm to 11.00 pm and the quantity of high quality regional programmes in or just outside peak-time on week-days.[20]

8. In giving its consent to this change with certain conditions, the ITC stated that it would conduct a first review of the schedule changes after 12 months.[21] Each of the ITV companies was required to accept the ITC's conditions so that the formal variations to their licences could be agreed.[22] The ITC confirmed in evidence that the necessary changes to licence obligations had been agreed.[23]

ITV's evening audience and its commercial position

9. During the last decade, ITV suffered what it viewed as a "rather cataclysmic" fall in its audience.[24] ITV's overall audience share fell from 44 per cent in 1990 to 33 per cent in 1997. It was particularly concerned at the reduction in its peak-time audience between 1994 and 1997.[25] ITV's request to change the time of its evening news programmes was part of its wider proposals to reverse the decline in its viewing fortunes.

10. Since ITV introduced its new evening schedule in March 1999 without News at Ten, it claims to have reversed the decline in its audience:

"In 1999 ITV managed to increase its peak-time audience share by almost one share point from 37.9 per cent to 38.8 per cent. This was the first increase in ITV's peak-time share, which had slumped from a high of 44.6 per cent in 1993 to 37.9 per cent in 1998, in seven years."[26]

The notion that ITV's peak-time audience was now increasing was endorsed by both the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers.[27]

11. The figures cited by ITV and by the advertisers were not based on the definition of peak-time employed by the ITC to which we referred earlier. Rather, they were based on a definition of peak-time as the period from 7.00 pm to 10.30 pm, a period during which ITV does not broadcast a news programme.[28] This definition was apparently introduced by ITV in 1998 "to try and give the advertisers some comfort in terms of their ambition regarding audience share".[29] We were told that the period from 7.00 pm to 10.30 pm was defined in 1998 because it then represented the period of network-wide rather than regional scheduling.[30] This justification, of course, no longer applies because regional rather than network programming now ends at 6.30 pm rather than 7.00 pm. It has nevertheless been retained "for the purposes of measuring our performance and satisfying our advertising customers".[31]

12. If the ITC's long-standing definition of peak-time viewing is employed rather than ITV's own definition, a somewhat different picture of the ITV's audience emerges. In the peak-time from 6.00 pm to 10.30 pm on week-days, ITV's audience share in the period March to December 1998 was 36.8 per cent; in this peak-time, ITV's audience share in the period March to December 1999 was 36.2 per cent—a decline in peak-time audience share of 0.6 per cent.[32]

13. The ITC considered that "ITV has been successful in arresting its long-term decline in peak-time audience share".[33] It reconciled that statement with the evidence of decline which it had provided by arguing that the decline in share was less rapid than had previously been the case.[34] The ITC also presented a third set of audience share figures for the period 7.00 pm to 11.00 pm—the complete period between ITV's news bulletins. For this period, ITV's share from March to December 1998 was 36.9 per cent; from March to December 1999 it rose slightly to 37.0 per cent.[35]

14. Mr Malcolm Wall, the Chief Executive of United Broadcasting and Entertainment, claimed that "we have grown our overall peak audiences by whatever definition we spoke about".[36] While this may be a true statement about audience levels in peak-time, the ITC's figures demonstrate conclusively that, by the ITC's definition of peak-time, the peak audience share for ITV has continued to fall since the introduction of the new schedule.

15. In 1998, ITV was particularly concerned at what it perceived as the disproportionate loss of audience which it suffered at 10.00 pm.[37] ITV considered that, since the peak-time news was moved from 10.00 pm to 6.30 pm, that decline in audiences at 10.00 pm had been reversed. In 1998, the average audience at 10.00 pm was 6 million. In the eleven months since the launch of the new schedule in March 1999, average audiences at 10.00 pm have risen to 6.3 million.[38]

16. These figures do not reflect a consistent trend. In the first three weeks of the new schedule in March 1999, ITV's audience share in the period 10.00 pm to 10.29 pm rose significantly. However, in the following months, ITV's audience share performance in this slot was worse than had been the case when News at Ten was transmitted.[39] In the period from September 1999 to early February 2000, following the launch in September 1999 of ITV's new programming designed specifically for the new schedule, the audience at 10.00 pm increased by over 700,000.[40] However, in January 2000, the ITV audience from 10.00 pm to 10.29 pm was only 300,000 above that in January 1999.[41] ITV said that "the schedule as a whole has not been as strong in the first part at 2000 as it was in the first part of 1999".[42]

17. In the last year, ITV's advertising revenue has increased by over £100 million.[43] Mr Leslie Hill, the Chairman of ITV Network Limited, told us that it was "quite impossible" to be precise about the role of the change of news scheduling in this increase.[44] He estimated that between £50 million and £70 million of the increase in advertising income was due to the increase in audience share between 7.00 pm and 10.30 pm.[45] ITV confirmed that the launch of Who Wants to be a Millionaire in late 1998 had contributed to ITV's audience share performance.[46]

18. ITV argued that it had moved away from a vicious circle—in which falling audiences led to falling revenue and falling investment in programmes, in turn delivering falling audiences—to a virtuous circle of increased audience share leading to increased revenue leading to increased investment in programmes and thus to increased audiences.[47] In 1998 we questioned whether ITV had established convincingly the linkage between its proposed change to news scheduling and its proposals to enhance programme quality.[48] We remain unconvinced that the change to news scheduling is a central component in subsequent developments. ITV's advertising revenue has increased significantly in the last year, by over £100 million.[49] Over this period, ITV's peak-time audience share according to the long-established definition employed by the ITC, rather than the mutually-convenient definition established by ITV and advertisers in 1998, has fallen. The ITV audience at 10.00 pm has fluctuated since News at Ten disappeared: there has been no startling increase in the audience at this time and, indeed, on occasions there has been a reduction in the audience at 10.00 pm. The increase in ITV's revenue appears to be a reflection in considerable measure of the channel's continued and unique capacity consistently to attract a mass audience to an advertising-funded channel in a more diverse market, a capacity noted previously by ITV itself.[50]

The diversity of the ITV evening schedule

19. In the three years up to November 1998, the ITC "criticised the Channel 3 licensees for failing to offer, especially across the peak viewing hours, as diverse a schedule as was envisaged in their licences".[51] In coming to its decision on News at Ten, the ITC particularly took account of the effect of the proposed change on the diversity of the ITV schedule and the likely appeal to viewers of the totality of ITV's proposals. The ITC expected "the more diverse range of programmes proposed from 9.00 pm to 11.00 pm to be delivered".[52]

20. ITV claimed that it has met this requirement for more diverse programming.[53] ITV argued that viewers benefited from "a better schedule of quality programmes, a better variety of programmes",[54] that there has been an increased investment by ITV in peak-time programmes of £64 million,[55] and that there has been an increase in factual programming, in drama, in entertainment and in sport in the period 9.00 pm to 11.00 pm.[56] This last development is hardly surprising given that there is a half-hour gap to fill because ITV is not currently required to broadcast a news programme in this period.

21. As part of its review, the ITC will assess whether the commitment to a more diverse range of programmes on ITV from 9.00 pm to 11.00 pm has been met.[57] This Committee does not propose to comment upon the subjective evidence it has received on the quality and diversity of the new programming. We will confine our comments on this issue to two observations. First, ITV itself admitted to us that the performance of its schedule as a whole in the first part of 2000 had not been as strong as the performance of its schedule in the equivalent period in 1999.[58] Second, there is no reason to accept that the greater investment claimed by ITV is principally a result of the schedule change. To take one example, ITV is greatly increasing its coverage of football in peak-time in 2000 compared with 1999.[59] However, football matches in the UEFA Champions League, for example, are usually scheduled at a time which would not conflict directly with the requirements of news scheduling prior to March 1999.

News quality

22. In announcing its decision to give qualified approval to ITV's new week-day schedule, the ITC set as a condition that "there will be no diminution in the funding, or in the range and quality of national and international news".[60] In reaching its decision on News at Ten the ITC took particular account of assurances given by ITV "that the range and quality of the main news bulletins would not be affected by changes in their timing".[61]

23. ITV and ITN claimed that the conditions laid down by the ITC had been met in full. Total expenditure on news increased in 1999 in line with inflation, based on a five-year contract between ITV and ITN which provides for increases linked to the Retail Price Index.[62] ITV considered that the "editorial quality and content of ITV's bulletins has remained high".[63] ITN reaffirmed that "we are not in any way abandoning the commitment to high quality news that the News at Ten encapsulated".[64] ITN considered that concerns that scheduling changes would undermine the quality of news programming had proved unjustified.[65]

24. Some criticisms of the impact of the scheduling change on ITN's news output on ITV were voiced in a memorandum from Sir Alastair Burnet, a newscaster on News at Ten from 1976 to 1991, Mr Nigel Ryan, Editor and Chief Executive of ITN from 1968 to 1977, and Sir David Nicholas, Editor and Chief Executive of ITN from 1977 to 1989. They argued that the attraction of ITN to journalists, cameramen and designers had diminished. They also complained that the news was "now being deliberately dissociated from its originator", being presented as ITV news rather than ITN news.[66] ITV and ITN acknowledged the trend to brand ITV as a news provider, which they said reflected the increasing diversity in ITN's own activities.[67] They argued that this broader role was understood by ITN staff and disputed the notion that ITN's capacity to recruit and retain high quality staff was being undermined.[68]

25. There is subjective evidence that the ITV Nightly News at 11.00 pm is seen as an inferior product to News at Ten.[69] To some extent, this is an unfair comparison because News at Ten was replaced by the ITV Evening News at 6.30 pm while the ITV Nightly News was intended to replace the bulletin at 5.40 pm.[70] However, it is not surprising that the ITV Nightly News is perceived by some as the "replacement" for News at Ten given that the programme at 11.00 pm has superseded News at Ten as the ITV bulletin suitable for a post-watershed audience rather than a family audience.[71]

The news audience

26. The criterion relating to investment in, and the quality and range of, national and international news on ITV was established by the ITC. News quality was not and is not the principal concern of this Committee. In 1998 we noted that ITN "has a very good, and deservedly very good, reputation for providing high quality news bulletins".[72] Our principal concern then and now has been fulfilment of statutory requirements and compliance by the ITC with its own rules. The audience attracted to news programmes is not simply a reflection upon the quality of the programmes: as ITN remarked, "the audiences that these programmes attract are predominantly a factor of scheduling".[73] Mr Stewart Purvis, Chief Executive of ITN, told us: "I think the crucial thing is what do the figures show in terms of viewing patterns".[74]

27. In October 1998 ITV argued in evidence to this Committee that the proposed schedule changes would not necessarily lead to a marked diminution in the news audience. Mr Richard Eyre, the then Chief Executive, told us the following:

"I do believe, not on a hope and a hunch, but on looking at the numbers and looking at what we have to deliver in terms of increased audience on what is currently happening at 6.30 and 11.00, that we can over time deliver enhanced audiences to news and actually increase the total number of people who are watching news on ITV".[75]

Mr Hill was similarly optimistic on the same occasion:

"Our modelling, our research, suggests that with the combination of 6.30 and 11 o'clock the likelihood is that we will get more viewers for the news".[76]

28. In our Report of early November 1998 we expressed doubt about these claims. We noted that, to attract a higher total audience for news, ITV would need not only to dominate the highly competitive market for an audience for early evening news, but also to establish a new mass audience for news at 11.00 pm. We doubted whether the latter aim could be fulfilled in the face of the shrinking viewing audience at that time. We considered that ITV's claim that it might achieve a larger audience for news placed "very considerable strain on the credulity of the public, of Parliament and of the ITC".[77]

29. At the time it made its decision on the ITV evening schedule, the ITC had hoped that "ITV would be able to ... match over time the audiences that had been previously attracted to the 5.40 News and the News at Ten".[78] Sir Robin Biggam, the Chairman of the ITC, stated in November 1998:

"We are making it clear to ITV that they will have to deliver on news. ITV's own forecast is that news at 6.30 and 11.00 pm will be able to hold its current share. If the remainder of the evening schedule thrives, but ITV's ability to deliver news to a substantial number of viewers is significantly diminished, they will have to make further changes to remedy this."[79]

The ITC stated at that time: "if there is evidence of marked deterioration in the audiences for news, the ITC will require ITV to take remedial action".[80]

30. The ITC have provided this Committee with monthly information on viewing figures for the ITV news bulletins at 6.30 pm and 11.00 pm from April 1999 to January 2000 and comparable information on the audience for the news at 5.40 pm and News at Ten from April 1998 to February 1999.[81] These figures provide an eloquent response to the predictions of Mr Hill and Mr Eyre which we quoted earlier. These figures indicate that the highest combined audience attracted by the two news bulletins was in the first full month of their operation. By June 1999, the combined viewing numbers had fallen to their lowest point of 7.8 million, compared with a combined audience for the previous bulletins in June 1998 of 10.8 million. In the four weeks beginning 3 January 2000 the evening news audience on ITV was 9.4 million, in contrast to the comparative audience for news in the same weeks of 1999 of 11.4 million.[82] According to ITV, the average audience for ITV's news at 6.30 pm and 11.00 pm since the introduction of the new schedules has been 8.7 million, compared with a figure of 9.9 million for the previous bulletins in the preceding period.[83] In the current year up to late February, the average reduction in audience has been 1.7 million, a larger gap attributed by ITV to the fact that "the schedule as a whole has not been as strong in the first part of 2000 as it was in the first part of 1999".[84] The schedule must have been particularly weak on 6 March 2000, a year after the abolition of News at Ten, since The Daily Telegraph reported on 10 March that the audience for the ITV Nightly News at 11.00 pm on 6 March fell to 1.8 million.

31. The reason for the decline in ITV's evening news audience appears two-fold. First, the ITV Evening News has not performed as strongly as ITV expected. Although Mr Hill had claimed in 1998 that "there is a strong public appetite for news early in the evening", the average audience for the ITV bulletin at 6.30 pm has averaged 300,000 less than that for News at Ten.[85] Second, and more importantly, there has been a shortfall in the audience for the ITV Nightly News compared with that for the news at 5.40 pm, a shortfall which has averaged nearly one million.[86]

32. ITV said there were several reasons why the audience for the ITV Nightly News had been "the problem".[87] First, fewer people were now watching both of the ITV's evening news programmes.[88] Second, the programme had suffered because ITV had "not been terribly successful" with new scheduling at 10.30 pm so that the "inheritance" of viewers from those programmes was weaker.[89] Third, until September 1999, the ITV Nightly News was sometimes broadcast before 11.00 pm "which is a pretty crazy thing to do".[90] The programme is now transmitted no earlier than 11.00 pm, although there is what ITN termed "a certain flexibility of minuting".[91] In explaining the relative deficit in the news audience at 11.00 pm or thereabouts for ITV Nightly News, ITV seemed reluctant to mention the fundamental fact to which this Committee referred last year: large numbers of people, in defiance of the wishes of ITV schedulers, are choosing to go to bed at this hour.[92]

33. While ITV accepted that the decline in its news audience was "disappointing", it also noted that "this decline continues the downward trend in evening news audiences on ITV of recent years".[93] This Committee noted in 1998 that the audience for major news bulletins on both ITV and BBC1 was declining.[94] The ITC's decision in November 1998 was, according to Sir Robin Biggam, "taken against a background of declining audiences for news".[95] If this downward trend in the news audience on both ITV and BBC1 were continuing, it would represent an important context in which to interpret the fall since the introduction of ITV's new evening schedule.

34. However, in the last year, the audience for evening news on BBC1 has increased. That channel's Six O'Clock News has produced viewing figures in 1999 significantly above the equivalent figures for the same programme in 1998. The audience for that bulletin has also been markedly greater than that for the ITV Evening News at 6.30 pm, even though the television audience at 6.30 pm is larger than that at 6.00 pm.[96] When the audience figures were put to Mr Hill, he replied as follows:

"The BBC Six O'Clock News has always been the most popular news programme and you are confirming that that remains the case".[97]

This is an astonishing claim. Clear and irrefutable evidence exists that News at Ten was more popular than the BBC Six O'Clock News in 1992, in 1993, in 1994 and in 1995.[98] Setting aside for one moment the fact that Mr Hill's remark is palpably untrue, it also represents an astonishing retreat from the ambitions which were apparent when ITV sought to justify moving its main news from 10.00 pm to 6.30 pm. In November 1998 Mr Richard Eyre told us:

"We do believe that, when ITN goes head-to-head with the BBC—as they did after the football on Tuesday night—and beats the BBC news, we have a better track record and news gathering organisation at our side to drive ourselves into that early evening sector where there still remains a very large number of news viewers".[99]

35. The increase in the BBC news audience at a time when ITV has moved its main bulletin to a time slot similar to that used by the BBC and when the ITV news audience has diminished is important not only because it demonstrates that the decline is particular to ITV rather than part of a general trend, but also because of the legal and regulatory context. In providing for an appointed news provider for Channel 3, the Broadcasting Act 1996 stated that this was "for the purpose of securing the nationwide broadcast, by holders of Channel 3 licences (taken together), of news programmes which are able to compete effectively with other news programmes broadcast nationwide in the United Kingdom".[100] In October 1998, the Rt Hon Chris Smith MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, questioned whether the proposals advanced by ITV met the requirements for competitive high quality news:

"By moving the main Channel 3 bulletins outside the heart of peak there is a risk of diminishing their availability to viewers and their capacity to compete effectively with the BBC and other nationwide news bulletins".[101]

36. The ITC stated in October 1998 that, in coming to a decision, it would examine the effect of the proposals on "the ability of news services on ITV to compete effectively with those of other national news broadcasters".[102] In evidence during this inquiry the ITC indicated that the review would examine "whether ITV's news services have maintained the ability to compete effectively with those of other broadcasters, particularly the BBC".[103] Sir Robin Biggam told us that the seriousness of the deterioration in the ITV news audience would "be judged primarily against the share with the BBC. The major competition is between the BBC and ITV.".[104]

37. From the moment that it decided to give conditional approval to ITV's proposals, the ITC has made clear that it "will conduct a first review of the effect of the schedule changes after 12 months, to allow for a full assessment of the impact of the new scheduling pattern on viewers".[105] A week before this 12 months elapsed, ITV implied in evidence to us that the ITC was mistaken in its belief that it could reach "a full assessment" after 12 months. ITV thought that it was "still early days" for the new schedule.[106] A year was "too soon" to reach a judgement.[107] ITV faced a "conundrum" in reconciling the need to provide diversity in the schedule between 10.30 pm and 11.00 pm and the aim of providing a suitable "inheritance" for the ITV Nightly News which followed.[108] ITV needed time to resolve this conundrum.[109] It would need a longer period before a judgement on the new schedule could be reached; it "may well take up to three years".[110] However, the ITC said in its statement in November 1998 that it considered it appropriate to conduct a review of the effect of the new schedule after 12 months and, in oral evidence to this Committee, Sir Robin Biggam confirmed that he was content with the current proposed timetable for the ITC's review.[111]

38. ITN also claimed that it could re-develop its news audience given time.[112] Mr Purvis told us:

"Quite simply our target is to make the 6.30 news the most watched television news programme in Britain and we believe that is a realistic target over the next few years".[113]

To support this argument, he pointed to the fact that, after a decline in the summer, the audience for the ITV Evening News had been "built back".[114] Two points should be borne in mind in considering this claim. First, our consideration both in 1998 and now has focused on the overall news audience on ITV: while it is true that the news at 6.30 pm was on an upward trend in the autumn of 1999, it is also true that the news at 11.00 pm was on a downward trend in the same period.[115] Second, the trend from which Mr Purvis sought solace is quite possibly a seasonal fluctuation rather than a secular trend. We noted in 1998 that the audience at 6.30 pm is much more subject to seasonal fluctuations than that at 10.00 pm.[116] It is true that the average audience for the ITV Evening News at 6.30 pm was at least a million higher in the period October to December 1999 than it was in the period July to September 1999. This is likely to be related to the fact that the average total television audience in the period October to December 1999 from 6.30 pm to 7.00 pm was at least three and a half million higher than the audience for the same time slot in the period July to September 1999.[117]

Regional commitments

39. ITV attaches importance to its "special regional character".[118] Invited to provide a description of ITV's public service remit in the future, Mr Hill referred first of all to ITV's regional nature.[119] The proposal to move ITV's main evening news to 6.30 pm required changes to be made to ITV's regional schedule, with regional programmes previously broadcast by many of the ITV companies in peak-time as defined by the ITC in the 6.30 to 7.00 pm slot moving to the earlier non-peak time of 5.30 pm to 6.00 pm.[120] Initially, ITV's proposals did not, in the ITC's view, offer adequate alternative regional slots in or near peak-time to compensate for this displacement. The ITC imposed conditions about regional programming in agreeing to ITV's request.[121]

40. In consequence of the introduction of the new schedule there has been, according to ITV itself, "a weaker performance for regional programmes than in the previous 6.30 pm slot".[122] According to the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT), regional programmes have been "pushed ... further to the margins" and budgets for regional programming have continued to diminish.[123]

41. On 20 October 1999 Sir Robin Biggam expressed concern about the performance of regional programmes in the early evening in the wake of the changes. Sir Robin Biggam told us that he had expressed the ITC's "grave reservations" about this programming.[124] Since this warning shot, ITV companies have made changes to their programming at 5.30 pm which, according to ITV, have "arrested the decline".[125] ITV itself does not therefore dispute that a decline in the audiences for regional programming took place in the months following the introduction of the new schedule.

42. One of the consequences of the changes to the ITV schedule was to move regional news programmes further away from the heart of peak viewing time. With regard to the effect on regional news programming which had hitherto been at 10.30 pm in most ITV regions, ITV acknowledged that it had "a less satisfactory answer" than was the case for the early evening.[126] The audience share for regional news programmes which were broadcast at 6.30 pm and are now broadcast at 6.00 pm has fallen in almost all ITV regions, in some cases quite dramatically.[127] ITV attributed this to the weaker performance of programmes at 5.30 pm which led to the "delivery" of a smaller audience to regional news programmes. ITV considered that changes to earlier programmes since the autumn of 1999 had had a marked beneficial effect on audiences for regional news programmes in the early part of this year.[128] ITV chose not to provide this Committee with information on the audience for its late evening regional news programmes.

43. Although the regional commitment of ITV companies in general goes wider than the scope of this inquiry, the effect of the ITV schedule changes on the audience for regional programmes and regional news programmes in particular must be, and according to the ITC is, an important factor in the light of these wider commitments. PACT argued that there had been a general reduction in the quality and diversity of regional programmes and questioned ITV's ability to sustain its commitment to regional programming.[129] Proposals for further "consolidation" amongst ITV companies are likely to affect opinions on the regional commitment of ITV.[130] The ITC confirmed to us that it was in continuing correspondence with the Scottish Media Group about "ways in which the Grampian service is not conforming to its licence conditions at the moment".[131] This is a matter about which this Committee expects to be kept informed.

The timing and nature of remedial proposals

44. We have already noted that the ITC has been committed since November 1998 to conducting "a first review of the effect of the schedule changes after 12 months". At the same time, the ITC stated that "in the event that the ITC judges that any of the conditions outlined above are not being met, ITV will be required to come forward with remedial proposals".[132] The ITC also stated that "if there is evidence of marked deterioration in the audiences for news, the ITC will require ITV to take remedial action".[133] Sir Robin Biggam confirmed the timetable for the first review in evidence:

"We have been doing it on a continuous basis and it will come to a head very quickly. We expect to communicate with ITV in May."[134]

45. Sir Robin also confirmed that no form of remedial action, including a requirement to reinstate News at Ten, had been ruled out.[135]

46. There has been some public discussion of a "suggested compromise" whereby a news bulletin would be broadcast on ITV at 10.30 pm.[136] Mr Hill told us that the suggestion was "no more than a rumour". He did not view it as "a serious proposition at this point"; it would create similar problems to News at Ten because one and a half hours would not be sufficient for some programmes which ITV might wish to broadcast after 9.00 pm.[137] A bulletin at 10.30 pm appears to offer the worst of all worlds. It would offer none of the brand value still associated with News at Ten. It would not be within peak as defined by the ITC and in consequence it could replace the ITV Nightly News, but could not supersede the ITV Evening News which would probably still need to be broadcast no earlier than 6.30 pm for ITV to comply with its statutory obligations. A news programme at 10.30 pm would be in direct competition with the BBC's well-established Newsnight.

The changing broadcasting and regulatory context

47. We observed in a recent Report on the Funding of the BBC that "broadcasting is changing, and it is changing fast".[138] The audience share for Channel 4, Channel 5 and multi-channel television is increasing.[139] By the end of 1999 almost seven million homes in the United Kingdom had access to multi-channel television.[140] The rapidly increasing take-up of digital television led the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to tell the House of Commons on 21 February 2000 that "we intend to ensure that an overall switch to digital will take place between 2006 and 2010".[141] Universal provision of digital television will affect radically the current privileged position of ITV as a provider of universal, free-to-air television.

48. The transformation which is well underway, and of which digital television represents a less significant part than the development of the Internet, will profoundly affect the way in which news is delivered and received.[142] ITN is seeking to respond to this transformation by diversifying its activities beyond its work for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to include web-based news and, later this year, an ITN-branded 24-hour news channel.[143] In written evidence, ITN stated that its programmes on ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 would remain "an important component of ITN's ability to compete" for the news audience "during the sunset period before analogue switch-over".[144] In oral evidence, Mr Mark Wood, the Chairman of ITN, stated that "the ITV schedule will continue to pull in a very, very large audience for a very long time and our news there will be an essential part of it".[145]

49. Rapid change in broadcasting and communications will necessitate legislative and regulatory change. The Government expects to publish a White Paper later this year setting out the Government's proposals for reform of the framework of communications legislation, with new legislation following "when parliamentary time allows".[146] ITV expects to argue for new legislation which retains elements of ITV's public service remit, but is less specific in terms of regulation and which redresses what ITV sees as an imbalance in the regulatory burdens on ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC respectively.[147] The ITC expected to see changes in future legislation, but Sir Robin Biggam was "absolutely certain" that legislation would "continue to focus on public service obligations and in particular news provision".[148]

Conclusions and recommendation

50. ITV is a public service broadcaster. Its public service role is directly related to the privileged access to a free-to-air television audience which its licensees acquire. ITV's audience share has declined as newer entrants in the television market undertake commercial risk to create and expand audiences. ITV retains particular public service obligations in part because its access to television markets has required less risk than has been necessary for other participants and in part because the main market available to ITV, while declining, has been held to have increased value in a more diverse market. It has not been and still appears not to be the position of ITV that its public service obligations are unnecessary or out-of-date.

51. The provision of high quality news services to a mass audience is at the heart of ITV's public service obligations. The capacity of ITN to deliver such high quality news services is not in doubt and, in this Committee's view, has never been the central issue at stake. The central matter of contention in our previous inquiry was the ability of ITV to schedule those high quality news programmes at a time which could provide an audience compatible with ITV's public service obligations.

52. This Committee has received clear and compelling evidence that the evening news audience on ITV has fallen significantly in direct contradiction to the confident predictions made by ITV when it was seeking to justify its request to move its news bulletins as part of a new schedule. This decline is not simply a function of the long-term decline in the news audience for terrestrial television as a whole, a point demonstrated by the increase in the audience for BBC1's Six O'Clock News since the introduction of the new ITV evening schedule.

53. ITV argues that it is too early to judge the impact of its new schedule on evening news audiences. We find this contention wholly unconvincing, and so does the ITC. It has been known since November 1998 that the ITC proposed to review the impact of the changes a year after their implementation. If ITV had felt that this was not sufficient time to prove its claims justified, it could have chosen not to go ahead with the new schedule, or could have argued that a year was not enough when the ITC permitted the changes in news on Channel 3. ITV did neither.

54. In addition to the detrimental effect on the national news audience, the ITV's new schedule has meant that, in ITV's own words, "the regional news programmes' audiences have suffered".[149] The ITC felt it necessary in October 1999 to express "grave reservations" about the impact of the new schedule on regional programming.[150] The new schedule appears to have contributed to a sense that ITV's regional commitment is diminishing at a time when ITV itself seeks to place that commitment centre-stage in defining its public service role.

55. We recommended in 1998 that the Government, prior to the introduction of new legislation, conduct "a review of all statutory requirements relating to scheduling in the light of the increasing number of services competing with each other as a result of technological and other changes in broadcasting".[151] In response, the Government confirmed its intention "to examine whether there is a need for any regulation of the scheduling of broadcast material and, if so, what should be the extent of that regulation".[152] We expect the legislative and regulatory environment in which ITV is required to operate to change considerably in future years.

56. However, pending such change, ITV should be expected to comply with public service obligations which reflect the letter and spirit of current legislation and regulatory requirements. The new ITV schedule fails to so comply. We recommend that the ITC require ITV to reinstate News at Ten.

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6  ITC News Release 105/98, 19 November 1998. Back

7  Evidence, p 3. Back

8  ITC News Release 105/98, p 2. Back

9  New Programmes, More Choice: ITV's proposals for a new look to weekday evenings, September 1998. Back

10  Ninth Report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Future of News at Ten, HC (1997-98) 1110, para 1. Back

11  Ibid, paras 27-32. Back

12  Ibid, para 33. Back

13  1990.c.42, section 31 (1). Back

14  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 5; Evidence, p 29; Q 102. Back

15  HC (1997-98) 1110, p 28. Back

16  Ibid, para 5. Back

17  Ibid, p 28. Back

18  Ibid, para 8. Back

19  ITC News Release 105/98, p 2. Back

20  Ibid, p 1. Back

21  Ibid, p 2. Back

22  Ibid, p 2. Back

23  QQ 103-105. Back

24  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 26. Back

25  Ibid, para 14. Back

26  Evidence, p 4. Back

27  Evidence, pp 47, 49. Back

28  Evidence, p 4. Back

29  Q 1. Back

30  Q 44. Back

31  Q 34. Back

32  Evidence, p 30. Back

33  Ibid. Back

34  Q 121. Back

35  Evidence, p 30. Back

36  Q 40. Back

37  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 18. Back

38  Evidence, p 4. Back

39  Evidence, p 47. Back

40  Evidence, p 4; QQ 4, 13. Back

41  Evidence, p 32. Back

42  Q 21. Back

43  Q 2. Back

44  Q 40. Back

45  Q 2. Back

46  Q 40. Back

47  Evidence, p 3; Q 13. Back

48  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 32. Back

49  Q 2. Back

50  Fourth Report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Multi-Media Revolution, HC (1997-98) 520-I, para 95. Back

51  Remarks from Sir Robin Biggam annexed to ITC News Release 105/98. Back

52  ITC News Release 105/98, pp 2, 1. Back

53  Evidence, pp 4-5. Back

54  Q 7. Back

55  Evidence, p 4. For these purposes, peak-time is defined as the period 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm Monday to Friday. Back

56  Evidence, p 4. Back

57  Evidence, p 30. Back

58  Q 21. Back

59  Evidence, p 5; Q 45. Back

60  ITC News Release 105/98, p 1. Back

61  Evidence, p 29. Back

62  Evidence, p 6; Q 74. Back

63  Evidence, p 5, Q 49. Back

64  Q 62. Back

65  Q 73. Back

66  Evidence, pp 39-41. Back

67  QQ 48, 71, 72. Back

68  QQ 71, 62, 81, 49. Back

69  Evidence, p 60. Back

70  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 20. Back

71  Evidence, pp 39, 58; Q 89. Back

72  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 4. Back

73  Evidence, p 22. Back

74  Q 56. Back

75  HC (1997-98) 1110, Q 76. Back

76  Ibid, Q 71. Back

77  Ibid, para 28. Back

78  Q 131. Back

79  Remarks by Sir Robin Biggam annexed to ITC News Release 105/98. Back

80  ITC News Release 105/98, p 2. Back

81  Evidence, p 31. Back

82  Evidence, pp 31, 32. Back

83  Evidence, p 9. Back

84  QQ 20-21. Back

85  HC (1997-98) 1110, Q 1; Evidence, p 9. Back

86  Evidence, p 9; Q 8. Back

87  Q 8. Back

88  Q 5. Back

89  Q 8. Back

90  Q 16. Back

91  QQ 16, 35-36, 75. Back

92  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 28. Back

93  Evidence, p 6. Back

94  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 27. Back

95  Remarks by Sir Robin Biggam annexed to ITC News Release 105/98. Back

96  Evidence, p 31. Back

97  Q 38. Back

98  HC (1997-98) 1110, pp xi-xii. Back

99  HC (1997-98) 1110, Q 21. Back

100  1996.c.55, section 74 (2). Back

101  HC (1997-98) 1110, p 27. Back

102  Ibid, p 28. Back

103  Evidence, p 30. Back

104  Q 118. Back

105  ITC News Release 105/98, p 2. Back

106  Evidence, p 8. Back

107  Q 12. Back

108  Q 8. Back

109  Q 10. Back

110  QQ 10, 14, 42-43. Back

111  ITC News Release 105/98, p 2; Q 125. Back

112  Q 63. Back

113  Q 67. Back

114  Ibid. Back

115  Evidence, p 31. Back

116  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 27. Back

117  Evidence, p 31. Back

118  Evidence, p 1. See also HC (1997-98) 1110, para 21. Back

119  Q 27. Back

120  Evidence, p 3. Back

121  ITC News Release 105/98, p 3 and annexed remarks by Sir Robin Biggam. Back

122  Evidence, p 7. Back

123  Evidence, pp 42, 43. Back

124  Evidence, pp 43, 7; Q 124. Back

125  Evidence, p 7. Back

126  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 30.  Back

127  Evidence, p 9. Back

128  Q 20; Evidence, pp 7, 9. Back

129  Evidence, p 43. Back

130  Evidence, p 39. Back

131  Q 113. Back

132  ITC News Release 105/98, p 2. Back

133  Ibid. Back

134  Q 125. Back

135  QQ 126-127. Back

136  Evidence, p 41. Back

137  Q 46. Back

138  Third Report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Funding of the BBC, HC (1999-2000) 25-I, para 4. Back

139  Evidence, p 30. Back

140  Evidence, p 4. Back

141  HC Deb, 21 February 2000, col 1251. Back

142  HC (1999-2000) 25-I, paras 6-9, 30, 42-43. Back

143  Evidence, p 19; QQ 60, 71, 73, 85-86. Back

144  Evidence, p 20. Back

145  Q 84. Back

146  HC Deb, 3 February 2000, col 728W. Back

147  Q 27. Back

148  Q 99. Back

149  Q 20. Back

150  Q 124. Back

151  HC (1997-98) 1110, para 34. Back

152  First Special Report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Future of News at Ten: Government Response to the Ninth Report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Session 1997-98, HC (1998-99) 200, p iii. Back

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Prepared 22 March 2000