Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of witnesses (Questions 40 - 59)

THURSDAY 13 JULY 2000

SIR CHRISTOPHER BLAND, DAME PAULINE NEVILLE-JONES, MR GREG DYKE, MR MARK THOMPSON and MR JOHN SMITH

  40. So you would agree that you are not the most watched United Kingdom news channel?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) It depends on your definition of channel. Can you tell me what page of the Annual Report that phrase comes from?

  41. It is under the heading News in the first main paragraph, five lines from the bottom.
  (Sir Christopher Bland) "Audiences for our continuous digital news channel BBC News 24—the most watched UK news channel—continued to grow, and it was named satellite/digital channel of the year at this year's Television and Radio Industries Club Awards." I think it depends. It is a semantic matter, is it not?

  42. No, it is not a semantic matter. It is about the accuracy of your report. Am I right in the definition of a channel as being BBC News 24 and the output could be a series of programmes?
  (Mr Thompson) BBC 1 hands over to News 24. News 24 programmes are not presented as programmes on BBC 1. What happens is that programmes on BBC 1 overnight and BBC 2 on a Saturday morning, we hand over to the BBC News 24 channel. It is a pretty arcane distinction, I accept. You do not have BBC 1 presentation in News 24 programmes on BBC 1. We hand over to the News 24 channel.

  43. It is about public choice. I sit down and decide to watch news. I decide to switch on a channel, to either Sky News or to BBC News 24. I make that choice. That is a public choice of the channel. On BBC 1, they do not have that choice. If they turn to BBC 1, they normally assume to get the wide range of excellent programmes that are on BBC 1. After a certain time at night on both 1 and 2 they get News 24. Therefore, there is not a positive choice towards a news channel.
  (Sir Christopher Bland) They can always turn it off. We are not really at odds. We are absolutely clear that our share in digital homes and our reach is lower than Sky but our overall audience is greater.

Chairman

  44. When you say "audience", you used before and you now use in response to Claire Ward the word "reach". You said your reach is six million but on page 45 you say that it is now watched by more than six million. Is there a difference between reaching and being watched by?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) No.
  (Mr Dyke) Reach is a definition of watching for a certain period of time.

  Ms Ward: Is that the three minutes?

Chairman

  45. It is more than three minutes at a stretch. That is the way you measure it.
  (Mr Dyke) There are two reaches. One is three minutes. One is 20 minutes. Most people use the three minutes and, at some stage, watch that service for more than three minutes.

  46. What you are saying is that over a year, if you add it all up together, six million people have been watching BBC News 24 for more than three minutes at a go?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) No.

  47. Then perhaps you would explain it?
  (Mr Thompson) We will confirm this to you but I believe that the figures are based upon weekly reach.

  48. You are saying that every week 6.1 million people have tuned in to BBC News 24 for three minutes or more?
  (Mr Thompson) Yes.

  49. That is the way you measure it?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) Yes.
  (Mr Thompson) Whereas 3.6 million will have watched Sky News for the same period.

Ms Ward

  50. That is six million over 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) Yes.

  51. Compared to the sort of figures that we might see for one half hour episode of Eastenders, which would be considerably in excess of six million.
  (Mr Dyke) One half hour could be anything between 12 and 18 million.

  52. That puts it into context.
  (Sir Christopher Bland) It is a different genre. News is not as popular as Eastenders at One, at Six or at Nine. It would be very nice if we thought our news could get an Eastenders audience, but I do not think we are likely to achieve that and I do not think it is right to compare the relativities.
  (Mr Dyke) You are comparing the most popular programme on the BBC and probably one of the two most popular programmes on British television with news. I think it is quite dangerous territory because there are some other programmes on the BBC that do not achieve this but have real value in our public service remit.
  (Mr Thompson) Having invested in News 24, the idea of bringing to as many licence payers as possible and to people in analogue homes as well as multi-channel digital homes does not seem unreasonable.

  53. You are still happy to justify £50 million a year for the basis of 0.1 per cent of audience?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) No, because it is not 0.1 per cent of the audience we justify. First of all, it is 0.3 in digital homes. Secondly, overall, it is 6.1 million viewers a week. Plainly Ms Ward thinks they are somehow trapped into watching News 24 on terrestrial television, on analogue television. We do not think that is the case. We would like the audience to be greater. We would urge the members of the Committee who have always found a problem with News 24 to give it another shot. It is a really good service. It has improved since its early days. It is getting better by the minute. Give it a try.

  Chairman: Or by the three minutes.

  Ms Ward: I should hope that it is getting better.

  Chairman: I gave it a try over the weekend when I was zapping around on my digital set.

  Ms Ward: Did you stay longer than three minutes, because you would have been counted in their audience?

Chairman

  54. No, because I went back to Sky Active which is fascinating me at the moment because of the way I can choose the stories I want to follow. Can I ask about the statistics? You corrected the figure that Sky Television gave us of 0.1 per cent for you, saying it is 0.3 per cent.
  (Sir Christopher Bland) We also corrected their figure.

  55. You have uprated them as well.
  (Sir Christopher Bland) From four to five.

  56. I am not nit-picking; I just want to understand the definitions. You say that that 0.3 per cent is a proportion of viewership in digital homes, whereas Sky say that 0.1 per cent, as they said, and their 0.4 per cent is a share of total United Kingdom television viewing, so which is it? Is it a share of total United Kingdom television viewing or just a share of viewing in digital homes?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) I think it is total but it comes from digital homes. I need to check that but I think it is total.

  57. It is a question of clarifying it?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) Yes. We will write to you clarifying these figures. The figures I quoted to you are for four weeks in June this year, but we will write and make that clear.

Ms Ward

  58. We are probably not going to agree on News 24 so perhaps I can move on to something a little more general. Would anyone like to give me a definition of public sector broadcasting?
  (Sir Christopher Bland) Yes. It is set out in the Charter and the agreement. It is the delivery of radio, television and now online of a range of services that inform, that educate and entertain. That is the old Reithian definition that I think we would still stand by. We would amplify that by saying that our programmes ought, not all of them but many of them, to be programmes that would not be supplied by the market alone; that are, again not all the time but some of the time, directed at parts of the population that would otherwise be under-served by a purely commercial service, like the old, like ethnic minorities, like single mothers with children; and that throughout our programmes ought to strive to be innovative, to be stimulating, to be imaginative and to be different and of the highest quality.

  59. Would anybody else like to add to that?
  (Mr Dyke) I think that was a fair summary. I would make it simple and say our job is to make great programmes. Inevitably, we will fail at times because not all programmes can be great, but that should be the aim. The aim should be great output in a whole cross of genres. That is what the unique quality of the BBC has provided to Britain over many years.


 
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