APPENDIX 45
Memorandum submitted by The Third World
and Environment Broadcasting Project 3WE
THREATS TO INFORMED CITIZENSHIP IN THE GOVERNMENT'S
PLANS FOR COMMUNICATIONS REFORM
The Third World and Environment Broadcasting
Project (3WE) hereby submits this evidence to the select committee
and requests the opportunity to present evidence orally during
the committee's Inquiry into communications reform.
3WE is a leading voluntary sector organisation
which analyses communications reform from the perspective of citizenship
in the global information society.
The Government has emphasised that it seeks
reform which "promotes the interests of citizens and consumers".
Yet the communications reform process has been overwhelmingly
dominated by the voices and interests of the industries concerned.
It is vital that citizens' groupings including those drawn, like
3WE, from the voluntary sector, are enabled to influence the shape
of future legislation and regulation.
In the Government's plans for convergence, and
in the approach of regulators, there remain serious errors and
omissions which in practice will undermine the availability and
accessibility of services 'essential to citizenship'.
As a coalition of the UK's leading international
development and environment charities, 3WE specifically seeks
to ensure that high quality information and knowledge about the
wider world are available to UK citizens of the global information
society—through the media they most use.
Some 85 per cent of people cite television as
their primary source of information on developing countries, according
to the Government's own poll. Yet we will present evidence that
over a decade the amount of factual coverage of these countries
on mainstream television declined by 50 per cent. We will present
an analysis of why current plans will reinforce this trend during
the next decade. And we will present positive proposals, both
to improve the communications reform proposals, and to ensure
innovation in new services.
SUMMARY OF
EVIDENCE
High quality information, knowledge and understanding
of the world are vital to citizenship of the global information
society, but:
— Promises on citizenship in the White
Paper are not backed by any explicit legislative or regulatory
proposals.
— The Government has not entered dialogue
with interested citizens' groups.
— The OFCOM Bill legislates for a consumer
panel to advise OFCOM, but no such proposal on citizenship.
3WE therefore requests the Select Committee,
in its inquiry into communications, to take particular care to
consider citizenship aspects of the reform process.
The Government has talked about "services
essential to citizenship" but these have not been defined,
and should be. Above all, citizenship is concerned with content—the
knowledge and understanding to enable social participation.
— The new regulator should be empowered
and structured to stimulate innovation in services essential to
citizenship.
— Overwhelming importance should be
attached to the services which are most widely available to, accessible
to, and consistently used by the majority of UK citizens—mainstream
TV, channels one to five, which retain 80 per cent of all viewing
compared to niche digital channels which each have a one per cent
share or less.
— 85 per cent of people cite TV as
their primary source of information on international subjects.
Only three per cent cite the internet. The 85 per cent figure
has remained constant since at least 1989.
— Outside news, only mainstream channels
provide factual international content to significant audiences—of
the few niche channels which might provide it, the Discovery Channel
has a 0.3 per cent audience share, National Geographic 0.1 per
cent.
Since the 1990 Broadcasting Act weakened ITV's
public service requirements, affecting the whole "ecology"
of broadcasting, non-news-and-current-affairs factual programming
on international subjects has declined. 3WE's monitoring shows
that in the decade from 1989 to 1999:
— International programming fell by
42 per cent across channels one to four.
— Programming on developing countries
fell by 50 per cent.
— All main channels were showing fewer
peak-time programmes on developing countries.
— The type of content provided in this
category had changed from examination of how life is lived for
the world's majority (through programmes on religion, human rights,
development and the environment, for example) to focus more on
travel and wildlife (60 per cent of programmes on developing countries).
The Tier 3 proposals in the White Paper will
further weaken this ecology and are a potential disaster for citizenship.
They will undermine the government's own public interest objectives
as stated in the White Paper.
Plans for OFCOM are inadequate for the convergence
era:
— No proposal has been made as to how
the regulator will promote citizens' interests, or how citizens
can expect involvement through this regulator.
— There are no plans to tackle challenges
of the convergence era such as:
— what best serves citizens with regard
to public service broadcasters' use of the world-wide web and
multi-platform approaches;
— what "services essential to
citizenship" cannot be found on the internet (ie where are
the market failures) and what role could public service broadcasters
and others play in correcting these failures.
We urge the Select Committee to question Government
and regulators on plans for OFCOM to promote citizens' interests
in the convergence era.
3WE makes a range of positive recommendations
for legislative and regulatory measures to tackle these deficits
in the communications reform process, which are collated in Section
7.
ABOUT 3WE
The Third World and Environment Broadcasting
Project (3WE) is a coalition of the UK's leading voluntary organisations
concerned with international development and the environment.
It works for sustained, high quality and imaginative coverage
of international issues on mainstream UK television. Members include
Oxfam, Save the Children, the Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Christian and, Cafod
and ActionAid. These charities have around three million members
and supporters in the UK.
Since 1989 3WE has regularly monitored the quantity
and type of factual coverage of international issues on the main
free-to-air TV channels in the UK (channels one to five). This
research is currently being updated for the last year. Figures
in this submission are taken from the last published report, "Losing
Perspective", 2000.
3WE has responded to all major government consultations
and publications on communications reform since 1997. It is a
member of the steering committee of the voluntary sector campaign,
Public Voice, which seeks "communications reform for all".
CITIZENSHIP AND
COMMUNICATIONS REFORM
The Government has promised a citizens' agenda
within communications reform, but neither Government nor regulators
have even begun to develop this agenda.
The Government stated in its White Paper that
it sought communications reform which protects "the interests
of citizens and consumers" (our emphasis). It confirmed in
House of Lords debates on the OFCOM Bill that this remains its
intention, and that the interests of the two groups are not the
same. Government documents have referred to "services essential
for citizenship". The White Paper also promised greater involvement
of citizens' groups in shaping communications services.
3WE welcomes the convergence era, which has
the potential to develop and enhance citizenship of the global
information society (GIS), but is now seriously concerned at the
lack of concrete proposals to make use of these opportunities.
As evidence of its concern it points to the following factors:
— The promises on citizenship in the
White Paper were not backed by any explicit legislative or regulatory
proposals.
— All public consultations since 1997
have been dominated by the voices and interests of the industries
involved.
— The government has not entered significant
dialogue with interested citizens' groups.
— The OFCOM Bill legislates specifically
for the setting up of an influential panel to advise OFCOM on
consumer issues, but no such proposal on citizenship.
— The Towers Perrin report published
by the Regulators' Steering Group contains specific structural
arrangements for consumer interests but not for those of citizens,
beyond minimum standards of taste and decency and complaints relating
to these.
— In its response to Towers Perrin,
submitted to all the regulators and to the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport, 3WE urged immediate development of a citizenship
agenda within communications reform, and made specific proposals,
but to date no response has been forthcoming.
3WE therefore requests the Select Committee,
in its inquiry into communications, to take particular care to
consider citizenship aspects of the reform process.
Definitions of citizenship with regard to communications
services
It is necessary to offer some definitions of
citizenship in this context and what it implies for communications
services.
3WE argues that UK citizens are now becoming
citizens of the "global information society" and need
to be equipped to realise their full potential in an interdependent
world.
In both our submission for, and response to,
the White Paper we maintained that:
"We need to be considered as citizens of
a newly globalising society... We are all-round citizens with
a greater need for information, knowledge, education, skills and
understanding than at any time in history. Our ability to access
and use information is becoming a matter of the strongest and
most overriding self-interest—and national interest."
These concerns appeared to have been understood
by Government which stated, in its Green Paper "Regulating
communications: approaching convergence in the information age"
(1998), that there is an increasing, not diminishing need for
citizens to have "access to high quality material for education,
entertainment and information if they are to realise their potential
as individuals" [par 2.5]
"Citizenship" in this context means
principally "citizenship of the global information society"
(GIS). (It does not refer to citizenship of Great Britain.) It
should be taken to imply matters to do with the "information,
education, knowledge and understanding" which are the foundation
of full and meaningful participation in the GIS.
Citizenship is therefore to do primarily with
content, including the availability and accessibility of that
content.
Further, citizenship in the GIS is an active,
participatory and devolved relationship to information provision.
Convergence implies the emergence of active, self-selecting users
of information services, able to follow their own preferences,
select tailor-made or niche services, combine different services
through the same electronic device, and to interact personally
with those services.
COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES
"ESSENTIAL TO
CITIZENSHIP"
3WE requests the Select Committee to urge Government
and regulators to develop a definition of the communications services
"essential to citizenship", and legislative and regulatory
proposals to ensure their delivery.
Any such definition must include:
— Universal internet access.
— Universal digital television access.
However, the fact that there are now hundreds
of broadcast channels and hundreds of millions of Web pages does
not necessarily mean either that all of the services essential
to citizenship are being provided, or that they are available,
accessible and well used by the majority of the public.
Therefore citizenship may require the innovation,
from within the public and/or commercial sectors, of new broadcasting,
internet and multi-platform services. The need for this kind of
innovation is not recognised in Towers Perrin; however, 3WE's
conclusion is that, under the new arrangements:
— The new regulator must be empowered,
equipped and structured to stimulate positive innovation in converged
communications services
Further, we submit that overwhelming importance
should continue to be attached to the delivery of the requisite
information, knowledge and understanding essential to citizenship
of the GIS through the services which are most widely available
to, accessible to, and consistently used by the majority of UK
citizens.
In short, this means the mainstream free-to-air
TV channels which carry public service obligations (BBC1 and 2,
ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5). It is only through these services
that the content required for informed citizenship for the GIS
can be delivered to mass audiences.
Below, we submit evidence to support this analysis,
followed by evidence that the performance of these channels in
providing the type of factual content required has been diminishing
for the last twelve years, and argue that current government proposals
will lead to further falls in both the quantity and quality of
such content.
Importance of mainstream TV services
Despite the much-predicted fragmentation of
audiences and decline of mainstream TV channels, after five years
of digital convergence the following remain facts:
— The amount of television watched
has only declined very slightly.
— Channels one to five retain 80 per
cent of all TV watching.
— Most other TV channels gain one per
cent or less of the national audience.
— All the most-watched programming
in any week is on the mainstream channels.
— Only one or two programmes on non-mainstream
channels manage an audience of one million people.
— Mainstream channels remain the most-used
channels even in multi-channel households.
The importance of these public service channels
is not just in the audience figures, but in the type of content
available to those audiences, and its vital role in informing
citizens about the world around them.
In a DFID public opinion poll in 2000, 85 per
cent of people cited TV as their primary source of information
on international subjects. Only three per cent cited the internet.
The figure of 85 per cent is consistent with development charities'
own polling since the late 1980s, showing that citizens' reliance
on TV for this type of content has been little affected by multi-channel
TV or by the rise of the internet.
Although there has been increased competition
in news provision from multi-channel TV, there is little provision
outside the public service channels for longer-form, in-depth
factual programming on international subjects. Of the few channels
which might provide this kind of content, the Discovery Channel
has a 0.3 per cent audience share, the History Channel 0.2 per
cent; and National Geographic 0.1 per cent.
The Government's White Paper treats international
coverage—along with the arts, science, history, religion
and other key categories of information and knowledge—as
minority interests. Despite all the rhetoric about retaining public
service broadcasting, there is an acceptance by government, regulators
and broadcasters that these "minority interests" will
in future be increasingly served by niche or minority channels.
Therefore the regulatory requirements on the ps broadcasters are
to be weakened, allowing them to self-regulate against their own
annual statements of programming policy.
There is no evidence that the market can or
will support such channels as mass channels. If broadcasters feel
enabled by the new framework to abandon or marginalise these categories
of content, it will lead to precisely the kind of market failure
which public service broadcasting is supposed to correct, removing
part of its raison d'etre. The purpose of public service broadcasting
should be precisely to lead people into content which they may
not previously have known they wanted, but where they may gain
new insights and understanding.
Evidence of broadcasters failing in their commitments
Why do we have reason to expect that the new
regulatory framework will lead to broadcasters abandoning or marginalizing
important categories of factual programming?
The answer lies in 3WE's monitoring research,
consistently carried out using the same methodology since 1989-90.
This research measures the quantity of non-news-and-current-affairs
factual programming on international subjects on the public service
TV channels.
Over the course of a decade, between 1989-90
and 1998-99, the quantity of programme hours fell from 1037 to
728.6—despite the introduction of Channel 5, and the extension
of Channel 4's hours of broadcasting.
Leaving aside Channel 5 and analysing the other
four channels over the whole decade, international programming
fell by 42 per cent over the decade. Even more worrying was the
decline in such programming which specifically covered developing
countries—a fall of 50 per cent. All channels were showing
fewer peak-time programmes about the developing world than at
the start of the decade.
In addition, the nature of coverage of the developing
world changed fundamentally. In 1989-90 50 per cent of these programmes
were concerned with human rights, development, the environment,
religion, culture and the arts. By 1998-99 these had become minority
subjects, with 60 per cent of programmes on the developing world
now devoted to travel and wildlife. In other words, the examination
of how life is lived by the majority of the world's population
had given way to a more distanced interest in the exotic, and
in natural phenomena filmed with little reference to the wider
environmental or developmental context.
As we noted in the report of these findings,
the Broadcasting Act 1990 had changed the regulatory framework,
and these figures show the Act's impact on broadcasters' behaviour:
"The fear then was that, with ITV freed
from many of its public service obligations, the other channels?
would also be obliged to dilute key programming responsibilities
in order to compete for market share." In fact, ITV's factual
programming on developing countries fell by 74 per cent over the
decade.
These figures illustrate how the loosening of
regulatory requirements rapidly and directly affects broadcasters'
commitment to their public service remits, across the whole "ecology"
of public service broadcasting.
If the Communications Bill further weakens the
obligations on these broadcasters, we can only conclude the trend
of decreasing commitment to international programming will continue—despite
the media's mea culpas since September 11 2001.
The Tier 3 proposal—a potential disaster
for citizenship
3WE welcomed many aspects of the White Paper—that
it was led by public interest objectives, that public service
broadcasting would be retained, and that there would be increased
emphasis in broadcasters' remits on international subject matter.
However, we warned that these objectives would
be undermined by the practical proposals for future regulation.
The Government has accepted broadcasters' arguments
that quantitative measurement of their performance in particular
categories should be removed. We would argue counter to this—only
quantitative measurement can really reveal whether rhetorical
promises are being matched by operational reality. The existence
of 3WE's own widely quoted quantitative figures has enabled pressure
to be kept on broadcasters to do better (following the publication
two years ago of "Losing Perspective" it is likely that
Channel 4 and the BBC may have, at least temporarily, halted their
decline in international programming). Similarly the ITC's monitoring
of the quantity (and quality) of commercial channels' output has
probably helped to save what little international programming
remains on ITV, for example.
The White Paper states that only news and independent
and regional production will in future be subject to quantitative
requirements—these form Tier two of the proposed content
regulation. A new category, Tier three, will be created, in which
there will not be quantitative regulation—indeed there will
be little regulation of any type. Into this category go all of
the non-news factual genres which are crucial to creating an informed
and knowledgeable citizenry: as well as international programming,
it will include religion, science, history, the arts, and education,
for example.
With these Tier 3 genres, the mainstream broadcasters
will largely regulate themselves. They will make an annual statement
of promise, and at the end of each year report how they have fulfilled
it. Some of these statements, from the BBC and others, are already
being piloted, and are vague, general and pitched to be easily
fulfilled.
For example, Channel 4's current statement,
under "documentaries", promises that "Channel 4
is committed to running, in peak time, a range of demanding social
documentary, on both British and international subjects? We will
produce major documentary series across 2001-02, from Britain
and abroad. These will include series from India, France, Italy
and rural Eastern Europe? Major series and clusters of programming
in "Seasons", throughout 2001-02, will give a spine
to the year's schedule, identifying significant social themes."
This is a collection of generalised statements,
with specific mention of a few known commissions. How would the
regulator, the government and the public measure, at the end of
the year, whether Channel 4 had delivered such a menu, and moreover
whether it was an adequate enough menu in the first place?
And this is one of the better statements. ITV's
statement has one paragraph on documentaries which makes no mention
of any international subjects.
Even if it is possible to identify that a broadcaster
has failed significantly against its own promises, what can be
done?
The Government states that regulators—OFCOM
for ITV, C4 and C5, the governors and Government for the BBC—will
retain only "backstop powers" to enforce sanctions.
In other words, there will be no proactive regulation, only a
retrospective sanction in the event of gross failure (criticised
even within the industry as a "nuclear option only"
approach). The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
recently hinted that there could be fines for the BBC, but it
remains unclear pending the Communications Bill whether the government
is prepared to legislate for a graded range of regulatory sanctions
short of the "nuclear option".
The future for factual programming is not difficult
to discern from such a framework. It will be populist and light
where it still exists in peak-time; it will eschew so-called "minority
interests" in both peak and off-peak. Indeed, by some measures
such a dispensation is already appearing. While BBC1 is using
innovative new populist formats such as Walking with Beasts and
The Blue Planet to retain mass interest in certain winning categories
of factual programming, BBC2 no longer has a single non-news-and-current-affairs
strand which lends itself to international programming.
3WE has suggested, in its response to the White
Paper, a number of ways in which this framework can be improved,
at various levels of regulation. These are included in later sections
of this submission.
Other TV services and public service obligations
In arguing for the retention of a strong, proactive
regulatory regime to govern the positive content requirements
of public service broadcasters, we recognise that these broadcasters
feel threatened in their command of audiences by the rise of non-ps
TV broadcasters. This threat can fundamentally damage the ecology
of public service broadcasting.
In order to keep a fair and level playing field,
and to provide regulatory certainty, the government should define
a scale (of audience reach or share), identifying the points at
which hitherto lightly regulated services become liable for public
service obligations.
OFCOM—AN ADEQUATE
CONVERGED REGULATOR?
The regulator overseeing this new framework,
directly for the commercial ps channels and indirectly for the
BBC, will be OFCOM, which will cover telecommunications, the internet
and broadcasting as the "convergence" regulator.
In its White Paper, the Government promised
that citizens' interests would be promoted, and that citizens
would have greater involvement in the communications services
as is appropriate to the era of the more active user.
Preparations for OFCOM are well advanced, yet
no single proposal has yet been forthcoming, either as to how
the regulator will promote citizens' interest, or as to how citizens
can expect greater involvement through this regulator.
The five regulators preparing the way for OFCOM,
together with civil servants (in the Regulators' Steering Group)
have published a consultancy report proposing a structure for
OFCOM—the Towers Perrin report. In a detailed response to
the regulators, 3WE has noted the many inadequacies in this proposal,
which we summarised as follows:
1. "there is no clarity of definition
for the various categories into which members of the UK public
might fall—consumers, citizens, customers, or stakeholders—and
no discussion of issues of citizenship";
2. "the proposed (and misnamed) division
for 'audience interests' is not equipped to tackle the challenges
for regulation in the convergence era (supposedly the justification
for OFCOM), but merely brackets the existing functions of broadcasting
regulation"; and
3. "there is no provision for high-level
advice and input from external stakeholder groups, with regard
to "services essential for citizenship", as distinct
from "consumer' issues."
3WE and its colleagues in the wider voluntary
sector campaign, Public Voice, have made various specific proposals
as to how the proposals for OFCOM can be improved. No response
to these recommendations has been given by the RSG. They are included
in later sections of this submission.
Lords Corbett and Sandwich on our behalf tabled
amendments to the OFCOM Bill in the Lords which would have had
the following effects:
— the function of OFCOM to be not just
"regulating communications" but in doing so, "to
promote the interests of citizens and consumers".
— OFCOM to have a "Citizenship
Panel" advising it, somewhat similar to the "Consumer
Panel" which is already provided for in the legislation.
3WE has proposed that the Citizenship Panel
could work directly with the "Content Board" of OFCOM
to:
— Monitor broadcasters' performance
against their public service obligations.
— Assess new service proposals.
— Lead discussion of how convergence
and public service broadcasting should be tackled, eg through
broadcasters' use of the world wide web.
— Examine areas of market failure in
"services essential to citizenship".
These amendments were withdrawn following assurances
from Lord MacIntosh on behalf of the government that these issues
would be dealt with in the Communications Bill.
We urge the select committee to take up these
issues in its Inquiry and to question government and regulators
on plans for OFCOM that might promote citizens' interests.
REGULATING CONVERGED
SERVICES FROM
PUBLIC SERVICE
BROADCASTERS
We argued earlier that under convergence there
is a range of services, as yet undefined, which are "essential
to citizenship". Although we argue strongly for the central
importance of the positive content requirements on the mainstream
broadcasters, 3WE is not attempting to look backwards to some
earlier "golden age". We welcome communications convergence
for its potential dramatically to expand the range of information,
knowledge and understanding available to UK citizens of the global
information society, and for the opportunities it brings to interact
with others in non-geographical communities.
It is a curious paradox that despite spending
five years researching and consulting on its proposals for this
convergence era, the government's and regulators' proposals for
regulation have omitted to tackle a range of opportunities and
implications arising. Both the White Paper and the Towers Perrin
report assume that the internet will be largely unregulated, while
broadcasting will still have close regulation—neither document
grasps that "convergence" means use of television and
the Web will increasingly become seamless. Neither makes any attempt
to analyse or make provision for an era in which public service
broadcasters use multi-platform communications to harness and
expand the potential of their content.
In both its submission and its response to the
White Paper 3WE urged the Government to define expectations of
the public service which should be provided by broadcasters' use
of the world wide web, and converged broadcast/internet services.
This omission has not been rectified.
However, the Secretary of State for Culture,
Media and Sport, has for the first time made multi-platform services
an explicit part of the offerings expected from the BBC. In her
decision to approve the BBC's new digital television services,
she made it a condition of approval that they "must be supported
with online and interactive activities".
Until that point, public service broadcasters'
use of their advantages (licence fee, public ownership, access
to spectrum etc) to diversify into online and multi-platform approaches
to communication had not been subject to any kind of legislation
or regulatory scrutiny.
For the convergence era this will, perforce,
have to change. Convergence means the interconnectedness and interoperability
of different forms of media. While "true" convergence
services such as Web TV are still in their infancy, there is no
doubt that public service broadcasters have set their strategies
to take account of convergence conditions, and that this is affecting,
both positively and negatively, the range, quality and accessibility
of content on the services "essential to citizenship".
Channel 4, for example, increasingly selects
ideas for commissioning according to whether they meet multi-platform
criteria. This has provided some positive examples of how online
and interactive services can run behind broadcasting to extend
the depth of factual information made available and accessible
to citizens. It has also threatened at times to divert the resources
and scheduling time of the main channel into services of dubious
public value.
Similarly the BBC's online presence is continually
both the best-used and one of the most highly-praised offerings
in the UK; though its lack of formal mandates and guidance as
to how it should be used remains of concern to people who are
rightly concerned to get the best value for the licence fee.
Of some concern to 3WE's members, on the other
hand, is the increasing use of niche digital channels (still not
accessible to a majority of the public) and online services to
"dump" valuable content which might previously have
been available through mainstream television. Educational broadcasting,
for example, is being substantially affected.
The point of a converged regulator, as the Government
stated in the White Paper, is that it can "see across? converging
industries". One might also add, "see across converging
services"—where those are provided by a single industry
such as a public service broadcaster.
3WE is proposing two new areas of investigation—leading
to the development of regulatory approaches—by government,
regulators and citizens' groups. These are:
— what best serves citizens with regard
to public service broadcasters' use of the world-wide web and
multi-platform approaches, and how to set the regulatory framework
to ensure these are provided in the requisite quality and quantity;
— what "services essential to
citizenship" cannot be found on the internet (ie where are
the market failures) and what role could public service broadcasters,
in conjunction with others, play in correcting these failures.
As noted above, these are issues on which we
suggest that a Citizenship panel could take a leading role in
advising OFCOM and the government.
We also believe that a strong, proactive regulatory
regime will be required to monitor whether new digital channels
undermine what is offered on mainstream channels under the broadcasters'
public service obligations. We do not want to see a "digital
drift" whereby programme content which was previously available
to all migrates to minority digital channels which are not universally
accessible, and for which there is still a payment factor involved
(eg a subscription to ITV Digital or BskyB).
The Towers Perrin report, like the White Paper,
completely misses these areas of new regulatory challenge. Its
proposed "audience interests" division merely brackets
together the existing work of the relevant regulators for broadcasting.
The very title, "audience interests", betrays a failure
to understand the convergence principle that passive "audiences"
will be replaced by active, self-selecting and interacting citizens.
See next section for 3WE recommendations
3WE RECOMMENDATIONS
Preceding sections refer to a range of positive
recommendations which 3WE has previously made to Government and
regulators. These are collated here for ease of reference.
Primary legislation
The Communications Bill should include:
— A definition of "public service
broadcasting".
— A definition of the services which
are "essential for citizenship", how they will be funded
and supported, and how the Government will ensure universal access
to them.
— A definition of the Government's
expectations of public service via broadcasters' use of the world
wide web and converged broadcast/internet services.
— A definition of a scale (of audience
reach or share) with the points at which hitherto lightly regulated
services become liable for public service obligations.
— Specific and binding working on the
positive content requirements of the public service broadcasters
(defining Tier 3).
— active powers in graduated steps
(short of the withdrawal of licenses and/or the use of "back-stop"
powers) for the regulators to intervene with public service broadcasters
who are measurably failing on Tier 3 requirements.
The OFCOM Bill—or otherwise, the Communications
Bill—should include:
— OFCOM's function being to "promote
the interests of citizens and consumers with regard to communications
services".
— A requirement for a Citizenship Panel
as an advisory group to OFCOM.
Regulation of Tier 3
— methods and systems, short of "box-ticking"
or quotas, for the objective external measurement of public service
broadcasters' performance with regard to Tier 3 requirements must
be developed;
— OFCOM must have an internal unit
or department dedicated to, and with expertise in, the monitoring
and enforcement of positive content obligations in Tiers 2 and
3;
— the OFCOM Board should ensure that
this internal unit or department has a high priority and status
within its structure, including a strong influence over the policy
and research agenda;
— in the event that OFCOM's reach does
not extend to the BBC for Tier 3 requirements, the Secretary of
State should ensure that his own department contains expertise
in monitoring and enforcing positive content requirements for
the BBC;
— OFCOM must be empowered, equipped
and structured to stimulate positive innovation in converged communications
services.
The Citizenship Panel
This panel would have a diverse and, so far
as possible, representative membership. It would have a research
budget and the ability both to advise OFCOM and to recommend regulatory
approaches on issues of citizenship with relation to communications
services.
We propose that such a panel could have four
functions:
— positive content requirements—monitoring
the performance of the public service broadcasters against their
Tier 3 requirements and statements of promise, and researching
the perceptions of the public and civic groups with regard to
this performance; reporting to and advising OFCOM on these; making
recommendations for new regulatory approaches; and acting as a
consultative body to OFCOM in its reporting on public service
broadcasting issues to the Secretary of State;
— new service proposals—assessing
new proposals which impact on the delivery of public interest
objectives in broadcasting and advising OFCOM on their implications
for citizenship;
— convergence and public service broadcasting—commissioning
research and leading discussion of how citizens can most benefit
from the convergence of other information services around public
service broadcast content; and making formal recommendations on
this periodically to OFCOM and the Government;
— market failure in internet services
"essential to citizenship"—further defining the
services essential to citizenship and in periodically surveying
the supply of such services via the web, with a view to identifying:
— areas of essential information which
are not covered or inadequately covered;
— unserved or inadequately served interest
groups;
— and questions for public policy arising
from these.
The Existing Regulators
The current regulators should initiate a national
level dialogue with citizens' groups and others, examining:
— Services essential to citizenship—what
are they and how can they be promoted and safeguarded in the convergence
era?
— The regulation of convergence services
provided by the public service broadcasters—that is, broadcasters'
use of the world wide web and of multi-platform approaches to
communications—how should they meet the needs of citizens?
— Potential for a Citizenship Panel—what
could it do and how would it work?
With regard to the Towers Perrin recommendations,
the regulators should:
— Drop the misleading title "audience
interests" from the proposed division covering broadcasting.
— Equip this division for the new challenges
of the convergence era, rather than merely continuing current
regulatory functions.
14 January 2002
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