Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
15 JULY 2003
MR GAVYN
DAVIES, OBE, LORD
RYDER OF
WENSUM, DAME
PAULINE NEVILLE-JONES,
DCMG, MR GREG
DYKE,MR
JOHN SMITH,
MR RICHARD
SAMBROOK, MR
ASHLEY HIGHFIELD,
MR MARK
BYFORD AND
MR PAT
LOUGHREY
Q120 Chairman: I will show you mine
if you will show me yours, Mr Dyke, but what is clear is that
these large claims made by both you and your Chairman are really
quite tenuous.
Mr Dyke: Let me answer your question.
The second claim you made was about what I put in my forward which
is that BBC1 has become Britain's favourite channel. These are
not our figures, these are figures done by the Independent Television
Commission. They produce them every three years and the last set
which came out earlier this year asked people, "If you only
had the choice of one channel, what would it be?" For the
first time ever BBC1 was top. I do not say this with great pride
because what happened is the BBC historically has gone up from
the low 30s to the mid-30s. ITV has come down from 40% to 27%
in three years and what happened in those circumstances (I have
got charts coming out of my ears) if you look long term is BBC1
has managed to stay remarkably stable over about 30 years whereas
ITV has gone like that. That again does not surprise me because
if you look at who first went into satellite, who first went into
multi-channel, they were more likely to be people who watched
ITV, but the BBC figures over a period of time are comparatively
stable. For several years now the Chairman has been right in saying
that while our share in both digital and analogue homes is going
up, of course the number of homes going from analogue to digital
has also gone up and therefore the overall share is coming down.
We think that is now bottoming out because it does not happen
so much in Freeview, you do not get the same sort of drop in watching
to the BBC but if at the end of all this the viewing of the BBC
services overall is at something over 30—probably 35-36%
(and let me tell you in the United States if one organisation
had viewing figures of 36 they would die to get that) what this
tells you is in a fragmenting world the importance of the licence
fee and importance of the BBC grows not lessens. As you can see
in the crisis currently affecting ITV, all sort of models have
been done in ITV (and I know this for a fact) about how much can
we reduce our spend on programming and still sustain a service.
I do not blame them, I would do the same if I had the commercial
realities they have. In those circumstances if you believe in
the importance of British production and you believe in a television
system that reflects our culture, the BBC becomes more important,
not less.
Q121 Chairman: I am thrilled. What
I would say, Mr Dyke, is that you are in the wrong job. You should
be at Number 10 Downing Street because you could deal with the
Andrew Gilligan thing in a far more obfuscatory manner.
Mr Dyke: Would you like me to
send you the figures?
Q122 Chairman: What you have got,
Mr Dyke and Mr Davies, and indeed your report as a whole is you
have got a supreme talent for elision, an absolutely supreme talent,
so on the question of 70% watching BBC News 24 you elide that
with a statement about the viewership of BBC1.
Mr Dyke: You do not think it is
the way you read them?
Q123 Chairman: Let me speak in turn,
you have had quite a big turn.
Mr Dyke: I thought we were here
to answer questions.
Q124 Chairman: You have done a brilliant
job in elision. The BBC is established as Britain's favourite
channel, but that is a subjective opinion.
Mr Dyke: It is based on ITC research.
Q125 Chairman: It is subjective opinion,
is it not?
Mr Dyke: All choice is subjective.
Q126 Chairman: Come on, Greg, let
me finish this sentence. Honestly, you have finished lots of sentences
and I have remained relatively silent. BBC1 is now established
as Britain's favourite channel and continues to lead ITV in audience
share, so you get the impression that it is the favourite channel
because of continuing to lead ITV in audienceship. What I am simply
putting to you is that there can be a case for the BBC as a public
sector broadcasting corporation, there can be a case for the BBC
being funded by a poll tax, but the fact is that your share of
the audience is falling, and I will have a little bet with you,
will go on falling just as those others will go on rising because
that is the nature of the world we are living in.
Mr Dyke: I do not doubt that what
is going to happen over time is a decline in traditional—
Q127 Chairman: —Over time we
are all dead.
Mr Dyke: You only have to look
at the States and you will see the same thing. What you have to
start questioning is who are the others, how much investment is
going to the others? What has not happened in this country is
wholesale investment in British production as a result of the
growth of pay television. That has not happened. There has been
significant investment in the coverage of sport and that is it.
Mr Davies: Chairman, if we had
a supreme talent for evasion we would not have volunteered to
spend the last two and a half hours answering your questions.
Q128 Chairman: I did not say evasion,
I said elision.
Mr Davies: You said elision? Even
so.
Q129 Chairman: Finally, before I
give Julie Kirkbride and then Mr Keen the last word, we have got
here in the Governors's assessment of the report "distinctive",
"high impact", "memorable", "excellent",
"significant successes", "we welcome the fact",
"landmark year", "we commend", "some
notable successes", "a highlight", "encourage",
"promising", "particularly successful". How
can we possibly have any regard for a Board of Governors which
issues such an utterly gushing report with not one single word
of criticism, except disappointment in the failure of audiences
to live up to your expectation? Do you really wonder why some
of us believe that the BBC Board of Governors is not an appropriate
body for the BBC to be accountable to and that the whole of the
BBC ought to come under Ofcom?
Mr Davies: Chairman, if you pick
on individual adjectives of that type—
Chairman: You find me one critical adjective
in eight pages and 15 columns and I will take you out to lunch.
Q130 Mr Bryant: That will be fun
to watch. Can we all come, Chairman?
Mr Davies: You have just put me
off, I am afraid, but otherwise I would have done so.
Chairman: One critical adjective. Julie?
Q131 Miss Kirkbride: I wanted to
turn to the issue of subtitling and audio description. We have
received representations from the RNIB which is very disappointed
by the service you offer. If you look at the figures, the progress
that a) you have made and that b) you intend to make seems very
limited. After all, we are talking about people who are the most
marginalised who have the most need to have television and who
yet are still not in a position to receive your services. The
figures are given on page 125 of what you have done and we do
not seem to have made very much progress year on year and you
are only intending to get to 10% by 2008. Why? You are a public
service broadcaster and you take money off these people for having
a television and they cannot watch or hear you because of their
disabilities, and yet that is the progress you are proposing to
enable them to do so. Explain.
Mr Dyke: We have certain people
who represent particular areas and I will ask Mark Byford because
he is responsible for the whole area of disability.
Mr Byford: Firstly, on subtitling
we are clear we have got a commitment, as we show in the Annual
Report, that by 2008-09 we will be 100%, and we are on course
for that. You can see there has been an increase and a meeting
of the targets set. On audio description you can see there as
well that there have been increasing targets and it is 10%. So
100% for subtitling and it is much less for audio description
but we have been working with manufacturers to try and develop
this facility. We have issues and challenges concerning the technology
there. Our commitment to making our services more available to
people with disabilities is absolutely clear on this and subtitling
I re-emphasis is 100% by 2008, and we are on course. On audio
description we are making progress in making it available to all
relevant audiences.
Q132 Miss Kirkbride: But I understand
that Sky has a very good system which is very much welcomed by
people with problems with their sight and the BBC is refusing
to get involved. You could have half a million more disadvantaged
people to watch your services with greater enjoyment yet you are
not going to do it; why is that?
Mr Byford: What I know myself
is our commitment to improve as shown there.
Q133 Miss Kirkbride: It is minimalistic
if you talk about figures. It is not great, is it?
Mr Byford: On audio description
we are on course to get to 10% by 2008 and through our own research
and development team we are doing work with the industry to make
the audio description developments improve.
Q134 Miss Kirkbride: But the system
exists, Sky has a system and you are refusing to get involved
in a system that would serve half a million more disabled licence
payers. You are still only proposing to add 10% of your programmes
to be done in six years' time.
Mr Byford: On the specifics you
give us with Sky we will take that away and reply specifically.
I do not know the full answer on that.
Q135 Miss Kirkbride: Does Mr Smith
know more about it as he is whispering to you.
Mr Smith: I apologise. From memory,
the target committed to on audio description is one laid down
by ITC for audio broadcasters as a whole.
Mr Byford: And we are ahead on
subtitling.
Mr Dyke: I think it is better
if we come back to you and check the actual technical information.
My understanding is that there are still real technical problems.
If you say there is another system—
Q136 Miss Kirkbride: Maybe your equipment
is only being piloted but there is already a system in operation
on satellite used by Sky which you could have become involved
in and you did not do so.
Mr Dyke: I did not know that but
we are very happy to look at that.
Q137 Miss Kirkbride: What are the
figures on producing subtitling?
Mr Smith: We are spending £11
million a year on subtitling at the moment and audio description
is more than that.
Q138 Miss Kirkbride: Right, and you
are spending £70 million a year on the Internet where it
is only a very small proportion of viewers and one could argue
that those people can afford to pay for the service, compared
to the derisory amount of money for subtitling and audio description,
given your overall budget. You offer figures of getting to your
100% target or 10% target in six years' time. How can you justify
the difference in spend there?
Mr Dyke: On subtitling we have
had a plan.
Q139 Miss Kirkbride: It is still
six years before it is 100%. That is a long time in people's lives
when they are blind or deaf and they are marginalised anyway,
yet you are spending £72 million this year on the Internet
services. You have told us what the costs are and they are a fraction
of the costs you are providing to the Internet and you are not
doing it today.
Mr Dyke: You could say the same
about drama, entertainment or anything else.
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