Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 102)
TUESDAY 8 JUNE 2004
ITV, SMG
Q100 Alan Keen: I search around all
the channels I have got available when I am sitting with nothing
else to do and I am searching for stuff that is very difficult
to find; I am looking maybe for arts programmes, and such like,
and sometimes they are not easy to find. So I am a market. Why
should we have to impose public service broadcasting on you when
a lot of people are looking for interesting programmes which are
not just entertainment? It is partly education, is it not, but
it is still entertainment?
Mr Allen: I think it is about
us providing a range of services to different people. That is
why it is not only across ITV1, it is across ITV2 and the new
channel ITV3it is a range of services. I think the big
challenge, looking forward, which addresses some of this point,
is that in the past public service broadcasting, or the relationship
with ITV, has been an "in kind" payment and a licence
fee, but as we move to the digital world that you have talked
about then the idea that we, as ITV, are paying £475 million
in licence costs and in-kind public service broadcasting is not
a sustainable structure. So I think what we have got to do is
sit down and say, "How do we fund and structure ITV, if you
accept you do not only want the BBC to be a PSB broadcaster?"
Our view on that is that there should be a series of contracts:
the BBC should be contracted to provide a series of servicesPSB
and others; ITV should be contracted to provide PSB; Channel 4
and Channel 5, so there is absolutely clarity on what we are being
asked to provide and how that is going to be funded. If you look
at a digital world that is how we would preserve PSB broadcasting
moving forward.
Q101 Alan Keen: If you had complete
freedom what would you drop? If all your funding just came from
advertising and that gave you a completely free market, what would
you drop?
Mr Allen: What happens is that
basically we put on traditional PSB and our competitors schedule
against that. So they will go against when we have got our news
on and they will go hard with very commercial offeringsThe
Simpsons, or whatever. What you would do is have much more
flexibility on when you played your public service broadcasting
and how you structured it. At the moment there is a very rigid
structure, and I think what I am saying is that in a broader sense
we need to look at how public service broadcasting is funded beyond
the BBC, because at the moment we see basically the licence fee
as a BBC funding model and I think we have got to look at a different
funding model and a different set of structures in a digital world.
Q102 Chairman: Thank you. You must
admit the Committee has been very co-operative without knowing
the extent to which it is needed to be co-operative, Mr Allen.
It has been delightful to see you and your associates. Thank you
very much.
Mr Allen: Thank you very much.
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