Examination of Witnesses (Questions 132
- 139)
TUESDAY 22 JUNE 2004
LORD BURNS
Chairman: Lord Burns, we would like to
welcome you today and say what a pleasure it is to have you back
before the Committee.
Q132 Derek Wyatt: I wonder if you
might explain how long your inquiry is going to take, who is now
on the panel, what sort of inquiry it is going to be and whether
you are going to issue a formal report?
Lord Burns: My role is to act
as an independent adviser to the Secretary of State. It is not
to conduct an inquiry. I have had some experience of conducting
inquiries in the past and this role is quite different. I see
myself as part of the process of giving confidence that the charter
review will be carried out in a transparent and objective way.
I work with officials in DCMS. I go to meetings with the Secretary
of State and officials. I have been engaged in the drafting of
the consultation document. Now that the panel has been appointed,
I will be engaged in a series of seminars and processes to try
to tease out some of the issues that come out of that consultation.
The end result of the work is the Green Paper that the Government
is proposing to produce at around about the turn of the year.
The work that I am now engaged in is to try to assist that process
of producing the Green Paper. It is the Green Paper that is the
primary output of what we will be doing. Our present plans are
to conduct a series of seminars and processes that will try to
tease out those arguments, to try and ensure that all of the points
that are made are heard; where there are differences, to try to
subject them to some scrutiny and to test the evidence for some
of the views as part of the process of feeding into the Green
Paper. We have not yet decided whether there will be some kind
of accompanying document that will be the output of that seminar
series, which may go alongside the Green Paper to set out some
of the background arguments and debates that have taken place.
Q133 Derek Wyatt: That is very helpful.
Thank you very much. Can I ask whether the panel will also be
visiting such places as MIT laboratories in Dublin or BT in Ipswich
just to look at what the technology can deliver?
Lord Burns: The panel have not
yet met. We have just appointed them. I have spoken to each of
them separately. Our focus at this stage is on designing the process
and the seminar series that we are proposing to have, beginning
at the end of July, and going on through to the end of the year.
We will of course discuss whether there are other things that
we should be doing, such as some of the things that you mention,
and perhaps attending some other sessions and talking to other
groups of people who may have a part to play in this.
Q134 Chairman: You are already on
record as saying that what you are looking at is not simply what
should happen after 2006 but the position as it would be if there
were another 10 year charter. That, if I may say so, is exactly
the right position from which to begin. Derek Wyatt talks about
the MIT media lab in Dublin. We went there yesterday. What was
demonstrated there was a series of technologies, both communicative
and interactive, which are ready or almost ready and which transform
the nature of communication, including the kind of communication
that might be expected from the BBC. One of the things that certainly
concerns me—and it was put in very cogent terms by Adrian
Flook, a colleague of ours on the Committee—is that unless
the BBC embraces and uses this technology to justify its existence
well into this century it will relapse into being no more than
a social service for those who cannot afford any wider use of
the technology. I would be very interested to know your reaction
to that together with a recommendation to you to spend a few hours
there because it really does open one's eyes.
Lord Burns: I need no encouragement
to visit these types of establishments. Indeed, most of the time,
I am trying to resist my own pressure to go and see them as I
have a fascination with them myself. We have had a lot of discussions
with people who are very close to the technology and I have attended
more than one discussion trying to tease out some of these longer
term issues, as to where the technology may be going, the nature
of the platforms, whether they will be a single platform or whether
there will be a whole variety of ways in which this type of content
will be delivered. I certainly will look at the suggestion that
you make. As far as the BBC's role is concerned, I have a lot
of sympathy with the point you made. Historically, it has played
a very important role in the development of these technologies,
right the way through from radio to television. We have seen the
role that it has played in the development of the internet. My
impression is that they are well aware of the importance of the
technology and the part that they have to play in it. Reading
some of your evidence from earlier sessions, I notice the point
was also made that sometimes this has taken them more rapidly
into some areas than might in the end be justified. This is a
very uncertain world where people have to make judgments. They
have to try out certain technologies. Some work; some are delayed;
some get overtaken by other methods of doing things before they
become established. I think everyone agrees that we are going
through a period of enormous change in this area with this enormous
array of ways of delivering media content, in its broadest terms.
Q135 Derek Wyatt: Three or four years
ago, most of us would have found defining broadband difficult
and certainly would never have heard of wifi wireless. These seem
to be the competing technologies now and may well be in the next
four or five years. It seems to me that the television people
disregard the technology completely so far in the evidence we
have seen, because they want the BBC to have 10 years so they
can have 10 years of their own life and not have to worry about
the competing technologies. From the technologists, we hear that
at least four gigabyte delivery on broadband will be universal
within four years in the United Kingdom and if that is so there
is a different mechanism entirely for the entertainment platform
to every piece, wherever you are, the business, the home, the
school or wherever. Therefore, do you think it is even possible
to commit to a 10 year licence this time round or do you think
it would be more appropriate to wait for the switch off of analogue
and have a second review, because it seems to me you have two
competing things there. You have new technology that can deliver
an entirely different way of receiving television and you also
have the government's demands to want to move from analogue to
digital and the BBC is in the middle of that debate.
Lord Burns: There is an enormous
amount going on in terms of change. You do not have to go back
very far to a period when some of the things that are in common
use today were not available. I have a lot of these devices myself.
I have a wireless network at home. One of the things that strikes
me about all of this though is that there is a huge range of things
taking place simultaneously. It is not as if there is any convergence
on a particular way of doing things. At the moment, what we are
seeing is more ways of doing things rather than things centring
on one particular direction. I suspect that that is going to continue
for a while, but certainly it means that these are things which
the BBC have to take into account. I think we should wait to see
their evidence with respect to charter review. As you know, we
have received everyone else's evidence but because of the various
changes that have been taking place within the BBC we have not
yet had their evidence. Before making any comment upon what their
thinking is at this stage, I would like to see the evidence that
they put forward. As far as the 10 year licence is concerned,
I see the argument about the rapid change in technology. Digital
switch over is going to be a very important event. We do not at
this stage know quite when it will happen. All experience suggests
also that it will take a little while to settle down before we
can begin to see what the impact of it has been upon people's
viewing patterns and the way that they are working with the technology.
I am slightly reluctant to go down the line that says we will
have digital switch over and that at that very moment we should
then have another big investigation. I think we will probably
want to see some more evidence emerge as to how that is beginning
to impact before you can make some of those judgments. I am also
enormously aware now of the extent to which the BBC is in a constant
state of review. This process of charter review is taking place
quite some time before the new charter comes into place. There
is simultaneously going on a series of reviews which go back to
commitments that have been made about having the right kind of
reviews of some of the new services. I have some hesitation about
plunging into a short charter period this time and finding ourselves
back in review almost as soon as the new charter begins. Taking
all of those things into account, my personal view at this point
is that I would be hesitant about making it any shorter than 10
years, but that decision is not for me. That is an issue for the
Secretary of State. I am quite reluctant to come to the view that
the switch over will take place cleanly and on a particular date
and we will then know what the implications of that are for the
BBC. I think we will probably need a period of experience from
which we can draw evidence to see what the implications are for
the BBC's role in that multichannel world.
Q136 Derek Wyatt: If you look at
viewing habits, it seems to us loosely that at under 25 people
are watching less; under 15, very much less and therefore, as
you get a generation going through the system, by the time you
get to 2017 it could well be that the BBC is watched by less than
15% because that viewing population moves up and gets bigger and
bigger. The next generation does not watch as much. Therefore,
it is the most important review we have probably ever had because
if we cannot predict the next three or four years in technology
we certainly cannot anticipate the viewing audiences, but they
are in decline not just at the BBC but at ITV, and they are in
terminal decline. Do you think there is a point at which the politics
of the licence fee become important when people say, "Though
I love the BBC, I only want to watch this bit. I do not really
want the whole spectrum any more." Therefore, it becomes
difficult to maintain the whole purpose.
Lord Burns: I agree that the politics
of the licence fee mean that if numbers of people using the BBC
decline very sharply, that does raise issues that are not there
today. At the moment, my interpretation of what people say to
us is that there really is very widespread support for the licence
fee as a method of funding the BBC. As you move forward, clearly
the options in relation to subscription become that much greater
technically. If the number of people using the BBC was to fall
very sharply that argument may be strengthened. On the other hand,
what we do not know yet is to what extent the reach would remain
the same; to what extent people do use it but maybe in smaller
amounts, compared to the extent to which they do not use it at
all. Secondly, my suspicion is—and it is no more than a
suspicion at this stage—that the early adopters of the multichannel
world, apart from those of us who are obsessed with sport and
have it entirely for the benefit of the sport, were probably those
people who have been using the BBC least of all to begin with.
They are the people who have bought the alternative technology
because they want a greater variety than they are being offered
through the BBC. You say it will be 2017 but the debate on the
next licence period will begin in 2012-13. By then, we will have
had some experience of the digital switch over and what is happening
to what is still quite a lot of people where we have not yet seen
the extent to which their habits are being changed by that technology.
I think it is a good question. It is something that we have to
address, but I do not think I am yet in the position that Mr Wyatt
is at, where it points very sharply towards a major disjunction
in people's use of the BBC or to the licence fee as being a mechanism
that will see us through this next 10 years.
Q137 Chairman: Derek said that people
love the BBC. There is no doubt that what you might generically
call the liberal middle classes in this country do love the BBC.
On the tube train that I came in on today, there was a young man
standing there, listening to his music on his headphones. He does
not love the BBC. My guess is the BBC means nothing to him except
as a possible source of some of the things he wants to see. He
might well have watched the match on the BBC last night, simply
because that was the channel on which he could see the match.
What increasingly concerns me is that, while, despite my own personal
feelings about it, I do not believe that the licence is a huge
issue, most people including young people as they become householders
will simply pay it as one of the things you have to pay as part
of life, like the council tax or whatever it might be. I have
a feeling that unless the BBC transforms itself to meet this era,
the BBC is not going to remain something that means a lot to a
very large number of people. That being so, it will be unable
any more to justify its very special place as a recipient of a
Royal Charter and a recipient of a regressive, hypothecated tax.
Lord Burns: The evidence that
we have received from the consultation that we have done so far,
and indeed from some of the research which DCMS has been doing,
still does point to the fact that most people like the BBC and
quite a lot of people like it a lot. There are concerns and worries
about derivative formats and too much copycat type programming
and some concerns that the relative quality may not be what it
was. My interpretation of this so far—and it may be that
some of the responses we have in have been self-selecting, which
you would expect at this stage—is that I do not sense that
the worries and concerns that people have about the BBC are leading
them to turn away from the important role that people seem to
feel it plays in their lives. Ten years down the line when we
have been through many of the changes that Mr Wyatt has been talking
about, depending very much on what the competition does and how
the BBC itself responds to this, we may then have moved into a
position where perceptions are significantly different. I am also
conscious with an awful lot of this technology and these predictions
that some things move a lot faster than one expects. Some things
move a great deal less rapidly than one expects. Even in 10 years'
time, there will be an enormous number of people who will still
be around and who will be consuming these services, who will have
spent a lifetime with the BBC and who are very conscious of it.
Given the enormous spectrum of ages that we have, it is not clear
to me that that is going to shift dramatically unless something
happens which I cannot quite foresee at this point.
Q138 Chairman: I read the news coverage
today in The Daily Telegraph in which they interviewed
lots of people who had gone to Portugal for the match last night.
As it happened, one of them was a constituent of mine who was
there but who will be back in England on Sunday for the match
against Portugal. What he said was very interesting. He said,
"I am going to go down the pub to watch it." He was
a mature student. He has a television set at home, as almost everybody
has. This idea that John Birt used to have of a family sitting
on a sofa in the living room, sharing an experience has gone,
has it not? The BBC, if it is to survive, has to adjust itself
to this new social environment.
Lord Burns: I observe what you
observe particularly in the case of big sporting events, which
is that people see them as shared experiences and by and large
they wish to watch them with someone else. Last night, some members
of my family came round to watch the game. In the match against
France, I went to someone else's house who had some family round.
Some of my children have been off to the pub because they see
this as a regular place to go on a Sunday afternoon to see a game.
I think the big sporting events are very particular in the way
they are seen as major shared experiences, which people like to
watch with other people. It is part of the tradition of going
to watch sporting events with others. I would not necessarily
say that that applies to all other forms of entertainment. You
were just making the point that more and more people now listen
to music on their own. Far from sharing it with others in their
home, they prefer to go off, put their headphones on and listen
to precisely the music that they want to listen to. This, it seems
to me, is all part of the great, diverse world that we are seeing
and the enormous range of different ways in which people now access
the media. Many of us have lots of these different gadgets which
we use at different points in our day or in our week or in our
year to get video, music, to experience sporting events. My suspicion
is that it is diversity rather than uniformity that is emerging
in this world and I am slightly resistant to suggestions that
there is going to be one great method through which all of this
is channelled to people. My wife gets desperately frustrated at
the number of cables, gadgets and everything else that I carry
with me whenever we move from one place to another. Hopefully
some day somebody will produce some uniformity of chargers and
cables that will reduce this particular load, but it reflects
the fact that much of this technology is being delivered in different
forms. In business we have exactly the same problems. With almost
all of our computer systems having been built at different times
to deliver different product types, you have a lot of problems
in bringing them together. Huge expense is involved and a lot
of people simply let them live alongside each other, try and build
bridges between them and wait until they cease to be useful any
more.
Q139 Michael Fabricant: I want to
get on to the whole area of how broad is the scope of your non-inquiry
but I want to get our feet on the ground a bit and talk a little
more about technology. I am not technology averse. When I left
the London Business School, I went into broadcast engineering
and I love gadgets but at the end of the day I still think we
are human beings. Yesterday, the Chairman came up with a marvellous
expression when he talked about the conveyor belt of life. The
hypothesis, if I put it correctly, is to say that people of a
certain age like being passive and not interactive with their
entertainment form. Younger people like using their ipods. Younger
people want to help create or change the programming by being
interactive with it. Other people such as myself think there is
a time and a place for everything. If you are tired, you may just
want to flop out and watch television and get it sent at you.
Maybe you get to a stage of life anyway where you do not want
to be quite as interactive. Has any research been done? You talked
earlier on about DCMS research. Has any research been done about
existing viewing patterns, entertainment patterns, of different
age segments and, I guess, socio-economic segments of our population?
Lord Burns: I have not seen it,
if there has been. There has been an enormous amount of research
done into viewing patterns of television and listening patterns
for radio. There is rather less across the media and I do not
really have much to add at this stage on that. Just as people
deliver things through different media, there are some activities
that you want to do in an active way and there are other things
that you want to do in a passive way. We see this with newspapers.
It is only a few years ago that people were talking gaily about
the fact that newspapers would have no role in the new world and
people would be able to get all their information on the internet
from wherever they wanted. They would make their own newspapers.
They would draw down all their own stories. The fact is there
is an enormous amount out there. Much of the time you want somebody
to act as an intermediary for you, who is a trusted source, who
is going to put together things in the order and with the priority
that will suit you and draw your attention to the things that
you think are important in life. Newspapers have the great virtue
that they order the news for you. They make sure that you are
not reading the same thing twice in one day. If you trust the
people who are supplying that to you, you feel very comfortable.
With a lot of media and television, films etc, there is a similar
process going on. People like other people to put together for
them schedules of events which are mixed and which they think
will be interesting to them on the day and at the time they will
be interested in the experience. You get D-Day programmes etc,
which happen to coincide with the anniversary of D-Day. If you
do that yourself and the whole thing is an active process, you
would probably find it quite difficult. My experience and simple
observation of people is that in all of these areas we are seeing
a combination of active and passive. There is still a role for
people who put together schedules, who put together newspapers,
and are trusted providers. They select things and act as the intermediaries,
who bring you this content in an ordered, trusted way.
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