Memorandum submitted by S4C
INTRODUCTION
1. This document sets out the main observations
that S4C would like to offer to the Culture, Media and Sport Select
Committee enquiry on BBC Charter renewal. It summarises S4C's
submission to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in response
to the Government's consultation process on BBC Charter Renewal.
S4C's contribution is offered from our perspective as the UK's
only other publicly funded broadcaster. This evidence also reflects
our unique relationship with the BBC, under which S4C broadcasts
10 hours of Welsh language programmes every week which are provided
free of charge by the BBC. The BBC's contribution to S4C includes
the daily soap Pobol y Cwm, national and international news bulletins,
as well as current affairs and factual programming. The BBC and
S4C worked in partnership to acquire the rights to broadcast Welsh
club rugby and to broadcast the proceeding of the National Assembly
for Wales on S4C2.
THE BBC IN
WALES
2. The BBC's Welsh and English language
services have made and continue to make an invaluable contribution
to the development of Wales's distinctive cultural and political
identity. Because it is relatively under-served by the print media,
the contribution the BBC makes in Wales is possibly even more
significant than that which the Corporation makes at a UK level.
As global media organisations grow ever more powerful, we believe
that the BBC will have a still more important rôle in ensuring
that UK broadcasting reflects the lives of people in the UK's
nations and regions. S4C believes that it is important that this
should extend beyond the provision of regional news and current
affairs. The BBC also has a crucial part to play in ensuring that
broadcasting centres outside the south-east are able to maintain
a critical mass of talent so as to enable them to produce programmes
for national as well as local audiences.
THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN S4C AND
THE BBC
3. S4C values its creative partnership with
the BBC. We believe that it can only be to the benefit of Welsh
speaking viewers that the BBC—one of the world's major cultural
organisations—has made such a wide ranging and long term
commitment to broadcasting through the medium of Welsh. However,
if the BBC is to continue to make the essential contribution to
S4C's service on digital platforms that it has to date on S4C's
analogue service, we believe its contribution needs to be extended
and modernised, so as to enrich the service available to Welsh
speakers following digital switch-over when S4C will no longer
be required to broadcast Channel 4's English language programmes
in Wales.
4. S4C believes that there should be a move
away from a relationship predicated solely on the provision of
a specified number of hours to be broadcast each week. With additional
opportunities to view the most popular programmes now being a
natural element of the services every broadcaster provides, specifying
a certain number of hours fails to reflect the changes in broadcasting
patterns in the multi-channel age. S4C believes that any measurement
based on hours should be supplemented by a clear financial benchmark.
Any such benchmark should take account of the extent to which
the BBC's Welsh language television output has fallen behind the
growth over recent years in English programming intended for a
Welsh audience. In 1995, the BBC spent marginally more on its
Welsh language programmes than on its English language output
in Wales. By 2002, the BBC's expenditure on English programmes
was more than 1.5 times greater than the expenditure on Welsh
language programmes.[1]
5. Any growth in the BBC's Welsh language
output should be funded by the BBC centrally. It should not be
at the expense of the BBC's existing services in Wales. S4C has
proposed that the Charter should reflect the BBC's duties with
regard to S4C and that the BBC in Wales should be funded so as
to reflect these.
PAYING FOR
THE BBC
6. S4C believes strongly that the licence
fee continues to be the best way to pay for the BBC. We believe
that the onus should fall on those who argue for alternative systems
to demonstrate how they would represent an improvement. When set
against the level of subscription fees charged by satellite and
cable operators, we believe that the licence fee represents value
for money. It also delivers a public broadcasting service which
legitimately seeks to reflect the views and interests of viewers
and citizens in each of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
It is hard to see how any narrower funding base, or a move to
subscription, would deliver the same degree of breadth and diversity
with all that that entails for a truly national service.
GOVERNANCE
7. Although on a much smaller scale, S4C's
system of governance mirrors that of the BBC. Our experience leads
us to believe that the regulation of public service broadcasting—with
a view to achieving the maximum cultural impact and the widest
possible range of public benefits—is a very different task
to that of regulating commercial television. The S4C Authority
believes it has a far more hands-on rôle with regard to
agreeing the strategic direction for S4C's programme service and
for determining priorities more generally than would be possible
through external regulation. As is the case for S4C, we also believe
that the cultural regulation of the BBC should be the responsibility
of the body that is also charged with ensuring effective financial
oversight of the organisation. This seems to us to be the best
means of ensuring that the public benefits associated with public
service broadcasting can be assessed against the cost of delivering
those benefits. Similarly, it enables any assessment of financial
efficiency to be informed by an understanding of the cultural
impact achieved. Whilst there may be areas where current systems
might be improved, we believe that this points very strongly to
the BBC's public service remit remaining the responsibility of
the Board of Governors.
June 2004
1 Source: BBC Annual Reports 1995-96; 2002-03. Back
| 
