Examination of Witnesses (Questions 155
- 159)
TUESDAY 22 JUNE 2004
CHANNEL 4, S4C
Chairman: Good morning, welcome. First
of all, Michael Fabricant.
Q155 Michael Fabricant: Obviously
not in an attempt to ingratiate yourselves with this Committee,
Channel 4 suggested that this Committee does not have oversight
for the BBC. Perhaps you would like to expand your reasons for
suggesting that?
Mr Newbigin: There are two reasons.
One is the Communications Act sets out a very clear definition
of Public Service Broadcasting, and it seems to us logical that
there should be a parliamentary body which is the final port of
call for discussions about how broadcasting fits into the larger
public realm. Secondly, that the process during the passage of
the Communications Bill, of the Committee of both Houses that
scrutinised the Bill, was a very successful and very happy process.
It seemed to us that it is worth building on that and acknowledging
the particular importance of broadcasting in the media by giving
it a Committee all of its own.
Q156 Michael Fabricant: So you would
expand that, would you, to the Public Service Broadcasting provided
by Channel 4? So are you saying, in effect—and I do not
want to get knotted up here about this Select Committee—that
the Select Committee should not be looking at any public service
broadcaster, including the BBC?
Mr Newbigin: No, we are saying
that there should be a specially established Committee, which
looks at Public Service Broadcasting right across the piece, ie
the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and clearly that does not
cover all the DCMS responsibility so there would, de facto,
need to be another Select Committee which looks at the other activities
of DCMS.
Q157 Michael Fabricant: Channel 4
is, as you say, and I think we would all agree, a good Public
Service Broadcaster, though rather different in size to that of
the BBC. It is also different from the BBC in the way it is set
up; it is set up by statute. Do you think there is an argument
to suggest that either Channel 4 should have a Royal Charter or
the BBC should be set up and operate by statute?
Mr Newbigin: Channel 4 certainly
does not want a Royal Charter, thank you very much for the offer!
We are very happy with statute. In our view a Charter for the
BBC is appropriate and a ten-year Charter is appropriate, but,
as we said in our submission to DCMS, we think there should be
a very substantial midpoint review after five years, to tie in
the ongoing processes of the BBC into the wider scheme of management
for Public Service Broadcasting that the Communications Act sets
out, with the five-year review by Ofcom. That is the logical time
to look at the part that the BBC is playing as one of a number
of players in the whole area of Public Service Broadcasting; in
other words, acknowledging that Public Service Broadcasting is
not the BBC plus a few also-rans, it is a whole system.
Q158 Michael Fabricant: By the way,
being half-Welsh, I do invite S4C to contribute if they wish to.
May I ask a further point, and then I will conclude, if I may,
Chairman? Do you believe that the BBC should not only have its
own Committee, but do you believe that the BBC should fall much
more under the aegis of Ofcom than it presently does?
Mr Newbigin: In our submission
to DCMS, I think you probably know that all through the passage
of the Communications Bill we argued long and hard that the BBC
should be answerable to Ofcom, again on the point that that there
should be one system which looks at the whole of Public Service
Broadcasting. Acknowledging that Ofcom has quite a lot to do and
that the world is moving fast, what we suggested in our submission
is that at the time of the next five-year Ofcom review, if there
was a midpoint review on the Charter there should be a very serious
and explicit consideration of whether the BBC at that time should
come fully under Ofcom or not.
Q159 Michael Fabricant: Does S4C
want to comment?
Professor Stephens: Obviously
we come under Ofcom to largely the same extent, that there is
an overarching responsibility in terms of protection of minors,
decency, morality and in terms of independent quotas and so on.
I think the question one has to ask is not where does the overall
regulation lie, but where does the place for actually delivering
those issues lie? You cannot get away in the end from the presence
of the Board, however constituted, which actually has the responsibility
and the care for that organisation and the passion for it. I am
somewhat perplexed myself as to the immense passion at the moment
to say that it is not always possible to do the two things, that
is to regulate and to govern. In some ways one can argue that
in bringing up children one has to do exactly that—it is
not rocket science. We are complex and sophisticated people, and
in many ways the presence of somewhere like the ITC has not stopped
the ITV news from moving from nine to ten. I came down yesterday
on a train from mid-Wales; the train was horrendously late, but
we do have a strategic rail authority. So the presence of a regulatory
body that fines post hoc and sets parameters is a very
different animal from a public service body that actually has
a care and a commitment and an obligation to what it is doing.
|
