Examination of Witnesses (Questions 93-99)
BBC
15 NOVEMBER 2005
Q93 Chairman: Good morning. This is the
second session of our inquiry into analogue switch-off. Since
it appears as part of the Charter renewal settlement the BBC is
going to be given prime responsibility for delivering analogue
switch-off and for paying a lot of the associated costs, it is
entirely right that we should have the BBC with us this morning.
Can I welcome Caroline Thomson, the Director of Strategy, Tim
Davie, the Director of Marketing, Communications and Audiences,
and Graham Plumb, Head of Technology. Perhaps I could invite you
to start off by saying, from the point of view of the BBC, why
you think analogue switch-off is an important project for the
BBC and the country.
Ms Thomson: Thank you very much
for the opportunity to come and talk to the Committee about this.
The BBC absolutely supports the Government's policy of analogue
switch-off and indeed the rolling programme with the dates attached
to it. We do that for three reasons. We think it is good for consumers.
We think digital provides consumers with a far greater range of
channels. It provides many of them with better picture quality.
It also, perhaps crucially from our point of view, provides them
with a much deeper audience experience through the use of interactivity
and so on. We think it is good for Britain because it enables
Britain to have a broadcasting system fit for the 21st Century
along with the rest of Europe, and our timetable runs roughly
in parallel with that of the rest of Europe. It will enable more
efficient use of spectrum, the freeing up of spectrum that is
currently used to do the dual illumination and it will enable
the use of digital technology for important areas like education.
Although it has nothing to do with us as a broadcaster, government
services and so on will benefit from it. Finally, it is good for
the BBC. We have not just an obligation but a desire to be universally
available. We currently have the difficulty that we broadcast
digital services which on DTT are only available to 80% of our
licence fee payers and that is not a comfortable position for
us to be in. We have a strong interest in making the BBC services
universally available.
Q94 Chairman: Thank you. You concentrated
on the benefits of digital television which I do not think anybody
would argue with. Anybody who has seen it can see all the excellent
choice and all the services available. Nevertheless, there are
people who feel, for their own reasons, that they do not really
want it as they are perfectly happy with the choice they have
got at the moment. Why do you think they should be compelled to
acquire digital?
Ms Thomson: We do not think that
you can achieve the full benefits of digital without having analogue
switch-off. Perhaps I should take a moment to explain that. We
believe that the way to achieve the full benefits of digital for
the entire population, whatever their age and income group, is
to make it available on a range of platforms which gives people
a choice about what they should do. They should not be forced
into one system as against another as far as is possible. DTT
offers not just that range of platforms and an alternative to
satellite and cable but offers it in a cheap form which enables
second and third sets particularly to be converted much more easily.
It is a familiar technology, so for the digital shy it is a relatively
easy thing to do, it is a plug and play technology. It also offers
a system of broadcasting they can trust. There is no possibility
of a lot of aggressive up-selling to try and get them to take
out subscriptions, for example, and it is familiar. We cannot
get DTT universally available without doing analogue switch-off.
We are currently at the maximum we can broadcast on DTT without
affecting the existing analogue signal and so in order to achieve
that we have to do analogue switch-off.
Q95 Rosemary McKenna: Some of the
industry analysts we had before us last week would say "Well,
you would say that, wouldn't you?" since the BBC is one of
the principal beneficiaries. Apart from the social arguments,
how robust is the economic case for analogue switch-off?
Ms Thomson: People do say "You
would say that, wouldn't you?" about analogue switch-off.
However, I would put it to you that it is not necessarily in the
BBC's interest to have analogue switch-off. We currently have
a lot of people who enjoy the analogue services. As you may recall
from the presentation we did to the Committee earlier about the
licence fee settlement, moving to digital terrestrial transmission
for the whole country is actually going to cost us more money,
but we do believe it is the right thing to do because the benefits
outweigh the costs. Tim might like to say a bit more about the
audience.
Mr Davie: Our aim is to prioritise
universality of reach over just share because in analogue homes
we would have more share from a TV perspective. From our point
of view, we are clearly prioritising universality of reach for
all our services and that is absolutely central to what the BBC
is about and how the licence fee mechanic works. I think that
is an important driving factor behind our support.
Q96 Rosemary McKenna: What is the
BBC's role exactly in driving analogue switch-off and in what
ways can you influence Digital UK?
Ms Thomson: As you probably know,
the Government in its Green Paper confirmed that the BBC should
have a sixth public purpose, which was driving Digital Britain
effectively, and said we should have a lead role in delivering
digital switchover and we have been happy to embrace that. We
have a number of roles in relation to that. First of all, we have
the absolutely core roles of the BBC that we have been driving
for the last five years of the BBC in providing, we hope, a good
digital content through our digital television services. The new
children's services have driven digital take-up dramatically.
It is quite interesting that 80% of households with children aged
under nine have digital television and that will be related to
that. We have been using our services to drive digital take-up,
but we will also have a role in the next Charter period of investing
in our own transmitter network to get DTT available and in helping
Digital UK do its marketing campaign and driving that.
Q97 Rosemary McKenna: So you would
not agree with those who said last week it would have been much
easier if you had given everyone a satellite dish?
Ms Thomson: No. I saw that. Having
seen it, I asked my colleagues to go away and do the maths on
that because I thought it would be quite interesting to find out.
If we were to keep our transmitter network in its current state
and give everyone else a satellite dish to cover the television
sets they have so they could go fully digital, at the current
publicly available offer for satellite it would cost us two to
three times as much as we are budgeting for the full DTT switchover,
so it is not more economic.
Q98 Adam Price: I want to continue
with this theme of the BBC's interest in driving analogue switch-off.
It is true that you have a higher audience share with Freeview
compared to the higher capacity platforms of cable and satellite,
is it not?
Mr Davie: Yes.
Q99 Adam Price: You do have some
self-interest in terms of audience share in driving Freeview forward
as the means of people accessing digital television rather than
the other platforms. Is that not the case?
Ms Thomson: Our interest is in
making sure licence fee payers are served fully and well and in
making sure our services are available to them. In order to do
that we will make our services available on all the platforms
and we have done that with Sky, obviously and we have plans to
launch Freesat, we hope, next year. It is not the case that we
are only focusing on one because we think somehow this helps our
competitive position, but we do feel it is very important that
the maximum choice of platforms is available to our licence fee
payers and that is why we are pursuing DTT.
Mr Davie: It is quite straightforward
in some ways because, based on our audience surveys, we know that
people want choice and they want affordable options. Our overwhelming
principle is universality of reach. We are supportive of keeping
those options in the market so that people have the maximum number
of affordable options and obviously Freeview is one of those.
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