Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 301)
TUESDAY 13 JUNE 2006
MR JOHN
HAMBLEY, MR
NICK BETTS
AND MR
FRED PERKINS
Q300 Alan Keen: It is not limitless
though because politicians could not afford it because politicians
get the blame for what the BBC does, so it is not limitless, is
it?
Mr Betts: We need a good, mixed
economy of people who can make sensible commercial businesses
out of entertaining and informing people in this country, sitting
alongside the public service broadcaster. I cannot say the line
lies here or here but there needs to be a good, rigorous system
for defining where that line is. I do not have the answer for
where the line is.
Chairman: We do need to give the BBC
a chance but a last question from Paul Farrelly.
Q301 Paul Farrelly: Unlike Alan Keen,
subscribing to Middlesbrough FC would not be top of my priorities,
but I would defend the right of Middlesbrough FC TV (has it got
off the ground yet?) to have a fair run without being crowded
out. Just as Port Vale have got a man in the Trinidad and Tobago
side, Middlesbrough have now got a winger in the England side
at the moment. We have got the massed ranks of the BBC here, they
are on next, and clearly they have made on agreement with PACT.
Your situation is not as analogous as the PACT situation with
the BBC, but would it be naive of me to urge the BBC to come to
a memorandum of understanding with a group such as your, which
includes UKTV, so that we can have less conflict in these matters
and more transparency?
Mr Hambley: I am sure we could
have interesting discussions. We would probably need a referee
and I do not volunteer for that. It is perfectly true that in
general our members have only had unilateral discussions about
their own businesses with the BBC and other terrestrial broadcasters.
It is conceivable on the issue of secondary rights when the PACT
agreements are all done and dusted, we could seek a forum to discuss
these things with the BBC. The danger is, however, that all the
options are foreclosed by the discussions that have already taken
place.
Mr Perkins: I think too that the
feeling from many of the small players in these markets is one
of fear, that if they go along to the BBC with a proposition or
an idea, then the BBC has the ability to say, "Gosh, what
a stunning idea and, by coincidence, we thought about it last
week." That is the fear. Sky is in the same position. For
smaller members Sky has the power of life and death over us all;
the BBC just has the power of death. They are both very able competitors.
We have to work with them variously in different ways. It is a
very difficult one and the BBC historically, and I have seen it
publishing, remember the digital curriculum the BBC decided was
a great thing for it to get involved in, as a result of which
many publishers disappeared or gave up entirely educational publishing
because the BBC in its ambitions in that area saw fit to extend
its own remit. It is very difficult having a discussion with a
competitor that is 100 or 1,000 times your size.
Chairman: We must now move on. Thank
you very much indeed.
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