Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
SIR MICHAEL
LYONS, MR
MARK THOMPSON
AND MS
ZARIN PATEL
3 JULY 2007
Q40 Janet Anderson: So if you are
going to continue to show repeats on BBC1 peak time, it is the
Government's fault. Is that what you are saying?
Mr Thompson: I think we have to
do the absolutely best job that we can do with the money we have
got. I have to say, I am completely clear, with three billion
pounds a year from the British public, we have got to be able
to deliver pretty amazing services and, if at all possible, rising
standards of quality and origination for all that money. Do not
worry; I am not completely cap in hand. I recognise it is a very
privileged position for the BBC and we have to deliver.
Q41 Chairman: When you came before
us in April you said to us that you have tried to progressively
reduce the amount of money and the amount of air-time devoted
to acquired programming, and you went on to say, "You do
not need the BBC generally to show you American programming, as
there are lots and lots of other ways of seeing it", and
this morning you have highlighted Neighbours, for instance,
as a programme that the BBC has not sought to retain the rights
for.
Mr Thompson: Yes.
Q42 Chairman: In which case, why
did the BBC enter a bidding war against ITV, Sky, Channel 4 and
Virgin Media in order to get the exclusive rights to Heroes?
Mr Thompson: For people who do
not know, Heroes is a new American piece. The BBC acquired
the first series of Heroes when there was very little competition
for it.
Q43 Chairman: Not the first showing
rights.
Mr Thompson: The first series,
the terrestrial window of the first series.
Q44 Chairman: It was on Sci-Fi?
Mr Thompson: It was on Sci-Fi.
It became clear, for a variety of reasons, that there was going
to be competition for this title and the BBC team, BBC2, the whole
BBC Vision Group, took the view that this particular piece, which
we had selected, was one we should go out and acquire if we could.
My understanding is it became clear in the bidding process that
it was going to make more sense and probably was going to be the
only way of securing it if we secured all rights, in other words
digital rights as well as terrestrial rights, but I have to say,
I think Heroes is an exception. It is a very good piece
of work. I think it will fit very well into BBC2 as a whole. I
believe that you will see, as you have seen over the last few
years, two things: the proportion of licence fee going to acquired
programmes reducing—I cannot promise it will reduce every
single year, but over time it has reduced—it will continue
to reduce and the number of times when the BBC is bidding head
to head with other broadcasters will also reduce and the occasions
where the BBC steps out of auctions will be more frequent, and
Neighbours is an example of that. Heroes to some
extent is a counter example, but it is an exceptional piece, I
think, and it is a piece we had already acquired, and we would
have acquired, by the way, many more years if we could at the
time when we initially acquired it. Having made the commitment
to it, we decided we should secure it for a BBC channel, but I
think it is an exception to the rule.
Q45 Chairman: I am sufficiently geeky
that I actually watch Heroes, and I agree with you, it
is a good programme, but it is actually similar to many fast-paced
American dramas, like Lost, for instance. It does not seem
to me that there is anything about it which says "BBC"
all over it. Actually, in many ways, it looks more like the kinds
of programme you would find elsewhere. I am still not sure why
the BBC felt that this programme was one that it should bid against
all the other broadcasters.
Mr Thompson: To some extent, obviously,
commissioning and acquiring programmes is a matter of taste, is
it not? It is not to do with one's own taste, but one's taste
on behalf of one's network. As it happens, I think of Lost
as much more of a Sky One or a Channel 4 piece and Heroes
as having, to some extent, some of the humour and, dare I say
it (I will kill the audience stone dead by saying this), the wholesomeness
that I would expect on a BBC channel. So, I slightly beg to differ
on that on editorial grounds. The point though, I suppose, I want
to make is (and you can see this), in a sense there was a water
shed movement when the BBC in 2002 stepped back from The Simpsons
and let it go, in that case, to Channel 4, where I happened
to be just about to arrive, and it was simply based on the fact
that we could not justify with the licence fee the kind of funding
that you could justify if you looked at the commercial impacts
that the programme could generate and translated that into advertising
income. In a sense, I think that set the new trend and the Neighbours
decision is a good example of that, and there are others. We let
24 go, for example, to Sky. So, I think there are examples,
you will see more examples. Acquisition, whether it is a feature
film to play on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, or whether it is
one or two pieces just to get a network to work in the right way
for us, almost always in the BBC's case not a string of acquired
programmes together but often acquired programmes, one or two
original programmes, a comedy or entertainment around it, you
will still see that, but it is a much smaller part of what we
do. If you go back and look at the schedules of the BBC in the
1960s, every single night was held together by an American programme.
I have looked at the 1962 schedules quite recently and it is extraordinary
how much central American programming was on BBC television. There
was only one channel in 1962. It was the same in the seventies,
the same in the eighties. American acquired programming and sports
rights play a smaller part in the BBC schedules today than they
ever have done, and, by the way, in terms of big entertainment,
big entertainment stars, again, a much smaller part. What has
grown is news, current affairs and original drama.
Q46 Chairman: If you go back 30 years,
then you did not have Channel 4, Five or any of the digital channels;
there was some very good stuff being produced in America and if
the BBC had not shown it, people otherwise would not have seen
it. Now you are having to compete with all these others and, arguably,
you could say that if another channel is going to acquire an American
programme and therefore British viewers are going to see it, why
do you need to bid up the price to the benefit only of the American
production houses by using the licence fee payers' money?
Mr Thompson: I think that is exactly
the argument, and, although I think there will be some exceptions
to that rule, that is why, in my view, the BBC has responded to
the greater choice and that is why the BBC has been right to reduce
its exposure and reduce its spend to all of these genre. The BBC
is focusing much more of the licence fee than it used to on original
programming in areas—drama, comedy, news, current affairs,
and so forth—which are much less well provided by the market,
and you can see that in the numbers.
Sir Michael Lyons: I would add
as a final comment, if I can, Chairman, that amongst the value
for money studies that the Trust will be commissioning this year
will be one looking at commissioning practice.
Chairman: Thank you. Adam Price.
Q47 Adam Price: The Trust has announced
a service review of bbc.co.uk, which is due to start, I think,
in the summer. I was wondering if you could say just a little
bit about some of the issues that you intend covering in that
review and also comment on the results in your survey of licence
fee payers, which showed that the Internet and, I suppose, related
areas like TV-on-demand and watching TV on mobile phones ranked
way down in people's, in viewers' and listeners' priorities, in
terms of what they wanted to see from the BBC. So, do you think
that this area of new media has been over-prioritised because
it is a fashionable area for media professionals rather than it
being driven by demand from consumers?
Sir Michael Lyons: I think this
is one of the big challenges reflected in the Trust's report.
We have tried faithfully to convey what we have heard from the
public for further discussion rather than to reach too premature
a judgment on it. Clearly this needs to be interpreted. I wonder
whether you might expect people to vote more strongly for what
they know and enjoy at the moment than for something that they
do not yet know about, and that might be the right way to interpret
this. I would be cautious, because, as you rightly say, it may
be that they feel we are spending too much money, but certainly
the exercise that Mark and his colleagues are involved in at the
moment in terms of bringing proposals to us for how the licence
fee is going to be used over the next six years, one of the big
questions is the right balance between programme content and investment
in the platforms and enablers that get people to make the choice.
All of the evidence points to the fact that, if you are not ahead
of the public, they quickly catch up with you as new opportunities,
new technological moves are made, and to some extent, if I bring
your two questions together, the growing popularity of bbc.co,
the use of bbc.co as a way that an increasing number of people
access BBC services, and particularly BBC news services, is a
case in point. That is something that has moved very quickly.
Just to focus on the job the Trust has, again I mentioned the
service licences because they are a very important mechanism for
detailed and precise governance of the BBC. The service licences
dictate in some detail the shape of the service and the expenditure
that should be associated with service content. As the Trust came
into being, one of its first jobs was to grant the 27 licences
covering the existing services of the BBC, and the Trust took
the decision that we should not at that stage seek to vary those
licences, they should reflect the service as it is at the moment;
but there is a clear understanding that we now methodically will
work through those licences testing them against current public
opinion and other research that we commission as well as the dialogue
with the Executive. As you rightly say, the first we have singled
out for that job is bbc.co. That, in part, reflects that it is
a very fast-moving service. Even within one year you would expect
both the size and parameters of that service to change, because
it is already challenging some of the presumptions that were made
for it. Do you want to add to that?
Mr Thompson: Just to say that
the thing about BBC.co.uk manifestly for people who do not yet
have the Internet, it is not as close as a universally available
service like BBC1, but it is growing very rapidly. The most recent
numbers I have seen, I think, for May are more than 70 million
adults in the UK are using bbc.co.uk. It has now overtaken Yahoo
and is the third most widely used website in the UK after Google
and MSN. It is growing very strongly. 49% of the people who use
it rate it eight out of ten, nine out of ten, or ten out of ten
for quality, so amongst content sites it is on its own in terms
of quality rating, and it is growing rapidly. One of the public
purposes we have been given is to build digital Britain, and that
is partly helping to put in front of the public high quality digital
services to encourage them to make this transition, and that has
been regarded by the Government and others as an important part
of what the BBC should do. We are not alone. Other broadcasters,
other players help with it as well, but it is an important part
of our mission. I have to say, it is one part of the BBC's mission
which I think has gone very strongly over the past 12 months.
Q48 Adam Price: Once digital Britain
is built and the use of the Internet becomes even more mainstream
than it is today, and there is a plethora of content providers
out there, will the BBC then withdraw from that area because there
is no longer any market failure to plug?
Mr Thompson: I think there is
a big difference between talking about the Internet as a kind
of channel for content and the content that you find on the Internet.
I think my view is that, if you take our news provision, we are
getting extraordinary audiences for our news content, not just
in the UK but around the world, because people believe that, despite
the already extraordinary scale of the Internet and its content,
there is a crying need for really strong content you can trust.
All the Internet is is a way of getting content to people, and
you could absolutely still have at one level apparently infinite
choice but still points where the actual quality of the content
available purely to the market is perhaps not what you want, news
and current affairs, comedy, there are many areas where I think
there is every reason to believe that market failure will continue,
not just here but around the world.
Q49 Mr Evans: How do you think BBC3
is faring?
Mr Thompson: Let us remember what
a big part of the point of BBC3 was, which was to be a test bed
for the ideas and the talent of the future. One of the points
the Trust makes in its report is about the need for new talent
and innovation and the fact that the public would like more innovation.
Over the past 18 months particularly we have seen more programming.
Torchwood is one rather good recent example and also the
development of comedy, The Mighty Boosh, Little Britain,
would be really good examples of comedy which ended up being very
strong, mainstream comedy for the BBC, tried out on BBC3. It is
a young network. The shape of the schedule, the consistency and
quality of the network are not as consistent as you would expect
on an established network like Radio 4 or BBC1. Do I like every
single programme I see on BBC3? Not necessarily. Is it growing
in confidence and is it playing its role in the portfolio? Yes,
I think it is. As you can see, its share and reach has grown.
Q50 Mr Evans: From a very small base
to very slightly above the small base. I am looking at the good
old Radio Times, Monday 9 July. New talent? Eight o'clock,
Dr Who; ten o'clock, Eastenders; 11 o'clock, Two
Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. The viewing figures
are being pushed up by what are very popular established shows
being repeated on BBC3.
Mr Thompson: The programmes you
quote are very good programmes. As long as BBC3 is developing
new talent, new comedy, new drama, factual output, often programmes
with quite controversial titles doing quite interesting work for
younger audiences—BBC3 is aimed at younger audiences—in
areas I would describe as fitting very closely into a public service
remit. BBC3, like most networks when they begin, is still in its
adolescence as a network. I cannot think of any example in the
UK of a network which has come fully formed into The Radio
Times on day one and stayed that way. I think it is pretty
encouraging.
Q51 Mr Evans: Are you just going
to monitor it? Despite the programmes I have just mentioned, if
it is not fulfilling its task, which clearly is divorced from
viewing figures, if you take away the viewing figures from the
popular shows, how many people are watching the other shows?
Mr Thompson: To state the obvious,
BBC2 started with tiny audience figures. Radio 5 Live started
with tiny audience figures. If the BBC never tried to launch new
ideas or new services, we would have ended up with one television
network and about three radio networks. The fact that we can now
move ideas and talent across our networks is a strength for us.
If you look at ITV, for example, Channel 4, they have been copying
the BBC's approach because it is a good one. It was interesting
hearing Michael Grade of ITV talking recently about trying to
originate more on ITV2, 3 and 4. Other broadcasters can see that
having these test beds and nursery slopes for talent is itself
a great way of getting the stars and the ideas in the future.
Will we look closely at BBC3? Of course we will. We want to go
on seeing that audience growing. I do not want to force it too
quickly because I want both BBC3 and BBC4 still to be places where
we can take lots of creative risks. That is part of the point
of them.
Q52 Mr Evans: That was one of the
points of BBC2 originally but 3 and 4, costing £170 million
a year between them, go back to Janet's question about when you
are looking at financial pressures. Are you not tempted to say
that that money could go into original programming which then
could appear on BBC2 and BBC1 with fewer repeats?
Sir Michael Lyons: There are two
clear challenges ahead. The first is the reprioritisation exercise
where the Trust is certainly asking questions about the relationship
between channels. That is one of the issues that we are debating
with Mark and his colleagues so we will be asking some searching
questions there about the extent to which the channels and radio
stations are true to their distinctive roles. Coming back to the
service licences, each one of those service licences at some point
in the next five years will be going through a very exacting test
about whether the channel lives up to the original vision and,
if not, whether we need to go through a new public value test
before a new licence is granted. There are some big hurdles to
clear in the future.
Q53 Mr Evans: You will look at the
schedules and see whether it is fulfiling its remit? I do not
know whether you buy the argument that a repeat of Dr Who
on 3 acts as a magnet for other things?
Sir Michael Lyons: I try and avoid
getting into detailed discussions of individual programmes myself
but I can assure you that the testing of those licences will include
careful scrutiny of the programme mix.
Mr Thompson: It is a simple matter
of fact that if we place a new comedy or drama on BBC3 after an
episode of Dr Who, it gets a much bigger audience. You
literally bring more people in to see the new content. I would
catch, by the way, The Thick Of It special on BBC4 tonight.
It is recommended.
Q54 Chairman: Which presumably will
be shown on BBC2 in due course?
Mr Thompson: There will be other
opportunities to see it, no doubt.
Q55 Paul Farrelly: I am sorry for
my delay. I have just had a meeting with my county council and
also a number of terrorists have been arrested in my constituency.
This is a question not particularly about BBC3 but, Sir Michael,
we have all these channels now. What do you think of the state
of investigative current affairs reporting on British television
at the moment? Panorama has gone back to a half hour slot
on Monday. The days of World in Action are long gone. What
do you think the BBC might be able to do better in that respect?
Sir Michael Lyons: A long, proud
tradition of the BBC and one of the reasons why the BBC's independence
is such a sensitive matter is that it feels empowered to be bold
to investigate, to get to the root of things and therefore to
be a news source that the British people can rely on. Am I satisfied
with current standards? Do I think there is more to be done? Those
are proper challenges for the Trust to constantly make of the
Director-General and his team.
Q56 Paul Farrelly: In terms of the
BBC's standing and its impartiality, do you think the correct
response to the Gilligan affair might be, from the BBC's point
of view, to stick two fingers up to the Government and say, "We
are going to reprioritise the investigative reporting of this
corporation"?
Sir Michael Lyons: If you do not
mind, I am going to side step trying to relive the events of the
Gilligan affair. Let me instead seize on your interest in impartiality.
The Trust has continued work started by the governors in investing
in good quality examinations of impartiality in the BBC. As you
know, we have published two reports ourselves. The first is Alan
Budd's work on impartiality in business coverage and the second
is a recent report published on impartiality in the 21st century.
It is a proper job for the Trust to be doing, to be exciting a
public debate about impartiality, to be exciting a debate which
I have to say I have found Mark and his colleagues ready to engage
in about the standards of impartiality in the BBC. That report
on impartiality in the 21st century, for me, introduced a very
powerful issue. This is not just about what you do in news and
current affairs. It is also about what you do in mainstream entertainment.
Q57 Paul Farrelly: I was not particularly
addressing impartiality. It was rather more partiality for investigative
journalism.
Mr Thompson: On the point of the
subject matter of the Gilligan Report—in other words, is
it appropriate for the BBC to explore issues around handling intelligence
in the run up to a decision to go to war in Iraq—that is
absolutely an appropriate thing for the BBC to do. Since the Gilligan/Hutton
affair, we have had a series of, I think, outstanding Panoramas
by John Ware on this topic. More recently during Iraq, John Simpson,
our world affairs editor, I thought, had some further authoritative
work on that specific issue. Without falling into bias or prejudice
either way, it is an entirely appropriate subject for the BBC
to cover with investigative journalism and more broadly the costs
and risks associated with investigative journalism mean that there
is a danger that other players will do it less frequently. It
is particularly important that the BBC continues to do it. What
is interesting about Panorama is that, although the regular
show is running half hour pieces at 8.30 on a Monday, we have
already run some hour specials. Where a particular investigation
requires more time than we can give in the regular slot, we will
run it. Peter Taylor's recent programme about terrorism will be
an example of this. We will find hour slots. We remain totally
committed to putting in the money, the investment and also accepting
the risks associated with doing tough minded investigative journalism.
I want to make sure we keep the range of investigative journalism
broad. In the last few years we have had some interesting, sometimes
controversial hidden camera work and all the rest of it. It needs
to be broadened. Some of it needs to be classic investigative
journalism which is about policy and about the public. The Panorama
recently about BAE and Saudi Arabia was an example of a good,
solid, classic piece of investigative journalism.
Sir Michael Lyons: I want to add
a little to my earlier answer, play on the issue about those historical
incidents. I believe that that clearly fed into the debate which
led to the creation of the Trust. I would like to believe that
the Trust will be more searching in its processes and therefore
put itself in a position where it can protect the independence
of the BBC were that ever required in the future.
Q58 Philip Davies: You have both
skirted around the subject. Can we have a direct answer? Is the
BBC impartial? Yes or no?
Sir Michael Lyons: You cannot
give a simple answer to that, can you? You will have one judgment;
I might have another. It might vary—
Q59 Philip Davies: What is your judgment?
Sir Michael Lyons: I will just
finish my answer to the first question. It will depend upon individual
programmes, individual news items and the extent to which we feel
there is a degree of prejudice at work. I am very clearly aware—in
my earliest meeting with some Members of Parliament they impressed
upon me their view—that the BBC was less than impartial.
What is my answer? Sometimes I wonder, as I watch different programmes,
as I watch different presenters and journalists, exactly where
they are coming from but it is a very balanced palette. Do I think
there is systematic bias? No, I do not, but I do think this is
an area in which to be ever watchful. The debate that has been
engendered by the work of the trustees and the governors before
us is entirely helpful. We should have this in the public domain.
Mr Thompson: Remember the scale
of what the BBC does. Its annual report suggests 57,000 hours
per year of television, 363,000 hours of radio. The website has
about six million pages. It is a vast amount of content. No one
human being can watch and listen to it all, let alone judge it
all for impartiality. My view about impartiality is that the fundamental
values of the BBC around impartiality are very good. Public trust
in the BBC is high because the public can see we try very hard
to get this right. My view about impartiality is it is something
you constantly work at and you constantly look for improvement
in. Sometimes you make mistakes. The reason I welcome this series
of often quite critical reports is because they can lead to improvement.
I think our business reporting is substantially better than it
was five or ten years ago. We have business journalists who are
interested in business and often caught up in business in the
sense of finding it interesting rather than being hostile to the
whole idea of business. One of the points that the Budd Report
made was they thought there was too strong a bias towards a consumerist
perspective to business rather than business from the point of
view of business itself. Consumerism and a consumerist perspective
in business is important but we should take what the Budd Report
said very seriously. Our European coverage is a further area where,
from being poor, it has become good and I hope it can become better.
To me, it is a process of trying to improve things.
Philip Davies: Do you not think there
is a general perception that the BBC is full of trendy, leftie,
Guardian reading, sandal wearing, lentil eating, politically
correct do-gooders?
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