Examination of Witnesses (Questions 680-691)
MR SHAUN
WOODWARD MP AND
MR JON
ZEFF
14 JUNE 2007
Q680 Helen Southworth: It has a role,
so can we focus on that role.
Mr Woodward: It is quite hard
to be prescriptive, is it not, about telling a programme-maker
what kind of programmes they should make? I think there is a danger,
and I say this again to myself as this sad, old, 48-year-old parent,
that it is quite hard for me to predict the kinds of programmes
that my children are going to want to watch. What tends to happen
is that they tend to draw my attention to what they like watching.
Part of the problem that organisations in broadcasting have is
that you do reach an age whereby it is quite difficult to actually
be producing content for young people because you are actually
no longer in touch with quite a lot of them and that is because
of the diverse way in which this content is being made. I think
one of the difficult things for us is to get our heads round producing
some sense of public service broadcasting obligations in this
on-demand age of increasingly user-generated content. One of the
problems, and I think it refers to the children's television programming
issue more generally in ITV, we recently organised a seminar at
BAFTA when we tried to bring together the major players in this
and Michael Grade made a very important observation, I think,
about ITV in relation to children's programming. He said that
you also have to look at the opportunity costs because, "If
we schedule on ITV at five, six or seven o'clock children's programming,
actually in this multi-channel, multi-platform age in which much
is viewed on demand, it will get a very small audience. It might
be a very high-quality programme, but we will then suffer a very
significant, disproportionate impact on our advertising revenue",
so I think there are ways to look at this which may not be saying
that you want to see ITV go up from five hours or six hours up
to ten hours, say, but recognising that there are other digital
platforms out there, including ITV2, 3 and others, where you might
like to see these programmes being made and scheduled. I think
that is what we need and that is why the Ofcom review is so important
in relation to this area and certainly Ofcom will take note of
your questions to me in this Committee and I think it is something
that they might want to address. I am not sceptical, I am just
slightly cautious about how you could actually describe what I
think is behind your question in a way that actually could be
meaningful and measurable about the public service obligation
for the future because you have been tending to lapse into actually
prescribing the kind of programming you want made and I think,
quite rightly, ministers should not get into programme-making,
unless of course they want to abandon their careers and go back
into television.
Q681 Helen Southworth: But can you
say anything about having a target audience which is children
and adults together?
Mr Woodward: Again, we are moving
into programme-making and the specific kinds of programmes that
might be made. There are things, there are films, for example,
that families like watching together. If you think about a film
like The Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith recently,
a great film, families watch that together. I have to say, I find
it quite difficult watching endless episodes of The OC
with my teenage children, it is a bit repetitive, but for my kids,
they love it, and The Teletubbies. There is a limit to
how much I want to watch of this stuff, but it appeals to a certain
audience. One of the things that a multi-channel age gives is
the opportunity to serve different kinds of markets and different
kinds of interests and recognising that television at the moment
basically divides children's programming into three groups of
children, the pre-school, the five- to 12-year-olds and the 12-16-year-olds
and they have got different tastes and different demands. I think
parents should sit down with their kids and watch some of the
stuff that their kids watch, not least because they ought to know
what their kids are watching, just as they should with computer
games know what they are playing, just as they should with sites
that their kids call up, but I am just nervous of saying that
I think there is a way of ending up with prescribing into guidelines
the kind of programming that you might want the programme-makers
to make in relation to some kind of programme that everybody might
sit down and want to watch together, not because it is not a noble
and laudable aim, but I just do not know how you do it. It just
reminds me of my time in television when I was the editor of That's
Life! and we had 18 million viewers a week and the BBC came
along and said, "Look, we need to do audience research on
your programme". Esther said, "Well, why?" and
they said, "Well, we need to see if we can make it better",
and she said, "Of course that would be a good idea, but what
are we going to do with the research at the end of it?" and
they said, "Well, it may lead to us changing the programme".
We went away and we did it and the truth is that the audience
came back with all sorts of views about what the programme should
be like but it would have been utterly untransmittable. I say
that not in a sense of undermining what the public were telling
us. A very useful anecdote was given to me recently by the Comptroller
of BBC Wales about Dr Who, a programme that I love and
try and persuade my children to watch and, of the four, two watch
it and two think I am completely demented for wanting to watch
it. BBC asked their audience five years ago did they want Dr
Who brought back. 80% of the BBC's audience said "No",
they had a memory of what Dr Who was like and they did
not want it trampled on. BBC Wales decided to commission it. A
happy concatenation of people in Wales, Russell T Davies and others
produced a format which today sells in 45 countries, contributes
more than £50 million a year to BBC network and is one of
the BBC's top ten programmes. I am not saying that audiences and
their views should be ignored, of course I am not; I am saying
though that the public can only know what they know. The useful
lesson I draw from that is that you can get the public to have
a view about the programme that has been made but the public are
not programme makers and getting them to prescribe the programme
they would like made to achieve what you would like a programme
for all the family to be able to see, would be quite hard. They
rightly leave it to programme makers, I think politicians should
be even more cautious.
Q682 Helen Southworth: Is that not
the whole point, though, that visionary programme making and huge
quality of creativity of programme making has to be available
for children and we need to make sure the BBC is not going to
be the sole generator of that and that it also gives us a huge
business opportunity when we get that quality content to sell
it around the world? We need to make sure that our industry is
positioning itself in that place.
Mr Woodward: Let us take a programme
like the X Factor, that is a programme which we all watch,
the youngest 10-year-old through to this sad 48-year-old. We watch
it as family viewing and we talk about it. We vote on it; we disagree
on it. I think that mirrors many families up and down this country.
I am not sure that as politicians we could have come up with that
as a public service obligation. We probably could have come up
with something which would have been watched by an audience of
three, but whether or not it would have been watched by an audience
of eight million and produced a format which is sold around the
world, and which does provide good family entertainment and has
given rise to all kinds of other formats, whether it is Andrew
Lloyd-Webber's programme to find Joseph or whatever, that is good
family viewing.
Q683 Helen Southworth: I do not think
I was proposing that we as politicians should be doing this. What
we are asking you is, should not programme makers other than just
the BBC, programme commissioners other than just the BBC, be doing
this?
Mr Woodward: They are doing it.
These kinds of formats can find big audiences and that is one
of the things they want, to improve their advertising review.
I do not think it is a choice between us being in a position where
it is not happening to finding a situation in which it can happen,
the question is could we in some way find a way of formatting
that into a set of obligations, and I am just not sure we would
be very good at it. I do not entirely share a view which fails
to recognise that it is not already happening, I think it is already
happening.
Q684 Paul Farrelly: We have been
talking about children's programming and I just wanted to use
that to ask a question on setting and enforcement of public service
obligations. First, can I say I welcome seeing more of the health
campaigners like Jamie Oliver highlighting what goes into a Turkey
Twizzler and anything which stops the incessant pestering by my
children for new super-improved Honey Nut Loops or Frosties is
to be welcomed because it is quite evident when you go abroad
to France, Italy, Spain and Germany there is not enough focus
here on healthy eating because there they have a great emphasis
on local produce, here we have great national advertising campaigns
for processed foods that the Government believes to be relevant.
It clearly has costs and Michael Grade has already made clear
to the Committee that he does not see a future for children's
programming on ITV, in pretty short order actually, but nevertheless
there is a public service obligation on them. At the same time,
Michael may be coming to the Government and Ofcom to try and have
the advertising regime restrictions relaxed. People are also concerned
about the level of regional programming, regional news, which
we have not discussed, on ITV. The question is really when Michael
Grade comes to have the advertising restrictions and that regime
relaxed in this new media world, will the Government adopt a quid
pro quo approach in terms of stiffening or insisting that
children's programming or regional news programming remains a
public service obligation rather than treating each issue in isolation?
Mr Woodward: I am not going to
pass the buck on this but I am going to say that the reason we
have got Ofcom there is to reach these judgments. One of the institutions
that I have found in the course of my work in the last 14 months
in this job that has respect around the world is Ofcom. We have
to be mindful of the fact, and this partly picks up the point
that Philip was making earlier, you cannot just produce an endless
set of obligations and somehow think that people can continue
to make the programmes you want. We have to find a balance here.
Undoubtedly, the impact of banning junk food advertising on children's
programmes has had a significant effect on revenue. We have to
be mindful, therefore, I know Ofcom are mindful when they are
making their judgments, that there is no magic here. If you take
£30/40/50 million out of revenue, it has to be found from
somewhere else, there will be things you cannot make. Therefore,
when Michael Grade makes his case and makes his arguments, Ofcom
have got to balance that against a requirement that we made from
ITV last year, but I do not see it necessarily, and I do not think
you are suggesting this either, as quite so black and white. That
is why Ofcom reaching a balanced judgment over a period of time
based on consultation, with no precipitate haste, is absolutely
essential. There is a case when ITV talk about wanting to reduce
the number of hours of children's indigenous programme making
on ITV against the problems they face about revenue and programme
sharers but equally ITV have the advantage of having ITV 2, 3
and other places where material can be screened. Therefore the
point that Michael Grade makes about opportunity costs in relation
to ITV 1 is a valid one but I do not see that necessarily it stands
as a broad principle, and exhaustively so, across the full spectrum
of the ITV offer. There may be ways that we will want to encourage
broadcasters to think creatively about this rather than in black
and white terms but, again, the vital organisation we have in
this is Ofcom. I am not suggesting the Committee has ever thought
otherwise but I think that Ofcom has been an extraordinary success
in the Communications Act reaching balanced sensible views based
on very careful consultation and keeping responses proportionate
and timely.
Q685 Paul Farrelly: You are not entirely
ruling out the Government taking, in certain instances, potentially,
a different view? Everyone is concerned about public sector obligations
get set up and then they get chipped away.
Mr Woodward: Of course Government
could but if you create an institution like Ofcom, and charge
it with this responsibility and give it the independence it has
from Government, you should be pretty cautious in Government of
saying "We are only happy with the referee so long as the
referee produces the result we like". The referee may sometimes
come in with results we do not like, I do not think it follows
because you have got the wrong result you should disagree with
the referee and the rules. That is why I am so impressed by Ofcom
and you can really see it in relation to the way they have tackled
an issue like Channel 4. The issues are being considered a long
time before it is a crisis and that is how I think they should
approach the children's programming review. There is not a crisis
in children's programming in this country, it is the reverse.
The figures I offer the Committee in comparing ourselves with
Canada instance that. However, there are problems along the route,
just as there are with ITV regional news, regional programming,
but it is no longer about ITV only having a single station to
offer the public. As we get into digital switchover and we see
all of the public having access to huge numbers of channels, as
we see broadband going into more and more people's homes and more
and more possibility, I think we have to look at the fact that
the content is going to come from so many different sources that
we have to have some careful evaluation across the piece to measure
alongside just, say, ITV's obligations. That is why, again, Ofcom
is the best institution we have got to do that. I have no reason
to think so far when you say, "If they reached a different
judgment from what the Government felt would we disagree",
the fact of the matter is it has not happened and I do not anticipate
it happening. I have every confidence that Ofcom will guide us
to the right place.
Q686 Chairman: You have been extremely
complimentary about Ofcom and do not anticipate disagreeing with
them. Can I ask you, therefore, how you regard their present proposal
of the public service publisher to provide new media content?
Mr Woodward: First of all, it
is an example of how Ofcom think ahead. I am complimentary about
them but I have no reason not to be. We have plenty of reasons
in politics to be unhappy with institutions and things but I have
to say I have no reason to be. It is not praise given for the
sake of it, it is as I find it. I think their concept of the PSP
is an interesting one. Again, as we move into this multi-platform
digital age with 300 channels and on-demand services and the new
media, the idea of there being a public service publisher which
is a distinct entity from what we currently perceive as the public
service broadcaster is a useful contribution to the debate. Their
original stabs at what it might cost, how it might be funded,
have already evolved. As to what form the public service publisher
should take I think now is a matter of discussion. This Committee
will have views about what form it might take in the long term.
What we can be certain about is that the concept of public service
publishing is bound to play an important place in the future but
what we can be less certain about is what form it should take
and how it should be financed. I do think it goes hand-in-hand
with an overall conception of wanting to look into the medium
to long term, by which I mean five to ten years from now, about
what public service broadcasting and public service publishing
should be. It is a good thing to put it on the table now. It is
a useful thing for all organisations to have a view about and
I do not think, for example, there is any natural conclusion which
ends up with the BBC believing that it should be the public service
publisher. I think that is one of the issues of public service
broadcasting and publishing that is out there for the future and
there should be a lively and healthy debate about both the form
it should take and the funding it should have over the next few
years.
Q687 Chairman: We would agree with
that. On the other hand, you have said you do not see the real
debate taking place about the future of public service broadcasting
until about the time of digital switchover. Some people are arguing
that is leaving it rather too late and we need to start it earlier
than that, we need to start it now. Would you envisage bringing
forward the Government's intention to examine these issues?
Mr Woodward: Certainly I could
envisage we would bring it forward. What I was referring to was
the original timetable that had been set out was one which had
envisaged that this review would take place towards the end of
the current licence fee settlement. I do not think that is likely
to hold, mainly because of the speed of transformation that is
taking place in media, new media, linear, non-linear services.
Therefore, Ofcom's review of public service broadcasting and public
service publishing, I think our intended review, could well be
brought forward but I cannot reach any conclusions about that
because it is a fast moving target. Had we found that Channel
4 had faced financial difficulties earlier than 2010 that would
have precipitated almost a certain case for bringing forward that
review of the wider issues of public service broadcasting. My
instinct is that it will come earlier but I cannot tell you for
certain and that will be a decision made by the Secretary of State.
Q688 Chairman: When the review does
take place, will the option of providing public funding to other
broadcasters, outside the BBC, be one of the options on the table?
Mr Woodward: All the options have
to be on the table but, equally, they have to be done in the context
of recognising how we have a BBC which has continued through an
extraordinary period of change and transformation to remain the
institution that it is with the respect that it has not only by
the domestic consumer but by those abroad. As you know, whilst
we got the licence fee settlement a bit like Goldilocks "absolutely
just right", the fact of the matter is that I cannot think
of any other tax that the public pay which from the research that
we have had showed they would have been prepared to pay more.
In striking the balance for the right amount of money for the
licence fee payer, getting value for money and what the BBC wanted
to make, and therefore striking it as we did, we struck the right
balance. In saying that all the options would be on the table,
I add the very important caveat that we also begin with a very
strong admiration and commitment to the quality and standards
and institution of the BBC. It would be misleading if people thought
that a review of public service broadcasting and the options for
the future, whilst looking at all the options, did not start with
a very, very strong sense of what works and therefore it does
not necessarily follow in all the options that you would abandon
what works in favour of some extraordinary experiment and see
what happens.
Chairman: Minister, I know you have got
to get away shortly but, very briefly, Paul Farrelly.
Q689 Paul Farrelly: I just want to
touch very briefly on the issue of the digital dividend review
and the approach being taken by Ofcom in line with Government
policy on the auction spectrum. You will know there is a big,
well-funded campaign, HD for All, which is seeking to persuade
us that high definition television services should have a claim
on that spectrum release. Do you think their arguments stack up?
Mr Woodward: I think they are
strong arguments. One of the things that Ofcom has to be mindful
of, and I have no reason to think that it will not be mindful
of this, is that just because somebody is mounting a very strong
lobby therefore it follows that is the way to go. What the high
definition television lobby is being is extremely effective at
making its case. The allocation of spectrum is extremely important
for a whole range of services and the obvious one that springs
to my mind is mobile television. At the moment, mobile television
is a service in its infancy but if, for example, when you look
at the preparations that are being made in China in relation to
the Games for next year, China envisages its consumer market accessing
those Games through mobile television. Again, if you look at the
television industry in the United States and look at what they
are doing to prepare not just an adapted form of programme making
for mobile television but a whole new strand of programme making
for mobile television, I think there is a need to anticipate the
consumer demand for mobile television and therefore the spectrum
it is going to need. It happens that mobile television as a lobby
is not as organised as high definition. There are other applications
for spectrum which need to be placed into the equation. For example,
radio mikes, we have to look at the fact that at the moment the
spectrum auction that would inevitably take place as a result
of switchover is going to raise this as a rather crucial issue.
West End theatre could be very adversely affected if there were
not a mechanism put together which would enable them to take part
in bidding for spectrum in which they were up against the weight
of the telecommunications industry. This is a very complex process.
Again I am mindful of the fact that Ofcom are very open to the
lobby that comes from high definition television but they have
shown me every sign that they appreciate it is a well organised
lobby and does not have an exclusive right to its voice being
the only one that is heard. That does not mean to say that high
definition television does not have an important place to play
in the future of allocation of spectrum but I suspect it will
be one of a number of players and not the exclusive player.
Q690 Paul Farrelly: You have already
said quite clearly that you do not anticipate disagreements with
Ofcom because Ofcom's record has been good so far. You have mentioned
radio mikes, that is one potential exception to the principle
of the highest bidder takes the spectrum. Do you see other exceptions?
Mr Woodward: Yes, for example
community radio community television but, again, a bit of caution
here. Three months ago I was being persuaded that the solution
to the issue of radio mikes, community television, community radio
was interleaved spectrum. In the last three months Microsoft have
come along and suddenly started showing huge interest in interleaved
spectrum because they can see it as a way of enabling domestic
hubs in wireless set-ups to be developed. Now the other thing
we have to add into this mixture, therefore, is not just new applications
for the spectrum but also the advances in compression technology,
and therefore what might currently be needed, we may only need
a fraction of it in as little as two years' time, let alone at
the end of the switchover period. Again, part of the difficulty
here is we are trying once again to see round corners and you
cannot. Therefore, that is why I think, with some caution, I listen
to the high definition lobby, not because it is not important,
not because we will not need to make some allocation, almost certainly
we will need to see allocation for it, but I do think we need
to recognise that many of the applications there, and you asked
me what I can envisage and I gave you some examples, some of them
we do not even know yet. That is the nature of the digital revolution
and that is the nature of Britain's role in the digital revolution
which happens from the work we are doing on the creative industries
to reveal that we are better at this than any other European country.
We will have the best shot at knowing what is coming compared
with anybody else but certainly I cannot sit here and tell you
today that here is the list of what those applications might be
because, as I say, some of them do not even exist yet.
Q691 Chairman: Minister, I am conscious
you are due in the Chamber shortly.
Mr Woodward: For the Digital Switchover
Bill.
Chairman: We could go on for much longer
but I think we should probably finish there. Thank you very much.
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