Further written evidence from UTV
May I take this opportunity to formally thank
you and the Committee for your Inquiry into Television Broadcasting
in Northern Ireland.
I appreciated the time you took to hear our
evidence, as this is a vitally important issue for the plurality
of quality news coverage and also the public scrutiny of the devolved
institutions.
As I indicated to you at the end of the second
session, UTV is now submitting its response to some of the comments
made in the later session. I do hope this is acceptable, but some
points made do have to be addressed as we believe some inaccuracies
were aired.
1. The Independently Funded News Consortia
pilots (IFNC) were designed to offer alternative local news to
the BBC within a region where the news on Channel 3 is
at risk.
We believe strongly that Northern Ireland does not
require an IFNC. UTV is fully committed to our news service until
the end of our licence in 2014. We obviously cannot make any commitments
beyond that as we do not know what licence conditions will be
in place at renewal.
An IFNC pilot in Northern Ireland would mean public
money would be unnecessarily spent at a time when fiscal caution
is required across the whole range of public spending. We would
estimate that a fully digital IFNC trial with community media
could cost as much as £10M for Northern Ireland alone.
Perhaps most seriously as we understand it, the IFNC
would not run alongside UTV, it would be instead of UTV's
news service. Undoubtedly jobs and skills would be lost which
would never be recoverable. It seems illogical, to break a model
that is working very well, when the proposed model is untried.
UTV is not against these proposals in other parts
of the UK, but a trial is simply not required in Northern Ireland.
Ofcom's very positive words about UTV's news service
I hope underline that this view is not just held by UTV.
2. There is a suggestion that ITV plc may
hand back its PSB licenses and become a fully commercial broadcaster.
This is an old debate. ITV plc did make the threat that they may
"hand-back" their licenses. This would have significant
impact on UTV. However ITV has not repeated this threat for some
time and UTV believe that ITV are working closely with partners
and the regulator to remove operation burdens rather than pursuing
a "hand back licence's" scenario.
In addition handback would not be a straightforward
process and UTV understand it would take around 18 months for
any handback to take place. With this amount of notice, UTV is
confident it could secure an alternative diverse programme supply
from other sources if required.
Handback is a risk, but not one we believe is significant.
While it is prudent to have a fall-back position, it should be
just that, rather than the point on which future policy is based.
3. Dr Alasdair McDonnell quoted the new Ofcom
minimum licence levels for local production in the UTV region
and asked how serious these reductions reflect upon UTV news provision.
The NUJ responded that they were very serious reductions.
UTV completely agrees they would have had serious
implications if they had been implemented.
While it is true because of ITV Network changes UTV
had to cease production of the mid-morning news, a threee minute
bulletin with a very small audience, we have actually increased
our news output across our schedule in peaktime.
In 2010 UTV will produce 228 hours of news. This
is against a licence quota of 208 hours. A huge proportion of
this output is in peak (6pm to 10.30pm) or shoulder peak (10.30pm
to 11pm) programme time.
These extra hours are delivered through our new late
evening news programme UTV Live Tonight. It is the only programme
of its type in the country and has been praised by politicians,
industry leaders, commentators and most importantly our audience
for offering a valuable public service not previously available.
Our current affairs quota is 26 hours a year. In
2010 UTV is planning to deliver almost 39 hours of current affairs
to our audience.
Both of these figures are far higher than any other
part of the United Kingdom. It is wrong to suggest our licence
minimum is the level at which we produce programming. We have
historically significantly over delivered on our licence requirement.
In fact because UTV opt away from a large number
of ITV Network programmes, if an IFNC was introduced to Northern
Ireland, the slots that would be available to an IFNC would actually
mean that the hours of news provided in Northern Ireland would
fall, as the resources would no longer exist to provide UTV Live
Tonight.
4. UTV did change its programme offering
following our restructure in 2008—but we did not "dumb-down".
All companies have to modernise and refresh their
product range. Television is no different. As the social environment
of Northern Ireland has changed over the years, UTV had not. UTV
was still an organisation geared up to report and analyse a conflicted
environment. Our long-form current affairs programme Insight was
no longer the correct format to analyse current affairs in our
region.
Audience figures for the programme were falling and
it was becoming harder to sustain extended runs of the programme
with high quality investigations. We also found our audience wanted
more instant analysis of issues such as health, education, environment,
crime and other subjects that affected their everyday lives.
UTV has responded to this with UTV Live Tonight.
Since the programme launched earlier in the year, we have delivered
more exclusive stories than ever before. Our investigative reporters
have more time and resources to deliver content. The news department
was given more funding (more than £100K) and more edit and
camera resources to produce this output.
It is easy to say an organisation has "dumbed-down"
every time personnel changes are to be implemented. UTV believes
we have proved this remark to be incorrect. We deliver more relevant
and instant news and analysis than ever before. The nature of
new programmes has indeed changed over the years, but this is
because we reflect our environment and as Troubles related news
is less prevalent, a more "normal" news agenda has taken
its place.
UTV does not deliver "news clip" and "sound
bite" news of current affairs. UTV Live Tonight is comparable
to Newsnight or Channel Four News for the level of analysis and
the time given to explore stories in depth.
5. The introduction of an IFNC would not
increase the portrayal or Northern Ireland to the rest of the
UK. The IFNC is designed to offer alternative local news to the
BBC within a region where the news on Channel 3 is at risk.
Northern Ireland does require greater profile in
programming for the whole of the country, however the proposed
IFNC will not deliver this.
This is why UTV recommends a contestable fund (available
to all broadcasters) to make non-news programming. This fund could
be used for local and network programming from and of our region.
UTV would suggest a fund in the region of £3M per year. Far
less than would be required to sustain news provision.
The Government rejected this in Digital Britain,
but we believe funds for all the devolved nations are vital to
invest in each region's independent production sector to boost
the creative industries across all platforms and truly reflect
the diversity of the United Kingdom. This is likely to be more
successful than the blunt instrument of quotas.
As always, UTV is happy to expand on any of
these points should the Committee require further information.
30 October 2009
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