Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
120-139)
MR SION
SIMON MP AND
MR KEITH
SMITH
4 NOVEMBER 2009
Q120 Chairman: Have you had a chance
yourself to see the broadcasts it makes?
Mr Simon: I have not.
Q121 Chairman: Is it your intention
to take an opportunity to go to Northern Ireland to have a look
at this?
Mr Simon: That is exactly my intention.
I have to say, having done a certain amount of homework for this
inquiry and this Committee, I feel now that obviously I know more
about broadcasting in Northern Ireland than I did, I am greatly
interested and engaged and, yes, I am very keen to visit Northern
Ireland and see for myself.
Q122 Chairman: Could I just suggest
to you that you not only look at the evidence that we received
last week but that you give serious consideration to trying to
talk to some at least of the same people?
Mr Simon: Certainly.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Q123 Lady Hermon: It is very nice
to see you before us this afternoon, Minister. I am going to change
the subject slightly and I am going to move to digital switchover.
As I am sure you can appreciate, Minister, Northern Ireland shares
a land frontier here with another EU Member State, the Republic
of Ireland. There is a significant amount of broadcasting in the
Republic of Ireland. Could you just explain to us the negotiations
which have taken place to date between the British Government
and organisations in the Republic of Ireland to guarantee that
there will be no loss of signal or broadcasting post the digital
switchover?
Mr Simon: There are lots of issues
there. One of them is the range of very technical issues, which
are about ensuring that having two jurisdictions broadcasting
back-to-back, next to each other, the signals do not interfere
and cancel each other out. That issue is being dealt with at a
technical level and I do not pretend to know the technical details
of how it is being dealt with, but I am assured that it is being
dealt with and that the people dealing with it are confident that
by the time Northern Ireland switches over nobody should be experiencing
interference or signal problems, or any problems relating to being
interfered with from the Republic that would not apply to any
other part of the country that did not have an international border.
As you say, these are problems which apply in the east coast of
England and the south coast of England as well; there are issues
with Holland and issues with France.
Q124 Lady Hermon: Yes. Could I push
you a little further then? Are you actually guaranteeing to the
people of Northern Ireland that by the time the digital switchover
takes place, which is delayed in terms of Northern Ireland, there
will be no loss of broadcasting, either radio or television broadcasting,
from the Republic of Ireland?
Mr Simon: Now we are talking about
the loss of incoming signals from the Republic of Ireland, which
is a different question to the one I first answered. On that question,
TG4 is guaranteed in the Belfast Agreement and currently reaches
about 65% of Northern Ireland. After switchover it will be available
to the full switched over percentage of the population, which
will be 98%, or whatever, so its coverage will be greatly enhanced.
In relation to RTE, there are discussions ongoing with the Irish
Government about making RTE available digitally after switchover,
which are ongoing and on which I cannot really say very much more
now. I think it is fair to say that discussions are ongoing and
we hope to announce some kind of preliminary conclusions fairly
soon.
Lady Hermon: Excellent! I can
see your official nodding his head.
Q125 Chairman: How soon is "fairly
soon"?
Mr Simon: It is fairly soon.
Q126 Chairman: But is it before Christmas?
Mr Simon: I do not know. I do
not think it is that soon.
Q127 Chairman: Is it before the Election?
Mr Simon: Yes, we think so. I
am not prevaricating, I genuinely do not know when it will be.
It is not me personally who is doing the negotiations.
Q128 Chairman: But I think it would
help very much if you could give us an idea. I do not want to
press you too much, but is it likely to be in February or March,
or are we talking of April? When would you expect this to be?
Mr Simon: I would not expect it
to be in the next couple of weeks, but -
Q129 Chairman: You have just said
it would not be before Christmas?
Mr Simon: Probably not before
Christmas, although possibly before Christmas, and hopefully not
very long after Christmas if it is after Christmas.
Q130 Lady Hermon: Is there someone
else within the Department you would like to nominate to come
and give us evidence who would have responsibility?
Mr Simon: No, I do not think so.
It is a negotiation with the foreign government. It is ongoing.
I do not think we would want to give a running commentary on the
negotiation, where it is going, what the terms are and when it
will be concluded. It is happening, we are doing it, it will be
done pretty soon, and whoever else was here nobody else would
say any more than that, in fact I have probably said more than
most other people would.
Q131 Lady Hermon: Thank you. Your
official is nodding in agreement with that, so thank you very
much. Could I finally just ask you, if ITV plc were to stop being
a public service broadcaster with its obligation to provide news
and current affairs programmes, which comes with the status of
being a plc, would access to all-Ireland broadcasting provide
sufficient plurality?
Mr Simon: No.
Lady Hermon: That seems fairly
succinct.
Chairman: We are very happy with
monosyllabic answers as long as they are definite. Thank you.
We have that on the record.
Q132 Dr McDonnell: Arising out of
some of the evidence last week, when we took some evidence in
Northern Ireland, is it your opinion, Minister, that public service
broadcasting should have production quotas from Northern Ireland
for programmes made, for the volume of spend, or indeed for the
programmes made by local independent companies? In other words,
what I am saying is, should Ulster Television, for instance, have
a quota feeding into the ITN channels of their productions? How
would you see public service broadcasting investing in Northern
Ireland going forward?
Mr Simon: They do have quotas
of some kind, so they have all got, outside the M25, quotas. I
understand what you are saying is should they have specifically
national quotas.
Q133 Dr McDonnell: The sense we got
is that yes, quotas are there, but they are very low and that
there is a big London orientation and that 60 or 70%, whatever,
comes and is sprayed out from London towards the various regional
television companies?
Mr Simon: I think it varies broadcaster
by broadcaster according to their strength and ability to do it.
The production quotas in the BBC are relatively high. The production
quotas in ITV and the commercial PSBs are also relatively high
outside the M25, so it is still 35% outside the M25, but where
it does not immediately seem to help directly is that there is
not a national production quota for ITV companies. Ofcom has just
directed Channel 4 to bring in national production quotas, which
are set fairly low in the first instance, I think it is 2 or 3%
for Northern Ireland. I think what we need to see in respect of,
for instance, Channel 4, is that they need to hit those targets
straight away and then Ofcom needs to be looking at, within the
confines of their whole business, what they can afford and what
is realistic, constantly pushing that envelope as far as it can
be pushed, given always that there is no point in pushing it so
far that they cannot make the books balance.
Q134 Dr McDonnell: The sense we got
was that where there are quotas they are very small and basically
my sense was that there was not even the capacity in some cases
to create the critical mass to create a production industry. There
is a critical level which needs to be reached. Can you give us
an undertaking, or is that asking too much, that there will be
an emphasis going forward to the peripheral nations, as it were?
Mr Simon: I think it is fair to
say that in the t.v. production sector Northern Ireland has not
been the strongest region in this and it has not been its strongest
suit. That should mean that there is an opportunity, that this
is a market which can be grown in Northern Ireland. As I say,
there are quotas of various different kinds and all kinds of different
thresholds for the production and programming, and so on, across
the different broadcasters. As you say, some of them are set quite
low. Some of them are set quite high. What we need to see is the
ones that are low, that are new, being achieved.
Q135 Chairman: Northern Ireland does
not come out of this very well and I hope you are not complacent
about that, Minister?
Mr Simon: I do not think it is
true that Northern Ireland does not come out very well. I think
it is reasonably balanced. There is a big concentration of this
entire industry within the M25 and that is why there is a whole
range of different targets and quotas for programming and production
in the nations and the regions. It is very complex.
Q136 Chairman: I think you do need
to look at the evidence we received last week in Northern Ireland
and to talk to the people. You have undertaken to do that, and
for that we are extremely grateful, but I do think it is necessary
if you are to inform yourself as to how this is seen on the ground
in Northern Ireland.
Mr Simon: As I have said, I am
keen to go and talk to people and listen to their experience.
What the broadcasters and the regulators tell me is that while
television production is not an industry in which Northern Ireland
would claim to be leading the way, nevertheless it is a nation
with a very strong broadcasting sector in which its slice of the
production pie, whilst small, is real.
Q137 Dr McDonnell: I think, Minister,
we accept some of the points you are making but the difficulty
for us is that the evidence we heard last week, both from officials
of organised structures like Ulster Television, which does a certain
amount of production itself, but equally from small independent
companies was that it was very difficult. The flow of business
was neither reliable enough nor sustainable enough to maintain
the critical mass of operation there, and that is the dilemma.
There may be quotas at some level, but they found it very, very
hard to maintain a critical mass, and that fed back then in other
ways because there was a deep sense that as a result of a shortage
of home production, as it were, within Northern Ireland, that
Northern Ireland was not being portrayed to the rest of Britain
and that it was still being seen as a place apart, a place that
we should not go or should not even think about. So I would urge
you, Minister, to try and ensure that that is pursued. There is
a number of issues there still around quotas, but quite honestly,
Chairman, I would rather perhaps leave them at the moment until
we come back to that in some shape or form, because there are
issues around quotas in terms of getting stuff done. There are
issues in terms of the M25 circuit and production not getting
outside that, and certainly the submissions we received were that
small independent producers in Northern Ireland found it easier
to get work from the US than they did from London, and that was
a very, very damning indictment.
Mr Simon: Can I just say that
I take those points. As a matter of principle, I am on your side.
I would like to see the production sector in Northern Ireland
grow. I would like to see more Northern Irish home-grown programming
and I would like to see the UK portrayal change, partly through
that mechanism of production, as you say. I have tried to avoid
saying, because I do not want to deflect from the fact that in
principle I support what you are arguing for, but nevertheless
I do need to say that the BBC, which is owned by the Government,
to use the shorthandyou know what I mean -
Q138 Chairman: We hope we know what
you mean and it is an interesting take on it, but yes.
Mr Simon: The BBC, which is a
directly publicly funded public sector broadcaster, public service
broadcaster, has got, I think a 12% production quota for Northern
Ireland. Channel 4 has now got a 3% production quota for Northern
Ireland and the other broadcasters, the commercial public service
broadcasters, the amount they can do depends on them. These are
commercial questions and it is Ofcom, the regulator, which has
got to make these judgments and set these quotas. While I and
the Government are sympathetic to what you want to happen, I do
not think we can just wade in and -
Q139 Chairman: Minister, I think
there is a certain confusion between quotas and targets and I
would ask you to look at that very carefully. I would just like
to take you back to one of the points Dr McDonnell made before
I bring in Mrs Robinson. When we were questioning last week, it
became quite clear that it was a twin-track inquiry because the
two points which emerged which were of equal importance to our
witnesses were first of all the quality and the security of indigenous
broadcasting within Northern Ireland, such as the excellent UTV
news bulletins to which you yourself referred, but also the betrayal
of Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom. This is
something which is of acute concern to our colleagues from Northern
Ireland and to all of us who know that very beautiful part of
the United Kingdom and who feel that for far too long whenever
it has been portrayed, whether in news bulletins, dramas, documentaries,
or whatever else, it has been "The Troubles, the Troubles,
the Troubles," and very little has focused on the positive.
This is something which came across very strongly last week and
whilst we do not like to think the BBC is owned by the Government
and we never want that to happen, we think a little gentle influence
to try and achieve a better balance would be a good thing, and
we hope you will be sympathetic to that.
Mr Simon: I am sympathetic to
that, although sensitive to not owning the BBC!
Chairman: Thank you very much.
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