Memorandum by ITN
1. How and why
have the agendas of news providers changed? How has the content
of news programmes and newspapers altered over the years?
As a broadcast news organisation ITN will here
comment on the content of television news programming as opposed
to the content of newspapers.
ITN's overriding aim as the UK's only truly
commercial news supplier is to deliver the best, impartial public-interest
news for our customers within our agreed contract prices and generate
profits for shareholders. To achieve this ITN has become very
adept at maximising the use of new technology and adopting new
working practices, in order to reduce its operating costs and
put as much resource as possible into coverage.
News agendas are constantly changing. In the
1970s, domestic news was dominated by industrial strife, and international
news by the Cold War. Those issues gave way, and today we are
more concerned with global warming and the so-called war on terror.
ITN has to be a very flexible organisation to react to this changing
dynamic, investing in new technology and in fresh talent to ensure
that we have the depth of knowledge needed to report on these
emerging themes. If the story is in the public interest be it
in the UK, Gaza or Baghdad we will send our people there to report
it. This is what ITN has always done and it is what we continue
to do.
Many of the stories which dominate the news
are complex. Part of our function is to explain the meaning of
stories, and place their relevance in a wider context. Our viewers
also increasingly, and rightly, demand a more questioning and
less deferential approach to authority. The old days of the political
interview being a platform for whatever the minister wants to
tell us are over. At the same time, the increasing availability
of live facilities means that the very nature of some coverage
has changed to being more immediate. ITN's view is that such a
trend increases, rather than diminishes, the need for explanatory,
context-based reporting.
2. How is the way that people access the news
changing? The Committee is interested in national and regional
trends and figures for television, radio, newspaper and on-line
news consumption
TV channels remain overwhelmingly the main source
of news for most people[1]
and the value viewers place on television news is virtually unchanged.
Ofcom's 2007 research for its New News, Future News (NN, FN) discussion
document also highlights the importance of ITV's regional news
in providing plurality of provision—an alternative to the
BBC in the UK, and a service that viewers value and turn to it
when they need to, for example in the floods across the UK in
the summer of 2007.
"Around 45% of all consumers say they
get news about current events in their region/nation from television,
second to newspapers. 46% get local news from newspapers and 22%
from radio (both of these figures are higher than for UK national
news)." Ofcom, New News, Future News.
Ofcom's findings in NN, FN also indicate that
people want to see more rather than less news on television about
their nation/region or locality.
"29% of people who access news for the
nations/regions/localities say they want to see more such news
on television, compared with only 3% who say they want less. Consumers
in the nations appear to value plurality in these services—even
when it is pointed out that the wider network might be showing
entertainment or drama instead."
Against this backdrop, ITN is embracing the
changing media landscape currently typified by the growth of news
services on the internet and an increasing number of digital TV
channels offering news services, plus the emergence of partial
news services on broadband such as Telegraph TV. All offer consumers
even more choice of news sources but unlike broadcast news, these
services are not universal and do not offer comprehensive newsgathering.
According to Ofcom's research for NN, FN, the
internet is used currently by most users as a supplementary source
of news rather than their main source and while ITN agrees that
these circumstances may change over time, this does not eliminate
the distinct role that PSB television news has of providing a
collective experience as opposed to the individual viewing or
reading experience, that characterises news consumption on the
internet.
Via internet news, individuals can choose to
bookmark news from their particular political or ideological stand
point or according to their own interests, screening out those
issues or areas of news that may not personally be of importance
to them. This could lead to a world of news limited to news for
"my kind of people", exclusive rather than inclusive,
and not serving wider society.
Through its bulletins, ITN continues to provide
competition with the BBC by reaching out to new audiences, whether
on demand through mobile and broadband, or through local news
services. ITN is developing new ways to connect with its audiences,
for example, through the use of citizen correspondents. ITN's
new web service for ITV.com, Uploaded, places citizen correspondents
and viewer involvement at the heart of its editorial agenda, creating
the UK's first nationwide network of citizen correspondents who
can shape TV news coverage on a daily basis via the inclusion
of their user-generated content.
ITN's Channel 4 News already provides commercially-funded
media content in competition with the BBC's multimedia news service.
ITN's Channel 4 News operation comprises not only daily news programmes
on Channel 4 and More 4, but also a daily email news bulletins
by Jon Snow, Snowmail, and an expanding Channel 4 News
website with news blogs, as well as a Fact check website.
In contrast to the big ISPs which provide generic
news feeds, PSB broadcast standards of reporting and production
are applied at ITN to all its new media news content. This means
that ITN is able to provide high quality, impartial, national
and international news across all of its services, even though
this is expensive to produce, because of the manpower needed for
research, coverage, production and compliance.
This fact distinguishes ITN's news from most
news on the internet, which is commoditised. That is to say it
is frequently alike, often little more than repackaged newswire
coverage. Some of the sources from which it is derived can be
unknown and to date most sites have been overwhelmingly text based.
Web-based news services have not led to either greater pluralism
in broadcast news provision or greater provision of original journalism.
Consequently one can envisage a world where
more and more websites emerge offering different opinions for
different audiences but where the content is often the same. In
addition, ITN can envisage a world where regulated and unregulated
news, partial and impartial news, TV and internet news, are accessed
and exist side by side. However, ignoring or side-lining PSBs
in public policy terms, we believe would have negative ramifications
for the quality threshold of news in the UK for years to come.
3. How has the process of news gathering changed?
The Committee is interested in the process of news production,
the prioritisation of budgets and the deployment of journalistic
resources
With the constraints of its contracts, ITN's
primary aim is to deliver high quality, impartial news coverage
by continuing to reduce operating costs and put more money into
coverage.
Technology continues to change the way in which
news is gathered. We can now broadcast live from any continent—indeed,
we ran a series of live programmes from Antarctica this year,
to highlight the symptoms of global warming. New technology has
stripped away the old need to wait for pictures to arrive back
in London—sometimes days after the story. A new generation
of videophones means we can go "live" to inaccessible
places, like the front line in Afghanistan, without the need to
erect a conspicuous satellite uplink.
Equipment is also lighter than it used to be.
Tape formats are smaller, and the cameras are more sensitive,
so require less lighting. Just a decade ago, a straightforward
interview in poor light conditions would have required a cameraman,
sound recordist and lighting engineer. Now, a single camera operator
performs all these functions, with much slimmer kit. We do sometimes
ensure that camera crews are made up of two people (hardly ever
three), but when that happens it tends to be for safety reasons,
rather than technical ones.
Sending fewer people on stories is usually cheaper
than sending a large team, so our coverage budgets can deliver
a higher return in terms of on-air impact. It also opens up the
possibility of more investigative reporting, where a very visible
camera crew would be incompatible with filming events which are
supposed to be happening in secret, but which are reported by
us in the public interest. A good example would be the clandestine
and illegal filming carried out in September 2007 in Zimbabwe,
which formed the backbone of a week of special coverage. Much
of the key material was filmed on lightweight, handheld cameras,
unavailable on the market until recently. That coverage prompted
the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to announce a new push on greater
EU sanctions against Zimbabwe. Gathering pictures to tell that
story simply would not have been possible with heavier, slower
camera kit.
That live technology, especially on mobile phones,
also means that viewers can act as news gatherers. It is now commonplace
for news organisations to run user generated content, when viewers
have witnessed an event, and captured it on their mobiles. Most
people in the UK now carry a mobile phone—and an increasing
number have a camera facility. That means the sheer spread of
potential witnesses to an event has mushroomed. It is essential
that, as a programme maker, we are happy with the credibility
of the video evidence which is supplied to us. There are significant
legal, compliance and safety implications for viewers who actively
seek out events which they can film. As part of our procedures
to police this, we never actively encourage viewers to go to an
event in advance in order to film it, and we discourage any move
into a hostile environment. We need to be sure than an incident
which has been captured was not started by the viewer, acting
as an "agent provocateur"
4. What is the impact of the concentration
of media ownership on the balance and diversity of opinion seen
in the news? Does ownership have an impact on editorial priorities
and on news values such as fairness, accuracy and impartiality?
Broadcast news has stood apart from print journalism
because of the existing PSB system that guarantees impartiality,
independence, quality and accountability, recognised in legislation
such as the Broadcasting Act 1990 (requiring impartiality).
ITN does not see the ownership of the broadcaster
necessarily as an issue provided that the media owner has universal
terrestrial reach and that incentives to provide PSB programming
are in place. Without PSB provision then the ownership of the
broadcaster could impact future UK news provision (see below).
ITN believes that for the foreseeable future,
its customers—ITV and Channel 4—are committed to providing
national and international news. Both have signed long contracts
with ITN and invested in a digital infrastructure that will allow
ITN to make innovative and highly efficient news services for
them in some of the most advanced newsrooms in the UK. ITV and
Channel 4 have made these commitments under the existing regulatory
structure and despite the threats that both have identified to
their future funding models.
In an analogue world, in return for the use
of limited spectrum capacity, broadcasters accepted PSB obligations
but in a digital world, if the advantages and obligations, granted
through the licence, disappear and broadcasters have to start
paying for spectrum on the same basis as other users (as discussed
in Ofcom's July 2006 "Issues Paper"), then Ofcom will
have little regulatory hold on broadcasters which are incentivised
only by market conditions.
There is also the possibility that the ownership
of both channels may change. Channel 4 has been considered for
privatisation, which we believe would have a bearing on its approach
to funding high-quality news in peak-time.
ITV is a PLC and therefore subject to takeover
at any time and while there are good reasons for commercial PSB
channels to continue to deliver national and international news
post DSO, with or without regulatory obligation, (respectable
viewing figures, anchor points for viewing, status and credibility,
lower production costs);[2]
Nonetheless new owners could take a different view, such as little
regard for the long term quality of the brand, and run the business
purely on the basis of generating the maximum amount of cash.
In this scenario national news could be marginalised or removed
in favour of cheaply produced, cash generative programming eg
quiz shows. So ITN agrees with Ofcom's assessment in NN, FN that
post digital switch-over, "there may still be grounds for
intervention in terms of quality and resources", and that
new incentives may be needed to maintain high-quality news services.
BSkyB currently has a 17.9% shareholding in
ITV and this could potentially impact the plurality and impartiality
of broadcast news in the UK. BSkyB currently provides plurality
of impartial news in the UK via Sky News. However, Sky News is
known to be loss-making and in the past BSkyB has put its commercial
interests before PSB interests, for instance by removing Sky News
from the Free view platform in the UK. In the USA, BSkyB's parent,
News Corp, has demonstrated its preference to develop partial
news services such as Fox News, over and above impartial news
services. This is a scenario BSkyB would be free to develop in
the UK if the requirements of impartiality were to be relaxed
as Ofcom has ventured in its 2007 discussion document New News,
Future News.
While ITN is confident that high quality, impartial
broadcast news, that includes costly international news, is not
yet under threat, and that it remains a "must have"
in the schedules of broadcasters with strong brands (ITV and Channel
4), the aggregation of any of these developments could leave the
provision of impartial TV news in the UK in a poor state.
As far as editorial priorities are concerned,
ITN works closely with its customers to ensure that it delivers
the news programming that fits each channel's individual character.
Customers do not know what is in our programmes until they see
them, they do not know the running order, and they do not know
what the lead story is or who is being interviewed live or not
live. Appropriately it is an internal ITN decision about exactly
what is in the programmes.
Customers do however give ITN information about
the audiences their network attracts at different times of day.
For instance on ITV the audience for the evening news at 6.30
pm is more female than male and more family-orientated whereas
the 10.30 pm audience is a more male and slightly younger audience.
Consequently how we tell the same story may vary between programmes.
We keep our customers informed about the kinds
of coverage we are planning, particularly if it is major event
coverage such as Channel 4 News's "News from" series
of programmes presented from overseas or ITV News's Zimbabwe week
in September 2007. We welcome their feedback at all times. From
time to time issues which do come up around compliance or legal
cases where we have to take account of the responsibilities of
both the channel and ITN before we broadcast something which could
have legal repercussions for both. In this scenario we consult.
We have, however, never faced any pressure from our customers
on covering news about them, whether it was, for example, results
for ITV, the race row in Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4 or
the issue of trust that has affected all broadcasters in 2007.
Our customers recognise that ITN covers those stories in the public
interest. The dividing lines are very well structured so any new
owner coming in would have to live by the same arrangements.
5. How should the public interest be protected
and defined in terms of news provision? Are the public interest
considerations set down for Ofcom in the Communications Act 2003
enough to ensure a plurality of debating voices in the UK news
media?
ITN believes that high quality, independent
news from different sources is essential to an informed democracy
and is the stimulus for political and cultural debate. Ofcom has
indicated there can be no guarantees of public service provision
on commercial television in the UK after digital switchover (DSO)
when public service broadcasters (PSBs) will find their advantages
and audiences in decline, and advertising revenues come under
even greater pressure than at present. In addition, newsgathering
for a high quality, comprehensive bulletins with pictures and
voices from around the UK and abroad, produced by informed journalists
cannot be achieved without significant funding.
ITN believes that action such as new regulatory
or financial solutions and incentives need to be envisaged and
developed now, ahead of DSO, to safeguard future commercial news
provision in the UK.
— Competition: ITV News's continuing
importance in providing competition with the BBC after digital
switchover must not be under-estimated. It alone amongst the commercial
PSBs can deliver mass news audiences of c.8 million a day to compete
head-on with BBC1. If a differently-managed ITV after DSO decided
to scale back or to no longer broadcast news, this would have
a major impact on ITN's ability to deliver effective competition
with the BBC in the way it has done to date.
— Plurality: If ITV withdrew,
and Channel 4 was for financial reasons unable to fulfil a role
as the sole commercial provider of PSB news, the BBC could become
the only provider of PSB news (with possibly Sky News, with no
impartiality requirements, as the only alternative provider) in
the UK. This would not be sufficient to deliver plurality. Without
regulatory intervention or incentives, this could be a very real
possibility in broadcast and new media after digital switchover
and ITN believes this scenario is not healthy for an informed,
democratic society.
— Impartiality: This concept still
has huge public value and should therefore remain a requirement
for PSB news services. Ofcom has suggested that impartiality itself
may be responsible for disengagement from news from some parts
of society (NN, FN 2007). ITN also believes it is misguided to
suggest that the impartiality requirements are the reason for
disengagement in news; there are a number of factors that lead
to disengagement that need consideration.
— Regions: According to Ofcom's
research in 2007 the public places continuing value on ITV's regional
services. ITV's regional infrastructure also highly important
to ITN's national news for ITV and Channel 4. If ITV's regional
news did not exist, ITN would have to find an alternative way
to provide local news and pictures for its national news programmes,
which would need to be funded.
— Resourcing: Quality investigative
news, particularly international newsgathering, is expensive and
both ITV and Channel 4 may need incentives (eg cheaper spectrum
or multiplex access, more prominent positioning on the EPG) post
DSO to continue investing in it.
1 October 2007
1 Market analysis of the UK TV industry begins at p
17. Consumption data referred to is published in full in Annex
2 to Ofcom's 2007 New News, Future News report. Back
2
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