Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 200)
WEDNESDAY 11 JULY 2007
Mr Chris Shaw and Ms Sue Robertson
Q180 Chairman:
Having had your flagship on at 5.30, why are you, an hour and
a half later, going to have another half-hour programme?
Mr Shaw: I think that it will be a very different
programme. We have been running that pattern for three years now
and we are reasonably happy with it; but we are obliged to run
102 hours of news between 6.30 and ten, in peak, six days a week.
There are not that many other places you would care to put it,
though we have tried quite a few, including 8.30, 6 p.m. and,
briefly, 7.30 p.m. It has performed at more or less the same levels
over ten years, if you track the growth of the channel and the
size of the audiences at those various points. It is a small channel,
a small audience, but it is a loyal audience. To put it in context,
our audience share at 5.30 p.m. is very similar to Channel 4's
audience share, i.e. the percentage of people watching the news
on that channel as a percentage of the total available audience.
Q181 Bishop of Manchester:
Would that pattern that you are describing over the ten years
be roughly the pattern for the other genre in the channel, or
is news falling behind?
Mr Shaw: No. I have had this work done a couple
of years ago, which showed that news audiences are rather less
promiscuous than audiences to other types of programmes. One of
the crucial factors is what is on against you. We do not tend
to do that well when we are head-to-head with another news programme,
which we have been at seven o'clock—because Channel 4 News
has been at seven o'clock since it started. Nor do we do brilliantly
well when we have a low inheritance. For example, when television
movies did very well in the afternoon on Channel 5 for many years,
we inherited audiences of around a million into our 5.30 news,
and often used to get figures of 800 or 900,000. As television
movies have lost their appeal and lost roughly half their audiences,
our users have drifted down a bit at 5.30, but not to the same
extent. So I would say that we do have a loyal core audience to
five News who like us and we want to make them more and
more loyal, because we recognise that audiences are fracturing
to all kinds of media, and particularly to news.
Q182 Bishop of Manchester:
So the change of supplier has not altered significantly the number
of viewers?
Mr Shaw: I cannot say that it has, no.
Q183 Bishop of Manchester:
What about the age profiles? Do you know from any research what
the most popular age groups are that watch five News?
Mr Shaw: Yes. Over 55—for all news programmes
actually, probably including Newsround, which is designed
for children!
Q184 Bishop of Manchester:
You referred earlier, in response to Lady Eccles, to some of the
audience research on news output. Have you done any research which
would indicate that, over the next five years, and particularly
as we move more into the digital era, there will be significant
changes to the way in which you do the news at the moment?
Mr Shaw: I think that there will be significant
changes to the way we do news. We have to restore a much more
radical point of difference with other news programming and with
other news sources.
Q185 Bishop of Manchester:
Have you any idea how that might work out in terms of five
News?
Mr Shaw: Yes, some ideas. I referred earlier
on to making those who were loyal to five News even more
loyal. We believe the way to do this is through trying to interact
more openly with our regular viewers and to encourage them, for
example, to contribute ideas and even news items for five
News. We have taken this initiative at the end of last year. We
are very happy with the way it is going and intend to expand it
as time goes on. It is called Your News. We have had over
1,000 submissions in the seven months that it has been up and
running, and we have run news reports made by members of the public
every night for the last seven months, as part of our main news
output.
Q186 Chairman:
Do I get a slight impression that, left to your own devices, you
would quite like to do less news in volume terms? I am not saying
less in quality, but in volume terms. If it was your decision,
you would not put on as much news, filling the spaces as you do
at the moment?
Mr Shaw: No, I do not think that is fair. I
think the kind of news that I have in mind—and if I am going
to make changes to the nature of our news again—it requires
more time rather than less. Curiously, we have our little updates
but, when it comes to programming, to allow news to be more discursive,
to involve members of the public more readily, it requires a bit
more time than we have at the moment. For example, our 5.30 programme,
once you have taken out the time for the adverts and so on, is
actually only about 23 minutes of editorial time. It is not a
great deal to cover the events of the world, the nation and, sometimes,
the local stuff too.
Q187 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Mr Shaw, you have referred several times, implicitly or explicitly,
to being quite a small player in the market. You have been quoted
in the past as saying that when you are a small player in this
market, in effect, you have to use what you have to get what you
need. First of all, can you say whether you think that, as a small
player, there is an adequate range of possible ways of providing
news open to you? Following on from that, as to the news provider
that you have now, you said in an earlier answer that you personally
have no direct contact with BSkyB as the big organisation; that
you deal with Sky News. However, you have also remarked on the
fact that five News is BSkyB's terrestrial platform, as
it were, for news in UK television.
Mr Shaw: "Showcase."
Q188 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Yes, their showcase. Do you have any concerns or any observations
to make about how that positions BSkyB, or how it could position
them in the future, and indeed what they might think about how
it positions them, in relation particularly to, say, the next
time the ITV contract comes up?
Mr Shaw: My personal view is that Sky will never
win the ITV news contract while ITV is a 40% holder in ITN. I
just do not get that. I also think that Sky News has been tasked
with doing what Fox News has done for Mr Murdoch in the United
States, which is to make him some money. This is my own opinion;
you would obviously have to talk to Sky about it in detail. They
understand that they have a very good brand and a very good reputation
for news supply, and I think that they think the more places they
can show their wares, the better. If you travel on One railways
from Liverpool Street, you will see that the railway station has
recently switched from BBC to Sky. That is a huge deal for them.
They are spending huge amounts of money on online and on other
platforms, if you like. We are still, by quite a long shot, their
biggest client, but they have a clear intention to try and make
a bit more money than they have done in the past.
Q189 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
You are focusing on the financial benefits that they are looking
for, but can you give us a bit more of your perspective on what
value five News specifically represents to them, not in
terms of the money they are making but in terms of what leverage
it gives them in the market in which they are trying to operate?
Mr Shaw: If I understand you right, it shows
that they can do news programmes as well as rolling news to any
potential future client; but most broadcasters, including Channel
4 and ITV, knew that they had that power. Most of the people running
Sky News cut their teeth at ITN or at BBC. 90% of the people who
work on Sky News today probably learned their trade at BBC or
ITN; so they are all part of the same basic gene pool of British
news. five News has shown the rest of the broadcast environment
that Sky can make a bespoke service without plastering their name
all over it; can make a distinctive offering out of what they
do as their core activity, which is rolling news. In that sense,
yes, they have shown other potential customers that they can do
bespoke as well as off-the-peg.
Ms Robertson: It works well for us, because
it means that if they do think this is a shop window, they are
motivated to do it as well as possible. From our point of view
they are trying hard.
Q190 Baroness Thornton:
Following on from that, can I raise the issue of public interest,
around what BSkyB are doing at the moment in terms of their purchase
of a stake in ITV, and what your view is on that? Ofcom have cited
public interest grounds and OFT have cited anticompetitive grounds,
but what is your view on what that means for this industry?
Ms Robertson: As a channel, we do not really
have any view one way or the other on it. In terms of our experience
with Sky as a news provider, obviously they have been good experiences.
We are not affected as a broadcaster one way or the other by a
17½% share that Sky has in ITV. It is not an issue that we
have any very strong feelings on.
Mr Shaw: Also, in truth they have much bigger
fish to fry than the news contract for ITV.
Q191 Lord Maxton:
If Sky are allowed the 17.9% share in ITV, first of all they become
a shareholder through ITV of ITN. They also, however, are in a
position—presumably they will get a board member and have
a shareholding, which will be a substantial percentage—to
influence the future news on ITV. It may be that they might look
to persuade ITV to ship the contract to them rather than keeping
it with ITN.
Ms Robertson: As I understand it—and I
am not an apologist for Sky—this is not an area where we
have any strong or any particular views, but I thought that ITV
had just renewed their news contract with ITN for another five
years till post-2012.
Q192 Lord Maxton:
Let me start with the first point I made. Sky will then become
a shareholder in ITN and therefore a shareholder in your competitors.
Might there not be a conflict of interest between what they provide
to you and their interest in ITN?
Mr Shaw: I just do not see it, I am sorry. It
is 17.9% of 40% on a third-party contract which does not come
up for renewal in five years' time. I find it quite hard to get
too exercised about that.
Q193 Chairman:
We will have the benefit of BSkyB. I think that it is a bit unfair
to ask you to speak for them at this stage. I have two last questions.
Channel 4 made quite a lot about its investment in investigative
journalism. Do you go down that path?
Mr Shaw: No, we are not constituted to do long-form
investigative reports. It is not to say that we do not have an
enquiring mind or a curious mindset or lots of fizz and energy,
and that we do not contribute to the protection of democracy,
et cetera; but we are not an investigative service in the same
way that Newsnight or Channel 4 are. However, we have done
investigations.
Q194 Chairman:
You have done investigations?
Mr Shaw: Yes.
Q195 Chairman:
Many?
Mr Shaw: We do not just spit out the news as
the received wisdom. All stories are examined, interrogated; sometimes
we actually go out. We have just won an award for an exposé
of the use of under-age children on ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh.
We won quite a prestigious award from the Monte Carlo Television
Festival. So we do do investigation, but it is not our hallmark.
As I say, our hallmarks are clarity, straightforwardness. It is
news that does not make you feel stupid.
Q196 Chairman:
That is very clear. You will have heard, because you were here,
Channel 4 at the end, and indeed at the beginning, basically saying—and
I do not want to put words into their mouth—that they had
this £10 million deficit and it was possible that public
support would be required for that. In other words, that £10
million would have to come from the taxpayer. What would be your
view on that?
Mr Shaw: On Channel 4 getting money from the
taxpayer? I think that Channel 4 News is wonderful. I spent four
very happy years of my own career there. Whether it is something
that should be subsidised by the British taxpayer, like the Tower
of London, I feel less comfortable with.
Q197 Chairman:
Is that a "No"?
Mr Shaw: That is a personal opinion. You will
have to ask Sue what the company position is.
Q198 Chairman:
She does not look any more comfortable than you do!
Mr Shaw: I am very happy that the BBC is supported
by the licence payer. I am less comfortable with other news services
also doing that.
Ms Robertson: As we were talking about it earlier,
you have to look at the cost of news within the totality of the
cost of all your programming. From where we sit, Channel 4 is
in a very healthy financial position, and we would be very happy
to have some of their problems—thank you very much! They
have one of the most attractive demographics of all of broadcasters
in what they can sell commercially. They have over 25% share of
advertising revenue. We have some scepticism about the degree
of financial crisis that Channel 4 seems to feel is imminent.
However, Channel 4 News is a really important part of the DNA
of Channel 4. As Dorothy was saying, it really is the most obvious
part of their PSB contribution, and it would be a tragedy if it
were no longer to be there. Whether they need some form of public
intervention to ensure that is the case, I am not absolutely sure;
but we are having that debate over the next year, as part of the
Ofcom PSB review.
Q199 Chairman:
You are not putting in for public support yourself?
Ms Robertson: We are not, no.
Q200 Chairman:
And that is a decided policy?
Ms Robertson: Yes. We have consistently said
that we do not believe that top-slicing the licence fee is the
best way of ensuring that there will be more public service broadcasting
available as a whole within the broadcasting ecology, and that
different forms of funding is a better way of funding broadcasting
in the broadcasting ecology. We do not see that setting up some
new quango—to distribute, like Lady Bountiful, a bit of
the BBC licence fee for other broadcasters to be doing some form
of public service broadcasting—will add much benefit to
anyone.
Chairman: That is very clear. Thank you
both very much for your evidence. Perhaps if there are other issues
we may come back to you on them, but we will put those in writing.
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