Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/13/itv-television
Opinion
Regional news needs ITV but, currently, ITV doesn't need it
* Steve Hewlett, The Guardian, Monday October 13 2008
He described himself as a man on a diving board, with the water draining
from the pool, eager to go in but told to wait. Michael Grade's message
was clear - if you don't absolve ITV from virtually all its historic PSB
regulatory obligations - and soon - the water will have drained from the
pool and the diver will meet a tragic and grisly end. Leave us alone, he
said, and we will continue to invest in high-quality UK content. Let
regional news - characterised as a complete commercial basket case by
ITV - be provided by third parties (and paid for by someone else) and
give ITV everything else it wants, and it might consider allocating such
programming slots in ITV's schedule. Fail to cough up and ITV will
simply hand back its licences and sail off into a fully digital world
where it can do exactly as it pleases with no guarantees to provide
anything of public value.
Grade is nothing if not a showman and his presentation last week to an
audience of politicians, regulators and opinion-formers was pretty well
received. And, importantly, there was some truth and even logic in
nearly everything he said. But the operative word is "some". His
assertion that reduced regulatory obligations would enable ITV to invest
more in high-end UK content just doesn't bear scrutiny. The regulatory
burdens may well exceed the benefits - and if they are not brought back
into balance ITV's shareholders might decide to hand back their PSB
licences - but decisions on investment in high-end content are an
entirely separate matter. Expensive drama either makes money or it
doesn't and that has nothing to do with whether or not regional news
obligations are relaxed or removed.
Then there's the costs of regional news and other programming that ITV
says are far in excess of the value to ITV of being a PSB. These costs
never take account of how much revenue is (or could be) raised around
regional news and information programming. ITV would doubtless point out
that they don't raise revenue round these programmes. But that's because
they've chosen to take the advertising minuteage - ie the ad breaks that
could have been around regional content - and use it elsewhere. This
might make financial sense but it makes the commercial potential of
regional programming impossible to assess sensibly. Grade and ITV
portray regional news as a pit into which they pour tens of millions of
pounds, but it could represent a real commercial opportunity. By
offering up the programme slots, as he suggested last week, but without
the right to sell advertising around them (which ITV itself doesn't
currently do), Grade really is having his cake and trying to eat it.
The unfortunate reality is that in all these discussions, ITV has the
whip hand. Why? Because no one can deny the legacy of audience reach and
the impact of 50 years of virtual monopoly. It is this position with
audiences in the nations and many English regions that Ofcom, rightly,
sees as crucial to maintaining really effective plurality and
competition to the BBC. If ITV decides to hand back its licences and
take its ball away, all that legacy goes with it.
So now where are we with ITV? In the nations of the UK, access to the
ITV network schedule is essential if plurality in news is to be
maintained. In the English regions, access to slots on ITV network with
the right to sell advertising around them could underpin the development
of a whole generation of new regional and local multimedia news and
information services. ITV might also sign up to renewed commitments to
national news and UK programme investment. But if the "regulatory
assets" possessed by ITV will be worth only £45-50m by 2012, as Ofcom
estimates, the starkly simple question will be: what, if anything, might
ITV be persuaded to do for the money?
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