A brief update on Stephen Carter's evidence to the House of Lords committee on Wednesday, which received no coverage, plus 3 brief observations. The main points were:
- Top-slicing the licence fee. Very clear that this is currently just a proposal. Underlined that the decision has not been made.
- But very clear that funding needs to be found for a regional news presence which is impartial (first time that I heard impartiality being emphasised)
- the policy decision applies to an enabling power to create local consortia and to extend impartiality rules to cover them.
- top-slicing is therefore being seen as a means of funding alternative sources of impartial news at local/regional level. But happy to look at other means of fund-raising if suggestions are put forward.
- local/regional news would have first call on the £135m thus made available post 2012. Other content (children's, drama, factual etc) would be fighting for any left-over scraps.
- there does not appear to be any plan B for C4 if the BBC Worldwide partnership falls through (not his exact words, more "let's wait and see").
- not keen on any levy ideas. Argument was that every country has a different culture of intervention and that £3.6 bn raised through the licence fee + gifted spectrum etc is the UK's way of doing it.
- the UK viewer is well served by UK content, and the balance is shifting away from mainstream TV quicker than we realise. There will be "unrecognisably different ways of consuming content" within a couple of years.
My observations:
1. Arguments against other creative fund-raising ideas such as levies on recording devices or on ISPs were unconvincing. Any concrete information on how the per capita value of UK intervention compares with other countries would be extremely valuable.
2. He has an exaggerated view of changing consumption habits which is contradicted by all available evidence (e.g. even in Virgin homes, over 90% of viewing is live and linear). Much of DB is predicated on this erroneous vision of a revolution in consumer behaviour which will, by implication, gradually remove any need for regulatory intervention as viewers become customers. It is not happening. Any evidence to that effect will be important.
3. There is still time for those opposed to top-slicing to make effective representations. There is implicit acceptance that the argument for supporting journalism at local/regional level is clearly separate from the argument on how to fund it. Those keen to support the former need not support top-slicing the BBC as a funding mechanism; but more strenuous efforts need to be made to convey the benefits of other, more creative methods of intervention.
Finally, on point 2 above, I'm particularly concerned by par 8 of chapter 5 of DB. It is proposing to redefine PSB to include all "public service content" however delivered (including, by implications, paid-for content). This undermines the whole philosophy of universality.
Hope that helps. Happy hols to everyone.
Steve
Prof Steven Barnett
Professor of Communications
School of Media, Art and Design
University of Westminster
Watford Road, Harrow
Middlesex HA1 3TP
Direct Line: +44 (0)20 7911 5981
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