Adam Boulton Diary – the uncertain future of Public Service broadcasting

Downing Street “sources” provoked much excitement by suggesting that two very un-woke former newspaper editors, Charles Moore and Paul Dacre, might be just the ticket for two of the most senior jobs in British broadcasting, chairs of the BBC and OfCom respectively.

Now that Lord Moore has withdrawn from the process, only Dacre remains as a possible, but not very probable, candidate for the job as the media regulator. He shares similar qualifications to the sort of people who’ve held these posts in the past – apart from the diversity handicap of being an old, elite, white male.

Thrilling as the personality culture wars may be, Ofcom’s routine in-tray of work will prove more consequential. For the future there is the huge question of how and whether post-Brexit Britain can regulate the transnational internet giants. For now the report on the Future of Public Service Broadcasting which OfCom is due to deliver to the government by the end of this year should be of even greater concern to this nation of gogglebox watchers.

We still love our telly, watching three hours and forty-six minutes of it each day according to the BARB ratings agency this June. Of that the five terrestrial broadcasters account for the majority of viewing (54.6%), although their share continues to subside slowly.

Sky is not a Public Service Broadcaster (PSB), which probably explains why OfCom asked me to chair a discussion this week on the Future of Public Sector Broadcasting with the bosses of the big four, as part of their Small Screen: Big Debate consultation process. This was a slightly delicate task for me since together, Alex Mahon of Channel 4, Dame Carolyn McCall of ITV, Maria Kyriacou of 5 and Tim Davie of the BBC, represent pretty much all my options should things ever go belly up with my current employer.

The BBC will celebrate its centenary in 2022 with BBC TV following ten years later in 2032. From the outset governments in this country agreed that broadcasting should be heavily regulated. In exchange for a licence, broadcasters were obliged to provide “public benefit” rather than simply serve commercial interests.

This worked smoothly for decades while the BBC enjoyed a monopoly funded by a compulsory licence fee imposed in law by parliament. The concept was extended to a duopoly when ITV was allowed to start in 1955. In exchange for what one insider called “a licence to print money” through the exclusive right to sell TV advertising, ITV was required to produce certain types of content including news, local news, current affairs and religious and children’s programmes.

This PSB arrangement was extended to Channel 4, which began in 1981 and then to Channel 5 from 1997. The broadcasting requirements were progressively watered down for the independent channels such as ITV and 5. But they all kept their unique privileges for being PSBs.

These valuable perks include exclusive rights to broadcast listed sporting events such as the Olympics and Wimbledon; access at cost to broadcast on Freeview and Freesat; and “prominence” – priority placement on Electronic Programme guides, including those offered by rivals such as Virgin Media and Sky.

Today the existence of other sources of video content throws up the issues about the future of Public Sector Broadcasting. When government regulators could control access to screens it was probably in the public interest to operate the You-Scratch-My-Back PSB system. Many consider the British terrestrial TV offering to be the best in the world in terms of range and quality.

But thanks to cable, satellite and the internet, from YouTube to Netflix and Amazon Prime to Britbox, you can get all types of content elsewhere – drama, documentaries, sport, light entertainment, religion and (yes) news. It is being offered without the inducement of special privileges from government, albeit that most of this content comes with a price tag, such as a subscription, and is not guaranteed to be free to air.

As long as it is funded directly from the public, the case for the BBC continuing as a PSB is easy to make.  But in spite of my invitation to cut loose from the others the BBC Director General defended all of them remaining public sector broadcasters. He argues that they all contribute to the healthy “ecology, not a word I like to use” of UK broadcasting.

Channel 4 is publicly owned, funded by adverts. It has an independent mandate to provide “alternative” content.  Thanks to Covid and the advertising slump Channel 4 is struggling, although CEO Alex Mahon denied that it is in need either of a bail out from the taxpayer or privatisation, as some would like. In keeping with the panel’s mood of solidarity under scrutiny, 5’s Maria Kyricou declined to say whether their rival Channel 4 should be sold off.

But what about the commercial channels? Should they continue to be PSBs? ITV has had a rough time of late. It has lost 60% of its share value and fallen out of the FTSE. Dame Carolyn wants more privileges for all of them. Her wish list includes still greater “prominence” in listing and display for each PSB channel enforced on all platforms, including the internet giants. ITV has long argued that all platforms should pay it for the ITV content and adverts they convey to viewers. Dame Carolyn believes that ITV serves often neglected demographics: older, poorer and further from London.

In theory there is nothing to stop ITV being taken over by a big foreign company. Channel 5 already has been. It is now part of the American media giant ViacomCBS Domestic Media. Kyriacou also oversees international operations ranging from Australia to Israel.

This is a similar arrangement to Sky which has been part of Comcast NBC Universal since 2018. The difference is that 5, as it is now known, is a PSB. Maria Kyriacou says that, like ITV, her channel serves an overlooked demographic particularly well, children and young people in 5’s case.

Younger people no longer have the brand loyalty of their parents to terrestrial television. Some 51% of 16-34 year olds told Ofcom they could see themselves no longer watching the 5 main terrestrial channels in three years’ time. In a sense they are already legacy channels from a bygone age. The terrestrial TV signal is due to be switched off by 2040 at the latest, although getting decent broadband to remoter homes poses costly challenges.

Meanwhile, the TV advertising market is dwindling slowly and not just because of Covid. Time-shifted viewing is eroding its impact while the internet carriers are draining off much of the spend.

The BBC dominates the PSB pack and much will depend on the future financing of the corporation. Tim Davie refused to be drawn on how he thinks the BBC should be funded once the present charter expires in 2027. It seems highly likely that the BBC will move towards some sort of hybrid subscription model. Britbox, the joint venture with ITV, is already a step in that direction. If so the principles behind “free” PSB will be undermined.

It is easy to see why the hardworking and dedicated bosses at the debate want to preserve PSB for as long as they can. It is good for their organisations and, many would argue, good for viewers at home. These executives have to deal with problems from day to day and there are other things they’d like to be bothering with.

Looking to the future, however, it seems to me that the cosy PSB system is already on borrowed time, whether or not Paul Dacre is put in charge of Ofcom.

More information about Ofcom’s PSB consultation is available at: www.smallscreenbigdebate.co.uk or follow #SSBD2020.