Does public broadcasting stifle commercial enterprise?

A question that is asked on a number of occasions in this country is the effect that public broadcasters have on the market.

Critics of the BBC will argue that it distorts the market,something that I have written about numerous times.

Robert Pickard takes a look at this very question in the United States as WGBH Education Foundation—operator of WGBH-TV, the highly successful Boston-based public service broadcaster announces that it will purchase the commercial radio station WCRB-FM.

As he points out

Were WGBH a commercial broadcaster, those who hate big media would be howling in protest, arguing that it puts far too much control of the airwave in the hands of one organization and that the concentration will create market power that harms competition. But they are strangely silent.

It does have similar parallels with criticisms handed at the BBC.For example the purchase of the Lonely Planet organiation springs to mind

If competition among commercial firms, between commercial and non-commercial firms, and among non-commercial firms is good for pluralism and diversity, cannot concentration and reductions in sources of news and entertainment due to acts of large not-for-profit firms also harm competition, pluralism and diversity?

Ht-Adrian Monck

Fed up with the Beeb,take a look across the Atlantic

A staunch defence of public service broadcasting from Marina Hyde in the Guardian this morning.

It is an argument that has been used often before,just take a look at America.

To give the uninitiated a flavour of Fox's output, it is fair to class it as the network where American Idol is the equivalent of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation

What crisis? No crisis says Martin Le Jeune

I have just had a quick flick through the preamble from the Centre for policy studies report out today "To inform, educate and entertain? British broadcasting in the 21st century."

It is a fairly damning attack on the BBC from Martin Le Jeune,a former head of public affairs at Sky who maintains that

if the market is providing more – and it is – then the state should do less.

The state of course being the BBC and Channel 4 which has a very limited role to play in the age of multi-channel television

“A lot of capital has been invested in the idea of saving PSB plurality. Some sort of deal will be stitched together in the next few weeks to ensure that a second PSB broadcaster survives, probably by reengineering Channel 4.
Nonetheless, this effort is futile. And the principle behind it is misguided. The effort is futile because it flies in the face of market trends and can at best keep a new entity afloat for a few years. But the principle is also wrong. There is no longer a need for an alternative PSB provider.

The headlines from the report are that the media medium is being adequately looked after by the free market and that the public service broadcaster should simply fill in the gaps that are missing.

How the BBC may benefit from the recession.

One effect of the recession may be to tighten the BBC's grip on public service broadcasting.

That is according to Philip Stephen's who writes in the FT.

As the recession wreaks havoc on the finances of ITV and other big commercial broadcasters, the licence-fee-cushioned BBC is set fair to secure a monopoly over public service broadcasting.

What the downturn will create is a concentration of service propped up by the move to digital platforms and the need to maintain a state funded quality news service.

Interesting though he talks of Mark Thompson's trick

which has been subtly to recast the licence fee bargain. The tax, he has argued, is justified not so much by quality of programming but by the BBC’s “reach” into every household in the land. What the corporation has aimed for, in other words, has been ubiquity ahead of quality.

First thoughts on the OFCOM proposals

By all accounts the long awaited report by Ofcom into public sector broadcasting which has just been released is high on rehetoric but low on solutions.

It recognises that the model is broken but fails to give a solution on how to fix it.It gives ITV what it wants in terms of public service committments but fails to provide the solutions for replacing that service.

It has rejected the top slicing argument and believes that Channel 4 needs to merge but doesn't give the answer to whom it merges with,only saying that it could be BBC Worldwide or Channel 5

Oxfam and Polis warn of the death of International news

I have just been reading Oxfam's report on Public sector braodcasting and international news.

Jointly published with IBT and POLIS , it warns

that international coverage is in danger of disappearing from the British TV screen in the next four years unless radical new measures are introduced by public service broadcasters and OFCOM

.

Written by former BBC executive Phil Harding it says

“The lack of creative commitment and the failure to translate promises about international coverage into meaningful actions means that British television is sleepwalking towards a global switch off. From the credit crunch to migration to climate change, understanding the world around us and the forces that shape it has never been more important. The tragedy is that no one denies the importance of international coverage but at the same time seems prepared to do something about it. This report is a wake up call to senior decision makers to act before it is too late.” and introduces a 10 point plan to rectify the situation

4 at the crossroads

James Robinson takes a hard look at Channel 4 in this morning's Observer.

There is no doubt that the Channel stands at a crossroads.As Robinon points out

C4 suffered a year-on-year adult audience decline of 3.8 per cent in 2008 - down 7.0 per cent for ABC1 adults and down 7.4 per cent for 16-to-34s. The channel has also seen its own audience's age profile change - the 16-to-34 group has dropped to 26.9 per cent of viewers, a 4.0 per cent decrease year on year.
Channel 4 has also seen a drop in its daily average reach, to 15.4 million, a decrease of 5.8 per cent. Its most high-profile and commercially lucrative programme, Big Brother, this summer suffered its worst ever figures, averaging three million viewers and recording a 14.9 per cent audience share, down 0.6 million and 2.3 per cent on last year's show

So to the solution or solutions and

Channel 4 is under no illusions about the scale of its decline, appealing to the government for an annual £150m subsidy to ensure its survival

So is privatisation the answer?

A sale would mark the end of an era for one of Britain's most controversial organisations; if the government auctioned it off, it would almost certainly be snapped up by a rival, and its remit to make provocative programming - and keep the BBC on its toes - could be lost.

But if not what is the answer.Whichever way it goes extra cash is going to be needed and with advertising unlikely to fill the gap and the top slicing argument off the agenda,the only alternative is government money

No suprises from Ofcom

So the news from Ofcom is not unexpected.It seems that ITV would have gone ahead anyway being forced into the corner due to lack of funds.
Nevertheless the cut in local news output will mean job cuts,the NUJ reckon on a figure of 500 and some areas of the country being deprived of a certain amount of local news.

The regulator has agreed to ITV's request to cut news programming form the current 17to 9 regions as well as cuts in non news programmimg and production of programmes from outside the London region.
Perhaps more importantly the regulator thinks that both ITV and Channel 5 could well be free of all its public service obligations by 2014.

For Channel 4 the news is grim with estimates that it will have a funding deficit of around £100m a year by 2012 rejecting the idea of the so called "top slicing2 of BBC licence fee money.

You can read the full review HERE

Problem-How do you replace $700m in advertising

I have blogged about the Sarkozy revolution in French public sector broadcasting before.If you recall the French President is trying amongst other things to ban advertising on the countries public broadcasting centre.

The question though remains,where does the sector replace the $700m estimated revenues.

Over at Ft.com they ponder the reasons behind the move

Cynics suggest he is simply trying to use the controversy to deflect attention from far more serious problems. Others accuse him of wanting to strengthen his overall control of the media by also proposing that the French president should in future appoint the head of the state broadcasting body.

Unlike the British model,Sarrkoi=zy will not raise the additional money from the license fee.Instead he is expected to raise the tax on the privbate sector which as the advertisers flow to them will no doubt exhibit greater profits.But will the plan work?

He who pays the piper calls the tune

You can now look at the report of Pcw into the economic impact of the BBC on the UK and creative and broadcasting sector

Here are its conclusions,not suprisingly he who pays the piper will call the tune and the report overall concludes

Whilst the primary purpose of the BBC must be to deliver quality public service broadcasting in an efficient manner, the size and scope of the BBC means that it generates a significant economic impact within the UK’s creative sector. That impact, through the funding provided by the licence fee means the BBC is mostly additive to the broadcasting market and does not draw revenue away from commercial providers.

Some of the conclusions


1.

The stable funding of the BBC, through a long-term licence fee, is a privilege for the BBC, but also a vital source of stability for the whole UK broadcasting industry

2.

The BBC generates around twice the economic value of the licence fee invested in it

3.

a substantial reduction in or removal of licence fee funding would serve to reduce the available funding for the broadcasting sector as a whole. Indeed, a commercially funded BBC would simply serve to draw advertising revenue away from other broadcasters

.

4.

Although the study looked for negative impacts, there was limited evidence of these and of them being clearly attributable to the BBC

4 bids to broadcast regional news

Hats off to Channel 4 who have announced that they intend to enter the world of regional Television news as ITV begin to vacate it.

Guardian media are reporting that

The broadcaster has held preliminary talks with both Ofcom and ITV over the matter, which could see Channel 4 invest funds in regional news services and infrastructure.
Channel 4 is considering the move after becoming concerned that ITV's retreat from regional news could affect its own coverage of the nations and regions.

The move will also surely help with the Channel's desire to aquire some of the money that goes to the BBC in funding public sector broadcasting

Channel 4 fears politicians may not agree to any new PSB settlement that does not safeguard regional news provision.
The move into regional output would also bolster Channel 4's public service credentials and safeguard the quality of its national news programming, as well as boosting its case to Ofcom for extra funding

PSB-The French way

As the debate continues over public service broadcasting in the Uk,it may be prudent to take a look at what is happening over the Channel in France.

Follow the media looks at what is calls the Sarkovision as the French president who has admiited that if he had not become a polititian,he would have started a Tv channel,looks to stamp his mark on the French broadcasting system

since January,he has been on a crusade to reform French public broadcasting in its totality. A presidential commission chaired by Jean-François Copé delivered its plan last week. The two most apparent steps to that reform are changes in organization and finance.

But one area of note has been the backward steps in its independence from the state,including,

that in the future the French president would name France Télévisions chief executive.

Unlike the Uk,French Psb contains advertising and Sarkozy is keen to eliminate this by

Ad revenue lost to French public broadcasting would be made up by a 3% tax on private broadcasting revenues, as much as €80 million. In addition – and not inconspicuously – telephone (not limited to mobile operators) operators and internet service providers will be charged 0.9% of their revenue for the support of public broadcasting. And that bill – certainly passed on to consumers – would add as much as €380 million annually.

Note suprisingly the private sector is up in arms as it willbe footing the bill to subidise the PSB sector

Bazalgette's comments-heard before but what about hard news standards?

I read with interest Peter Bazalgette's comments last night to the royal televison society.The person that inflicted Big Brother amongst other things on the nation sets out an array of proposals aimed at the funding of public service content

These include privatising Radio's 1,and 2 as well as Channel 4 and releasing ITV and channel 5 from certain of its public service obligations.

I am sure that we have heard all the arguments before and as Guardian Media reports

Increased competition in the digital age, changing consumption habits and emerging new technology have all made the status quo unsustainable, resulting in a vigorous debate over the future of the licence fee, how to fund Channel 4 and whether ITV and Five can be held to their existing obligations.

Of cause what this will do to the status of hard news coverage on public sector broadcasting is not discussed.ITV are already under attack over attempts to cut back on news reporting.Would a privatised Radio 1 provide a service such as Newsbeat which aims to target youngsters with hard news.

What the media sections are saying

The Independent carries an interview with the Beeb's Mark Byford who the paper says is "overseeing a critical rebranding of the corporation's journalism."

News 24 is disappearing, to be renamed the BBC News Channel. And the global channel BBC World will henceforth be known as BBC World News, just to remind dozier viewers exactly what it does. John Humphrys on the Today programme has been told to say "here is the BBC news..." and the news section of the BBC website already carries the fresh branding.

says the paper.

The rebranding exercise is to Byford a response to

"Linear television programmes – the Six the One, the Ten - are inevitably in steady decline. They're not in decline in the sense that they're not important, they're absolutely critical, but when I joined the BBC in 1979, the Nine O'Clock News and (ITV's) News at Ten were getting much bigger audiences than the Ten O'Clock News and the News at Ten now.

adding

"We are holding on to [audience] reach but recognise that we have got to increase in some platforms as others inevitably decline. If we stood still and never shifted we could go down to 65 per cent over 10 years. Well, as a publicly-funded licence fee organisation where journalism is its absolute bedrock, reach is critical. The public own the BBC, they pay for it, so we've got to touch everyone."

Over at the Guardian,Peter Wilby asks whether Roger Alton can turn the Indy around and Peter says that the paper is definetely at a low point

Though the headline circulation is 246,000, its full-rate UK circulation is a mere 144,862, roughly half that of the Guardian and nearly 300,000 behind the Times - which it once briefly overtook.
Its Sunday sister, which sells 115,231, is in even more dire straits. The two papers lose several million pounds annually. Their influence in Westminster, Whitehall and other power centres is close to zero

He doesn't believe that Alton has the capabilities to re define the paper whose:

difficulty has always been that it lacks a coherent constituency. Though it's generally regarded as being on the left, this is not consistently reflected in its leaders and comment pages, where the diehard Conservatives Dominic Lawson and Bruce Anderson are among the strongest voices

but

Only a fool would write him off. He will be working in an unfamiliar environment with far more limited resources than he was used to at the Observer. He will inherit a paper that many in the industry think is doomed

At the same paper Steve Hewlett looks at Ofcom's pronouncments last week saying that whilst the license fee.

debate gets lots of attention, other really significant aspects of what Ofcom's findings mean for public service broadcasting (PSB) in Britain are in danger of being missed.

and that is

we see a PSB future - in three scenarios out of the four that Ofcom presented, at least - without ITV as a public service broadcaster at all.

In the Independent Steven Glover ponders Tesco's action against the Guardian and concludes

the more I look into it, the more it seems to me that The Guardian has exaggerated its claims that Tesco has avoided paying tax, and even got its taxes in a muddle. More remarkably still, the Guardian Media Group is itself guilty of a tax avoidance scheme similar to that which has aroused its ire in respect of Tesco. Is hypocrisy built into The Guardian's DNA?

Finally Jeff Jarvis writing in the Guardian has good news for bloggers

Some people think I'm nuts for blogging when I could be doing real work (as if writing newspaper columns were the only real work). They ask me how much money I make directly from my blog and the answer is: not much. But to me, the blog is worth a million dollars - or more - for it brings me value in many other ways. So I thought I'd give you an accounting of that worth.