New research published today shows that investment in Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) programming is falling.

The report reveals that the five main PSBs have spent nearly 15 per cent less on original UK programmes over the last four years, down from £3 billion in 2004 to £2.6 billion in 2008.

Ofcom is required by statute to assess the designated public service broadcasters, taken together, in terms of their delivery of the public service purposes as set out in section 264 of the 2003 Communications Act.

In Ofcom’s third PSB annual report we measure spend and the number of hours of PSB programming broadcast on the PSB channels, and how many people watch and what they think of PSB.

New model

The report also shows that the total hours of UK original content broadcast on the five main PSBs fell by 3 per cent between 2004 and 2008 to 33,177 hours a year.

In our recommendations to Government on the future of PSB, published in January, we said that the UK needed a new model to deliver PSB in the digital world.

Today’s report reveals the extent of the decline in investment in PSB programming. Between 2004 and 2008:

• spend on new UK- produced Children’s TV by the commercial PSBs fell by 70 per cent, down from £42 million to £11 million;
• the BBC spend on Children’s programmes fell by a fifth from £97 million in 2004 to £77 million; and
• overall spend on UK network news and current affairs fell from £289 million in 2004 to £250 million in 2008.

The report also shows that fewer hours of programming were broadcast and watched in Children’s programming:

• the number of hours of new UK- produced Children’s programmes broadcast across the PSBs, including CBBC and CBeebies, was 919 hours in 2008 more than half the number of hours broadcast  in 2004 at 1,887 hours; and
• the proportion of children’s viewing of Children’s programming on the PSBs fell from 47 per cent in 2004 to 36 per cent in 2008.

And in nations and regions news:

• overall investment in nations and regions news by Channel 3 licensees (ITV, stv and UTV) fell by a quarter from £162 million in 2005 to £121 million in 2008. Spend on the BBC’s nations and regions news also fell during this period, by 15 per cent from £220 million in 2005 to £186 million in 2008;
• the total amount of nations and regions news broadcast across Channel 3 licensees fell across the UK from 4,486 hours in 2004 to 4,155 hours in 2008, and increased slightly on the BBC up from  4,742 to 4,945 hours during this period; and
• viewing of nations and regions news on the BBC fell everywhere, except in Northern Ireland, with overall share of viewing down from 30 per cent in 2004 to 28 per cent in 2008.

TV viewers

The report also shows that viewers’ overall appreciation of the PSB channels has increased over the last two years.

This is against the backdrop of a rapidly changing UK television market, including the continuing growth of multichannel and pay TV, and non-linear viewing such as digital video recorders, iPlayer and video on demand services:

• some 63 per cent of viewers believe that the PSB channels offer well-made, high quality programmes in 2008, an increase of four percentage points on the year;
• over two-thirds (67 per cent) of viewers thought that news programmes are trustworthy in 2008 compared with 62 per cent in 2006 and 64 per cent in 2007; and
• some 67 per cent of viewers thought that the PSBs covered big national events – such as sport, music events and news – well. This is up from 64 per cent in the previous year.

Read the full report.

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Tags: BBC, Broadcasting, Channel 4, Digital TV, Five, ITV, PSB, TV