Access key 0 - Accessibility, Access key 2 - Jump to content, Access key 7 - Jump to navigation
Skip To Content | Skip To Navigation
 

Home > Media and Analysts > Speeches and Presentations > 2006 > Aug > 21 August 2006


21|08|06

Public Service Programming

Peter Phillips , Speech at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival: Public Service Programming

Introduction

Thank you for the introduction.

I’m coming to you today with an idea about public service content:

I want to explain the idea to you, ask Anthony to give you some initial thoughts of what it might mean in creative terms, hear from Chris and Jeremy about some related issues – and then open up a discussion to find out whether you like the idea, and – if you do – get your help in shaping it.

But before I run through the idea, let’s step back and talk about:

How has public service broadcasting developed?

Television was one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. It became and remains the most important form of leisure activity, and is highly influential in culture, news and information. On average, people still spend 3.5 hours a day watching TV.

In the old, analogue, days, there were only limited ways for broadcasters to reach audiences – first one, then two, three, four, and finally five main channels. Because the main analogue channels were able to capture audiences with little or no difficulty, for commercial channels this was a lucrative place to be (what Roy Thomson of Scottish Television described as a “licence to print money”). In this world, UK governments always intervened to ensure wider benefits to society, giving broadcasters access to the airwaves in return for accepting public service content obligations – quotas and restrictions on the range, types and scheduling of programming.

Even in this old world of limited routes to audiences, competition for quality drove success: the launches of ITV in 1955, Channel 4 in 1982 and five in 1997 all brought new sources of innovation into the market, raised the bar for the existing players and developed distinctive TV propositions for viewers.

And this has had terrific results: the UK has the highest level of investment in original content per head, a thriving and competitive range of services for audiences, and a high international reputation for quality – a reputation underscored by its media exports and international awards.

Why is public service content important in the future?

But we’re now in a very different world: there were only 4 channels 20 years ago, rising to over 100 a decade ago, and around 400 today. Television is moving from the analogue into the fully-digital world. With digital switchover around the corner, the days of limited routes to audiences are well and truly over.

There is a fantastic range of content available. And increasingly that content is available not just over television but over multiple platforms. As you know very well, there are more and more ways of getting content to viewers – while linear television remains important today, it will certainly become less significant over time.

We’re already seeing this trend in the way young people are spending their leisure time. People in the 16-24 age bracket watch an hour less TV every day than the population as a whole (with a greater – and growing – proportion of non-terrestrial viewing); they use the internet for half an hour more a week; and use mobile phones more, sending over twice as many texts from mobiles as the rest of the population. Indeed unlike the rest of the population they’d rather give up their TVs than their mobiles. As you know, they’re also at the vanguard of new technology – advanced games consoles, TV over PC, MP3 players – which is one of the main reasons why they’re spending less time consuming TV and other traditional media, with newspapers and magazines suffering most. 16-24s are also the main users of social networking sites: over half using them weekly – for the rest of the population, the proportion is less than 15%. And they have correspondingly different attitudes to traditional rights issues – half of them think that accessing content in currently illegal ways should be legalised; only a third of the population as a whole would agree.

This age group is moving further and further away from traditional PSB services, which are inexorably becoming less important in their lives. And the children of these audiences will grow up in the post-digital switchover world – that could be a generation with no understanding of PSB as we know it. These are important changes – where today’s young audiences go, mainstream audiences will go in the future.

Does this mean that continued public intervention is irrelevant or doomed to failure? I think not – rather, there is a different rationale for continued intervention in content – not just in television. A major Ofcom research programme showed that four purposes – not that different from Lord Reith’s inform, educate and entertain – continue to be widely supported by people in the UK as the basis for ongoing intervention to deliver benefits to society:

It is clear that the market can – and in the future increasingly will – provide content that meets these core purposes: Sky News, channels such as Arts World and the History Channel are just some examples in the traditional TV world – and we’re seeing more and more user-generated content amongst communities of interest in the new media world. So we’re not saying that the market will not deliver, rather that even in the future it will not deliver enough. That even in a fully-digital world, there will be under provision of content that meets these purposes. Our research found that current levels of provision of public service should be maintained going forward in order to deliver on viewers’ interests – in a system based on competition for quality amongst a range of providers. However, market trends mean that – without new approaches to public service content – the amount of programming meeting these purposes is likely to decline.

To ensure that public service content is distinctive – that it really is adding to what a well-functioning market would provide – Ofcom believes that public service content needs not only to meet those public service purposes but also show some demanding characteristics:

In order to deliver these broader social benefits, it is vital that public service content doesn’t just have a marginal impact. It should be both entertaining and challenging – popular and setting a benchmark for quality, originality and innovation. If audiences don’t want to consume it, then the intervention will not be worthwhile.

But one thing will remain as true in the future as it was in the past – that competition is crucial to drive quality in the provision of public service content.

In linear TV, there will still be public service content competition – though with a different balance – amongst the BBC, C4, ITV and five. On the new platforms, the move to the “web 2.0” world is bringing with it greater emphasis on interactivity, user-generated content, and social networks. The BBC is already developing a presence in some of these areas – but it is quite possible there could be little effective competition to the BBC to provide the best public service content in the new media world. The Government, Ofcom and the BBC all recognise that would be undesirable. That’s where the idea I spoke about at the beginning comes in, and it’s to that idea that I will now return.

What is the PSP and why is it relevant to the interactive entertainment industry?

Last year Ofcom proposed creating a new publicly funded organisation – which we called the Public Service Publisher (the PSP) – to provide that competition in public service new media. It would commission public service content but not be tied to a traditional linear TV model – it could distribute public service content across platforms, covering a number of areas that deliver public value. It could commission content from a wide range of organisations. And it could partner with other bodies such as libraries, museums, galleries or the education sector. We think it should be based outside London too to help it reflect the whole UK and support national and regional production.

We suggested it might have a budget of up to £300m a year and that the contract to run the PSP would be tendered every five years. There would be an open competition to run the PSP, with a range of organisations able to bid – only the BBC would be excluded, as one of the core objectives of the PSP would be to ensure that the BBC faces competition for quality.

This is where you come in. The creativity of the UK interactive entertainment sector has driven its great success – and you already have many of the necessary characteristics that traditional broadcasting lacks: a deep understanding of interactivity, personalisation, and portability. So you have many of the core skills to help make this idea a success. And as you know in areas like education, which are likely to be central to the PSP, interactive gaming has already been shown to be a powerful tool. So there is a real opportunity here: as I mentioned at the start, people in this room could provide content for the PSP – and indeed some of you might leads bid to run it.

The PSP remains at an early stage. Since we first proposed it, the Government has welcomed further work on the subject. We have recently begun to develop the PSP concept further and have involved a number of creative people from new media to help us understand exactly what the PSP could do. Anthony and others have been heavily involved in leading this process, and I’m delighted that he, Chris and Jeremy are going to take you through their visions of the PSP. And after they have spoken, I’ll be keen to hear your thoughts on the PSP in the discussion that follows.

Thank you


Back to top Back to top


Further information

Help

Keep up-to-date