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The death of public service broadcasting?

Monday 8 April 2002
Printable version

Speech to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce

Discussing the death of public service broadcasting at the time of the funeral of the Queen Mother, might seem inappropriate but in fact it is at times of national and historical significance, as we find ourselves at the moment, that the role, expectations and cohesive nature of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is thrown into sharp relief.

Few here this evening could doubt how much the Â鶹ԼÅÄ participates in and contributes to the corpus of British history after the events of the past week. The sheer scale, skill and ambition of our coverage demonstrate our purpose as narrator for the nation and the world.

For it has not just been about reporting history but also recording it through documentary highlights in primetime, online and in radio.

However, the reach of public service broadcasting is far beyond simply these major national and historical events and encompasses other aspects of everyday life.

And, I would argue, in an age of increasing media fragmentation, the need for a publicly funded public service broadcaster is more relevant than ever.

As Tessa Jowell made clear in her speech at the Westminster Media Forum last month, the concept of public service broadcasting is far from dead.

Commercial nay-sayers, who envision a digital future, where every niche will be served by commercial broadcasters, with the Â鶹ԼÅÄ merely plugging the gaps, have ignored the real purpose of public service broadcasting.

The reality is that as channel choice extends, so commercial PSB requirements start to disappear.

As Tessa Jowell noted, public service broadcasting is about communality of experience. It is about celebrating and nurturing diversity and developing creativity in every segment of society. Equally, and where my own area lies, it is concerned with broadening peoplesÂ’ horizons.

A point firmly made in the midst of the solemnity and spectacle of the Queen MotherÂ’s passing by her great grandson Prince William when he revealed that he and Harry had taught the Queen Mother to click her fingers like Ali G and say "respec" to the Queen.

I suppose after Ali G in Da House weÂ’ll now get Ali G in Da Palace.

Informing, entertaining and educating without a preachy, didactic bent is a fundamental purpose of public service broadcasting in the 21st Century and something the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is fantastically well set up to do.

Because public service broadcasting is more than an economic or regulatory matter - it is, in the MinisterÂ’s words, "A matter of culture; profoundly, it speaks of what kind of country we are."

And that country today is culturally complex - it can accommodate humour like Ali GÂ’s and the mystique of royalty and sombre ceremony.

The cultural complexity of todayÂ’s Britain is increasingly reflected in the growing range and diversity of its broadcasting structure.

In the last twenty years, we have gone from a cosy old pals network of three public service broadcasters with mass audiences to a new digital world, in which half the population can choose from over 200 television channels, we can access the world wide web and will soon have hundreds of digital radio channels.

Oh yes and now more than 80% of the population now has a mobile phone and they are sending millions of text messages to each other every day.

This growing choice and complexity leaves us, I would argue, with a clear choice - if we want to ensure that quality range and diversity can flourish, then public service broadcasting and a publicly funded broadcaster, free from the constraints of commercial market pressure, is essential.

The move to the digital environment has inevitably meant a fresh look at regulation of this burgeoning and increasingly inter-connected industry. It is worth remembering that both the Â鶹ԼÅÄ and ITV share common ground under the proposed new Ofcom structure.

So why the necessity for us to keep editorial independence through the "back-stop" powers of the DCMS, rather than Ofcom?

The fact is that because of the unique way the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is funded, its core remit and the fact that it is subject to parliamentary oversight and legislation, means you cannot place it on a par with a mobile telephone operators - however much our critics might wish it to be.

The way in which we fulfil our core remit obligations under the Royal Charter, to inform, educate, entertain, may have changed - there would be something wrong if it hadnÂ’t - nevertheless the founding principles remain sound. That charter, incidentally, is very short and the reason for that is simple - for most of the 20th century the Â鶹ԼÅÄ has defined public service broadcasting.

In the modern world there is also a fourth purpose to public service broadcasting - connectivity. The Â鶹ԼÅÄ is the only serious tri-media - TV, radio and online - broadcaster in the world and connectivity underlies everything we now do.

It is a key point for modern public service that I shall return to.

If informing the public is one of the cornerstones of public service broadcasting, then news is the actual foundation.

Last weekÂ’s preposterously contrived media furore, over the allegedly insufficiently dark colour of Peter Sissons tie, shouldnÂ’t detract from the massive role that Â鶹ԼÅÄ News plays in British cultural life and its equally vital role globally.

If I can offer a few facts - Â鶹ԼÅÄ News has the largest global newsgathering operation of any broadcaster with 58 bureaux, 13 of which are in the UK. It provides news output across 15 outlets and 60% of all tv news and current affairs viewing in the UK is to Â鶹ԼÅÄ News.

The key is that Â鶹ԼÅÄ News maintains a volume, scale and quality of coverage that is second to none. This is especially important during major news events when the majority of television news viewers consistently turn to the Â鶹ԼÅÄ for coverage.

This was demonstrated during the tragic events of September 11, more than 33 million people watched News 24Â’s coverage of the terrorist attacks in New York.

And it is significant that our television coverage of the events leading up to the Queen MotherÂ’s funeral attracted three times as many viewers as the commercial broadcasts.

However, informative public service broadcasting, and in particular news and political coverage, does face real challenges.

The Â鶹ԼÅÄ recently initiated a study into the public perception of politics and political commentary called Beyond the Soundbite.

The study was very revealing, it suggested that many of those under the age of 45 are disillusioned with conventional politics and political coverage and feel disconnected from both. Both Parliament and the Â鶹ԼÅÄ are considered part of this remote establishment.

So how do we tackle this? We cannot sit back and watch the foundations erode. How do we engage people with politics and develop new ways of doing political programmes alongside our established programmes

One way to do this may be drama - a British West Wing perhaps? - to specifically appeal to the under 45 audience. We are also looking at how the interactive medium might be used to connect the audience with political debate, improving Parliamentary coverage and reflecting the increasing importance of local politics in the UK.

Current affairs and documentaries are crucial to informing audiences and a commitment to key journalistic programmes such as Panorama and Question Time as part of our peak schedule is essential. But how to reach those wider audiences?

Innovation - a core purpose of public service broadcasting - provides one answer and new current affairs programming in the past year has included current affairs singles at 21:00, Macintyre -style investigations, 4X4 and drama-documentary ties ins such as Smallpox.

Entertain - this is in many ways the most difficult area because it is where consensus, if it ever existed - breaks down completely.

I know what I like but I couldnÂ’t possibly account for your tastes is the major difficulty facing regulators - wherever they sit.

Even when they have decided where to draw boundaries, those boundaries are constantly shifting. It is a societal issue - and broadcasters are at the sharp end, particularly if you still regard us as mirror to society.

In her Fleming Lecture last month, at the Royal Television society, ITC head Patricia Hodgson won predictable headlines when she drew a contrast between what she perceived as the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s participation in a ratings war, with the screening of Celebrity Sleepover and the more clearly defined PSB success of Blue Planet.

She said: "It (the Â鶹ԼÅÄ) should accept the challenge to make the market, that is to make it different from what it would be if the Â鶹ԼÅÄ didnÂ’t exist. Beating ITV with Blue Planet is a triumph! Beating it with Celebrity Sleepover is a tragedy!"

Yet the television critic for the Daily Express and Daily Star, Charlie Catchpole, who is paid to understand the popular taste of his millions of readers, struck a different note and I quote: "Celebrity Sleepover proved to be more provocative and informative than the title would indicate, offering a real and unflinching psychological portrait of individuals shed of their celebrity facades."

So who is right?

Are regulators the best guardians of culture or can the audience decide for themselves?

The Â鶹ԼÅÄ is often accused of pursuing a long-term trajectory of dumbing down, by listening to what the audience wants and providing accordingly. And our entertainment content is most often quoted as proving this.

I remember once reading a history of British television, in which a producer talked of introducing an American to the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s Head of Light Entertainment in the 1960Â’s.

In amazement the American turned to his friend and said - "So does this mean you have a Head of Heavy Entertainment as well?"

So dumbing down, surely one of the laziest clichés in journalism, is a complex issue and has taken on a variety of meanings.

But often the criticism has more to do with changing society, lifestyles and expectations than fact.

ItÂ’s not just the Â鶹ԼÅÄ under fire by the way.

Recently both the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery have been accused of "Dumbed Down Disasters" for their recent supposedly "populist" exhibitions.

One was Mario TestinoÂ’s exhibition of celebrity photographs, the other an exhibition of Genoese baroque painting.

And that is the point isnÂ’t it? Like other great cultural institutions, a public service broadcaster has to stay relevant while having a cultural span that can schedule a Top of the Pops or Celebrity Sleepover at one time and Simon SchamaÂ’s History of Britain or Blue Planet at another.

However, relevance should not be confused with dumbing down.

Quality programming for everyone is absolutely relevant and there is nothing dumb about producing quality popular programming.

Take the quality of dramatic writing of EastEnders - even if soap operas are not to your taste.

EastEnders is popular because it is good and making the good popular and the popular good - to quote Huw Wheldon - "has been a core purpose of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ since its foundation."

Indeed the Evening StandardÂ’s former television critic Geoffrey Phillips said that todayÂ’s EastEnders would probably have had Dickens as a scriptwriter, as it follows so closely DickensÂ’ own episodic structures, featuring often extreme characters and tragic action.

The Â鶹ԼÅÄ should be the standard bearer of public service broadcasting in its ability to provide high quality, entertainment for everyone.

And it is vastly popular, for by definition public service must be seen and listened to by millions of people, otherwise it is narrow or niche casting.

The real danger to a public service broadcaster here is that it is forced into narrow areas of content and a more conservative approach by over regulation and the special pleading from vested interests.

Take criticism of our arts coverage as evidence of the decline of our PSB commitments.

That arts remains central to the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s output, is reflected in our highest ever expenditure in the genre - £53 million in 2002/03 - or nearly three times as much as ITV and Channel 4 combined.

Indeed, our flagship channel Â鶹ԼÅÄ ONE shows more factual, education and arts hours than five or ten years ago. We have recently launched Â鶹ԼÅÄ FOUR because of our belief that cultural coverage of breadth and depth is vital in the new multi-choice digital world in addition to, not instead of, arts on Â鶹ԼÅÄ ONE and TWO.

And when we are accused of dumbing down it is worth recalling how our entertainment schedule has changed with the support of the licence fee.

In 1972, American imported drama was a staple of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ peaktime schedules, accounting for 220 minutes of peaktime programming.

Today they have all but disappeared.

Peaktime programming on Â鶹ԼÅÄ ONE, apart from films and sport, is now filled with original UK production.

That is our own UK culture, with British writers, stars, values and quality.

Quite simply, if we were to produce low quality entertainment, we would fail to deliver the public service remit. Ratings are an indication of our success in delivering quality to a mass audience but they not the driver.

The trouble is that a lot of the other qualities we value arenÂ’t so easily measurable and are, if anything, even more important.

They are to do with ambition, innovation and inspiration; making a statement; taking risks and pushing boundaries; giving people a voice; allowing creative talent headroom; trusting that talent so you let their passion for a project silence your own doubts.

Which brings me to the third part of our public service broadcasting remit.

Education is the area that defines the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s public service - an area where we produce hundreds of hours of programming every year, where we have won many awards and the respect of the education sector.

What we have not won is wider recognition. If education hasnÂ’t featured in the dumbing down debate, well that - almost - is something for regret. I would like the public to regard the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s education services as fundamental - and therefore as controversial - as its news and entertainment.

But there is the beginning of a shift here. We are now putting a new emphasis and a new interpretation on the PSB obligation.

When Greg Dyke joined the Â鶹ԼÅÄ, he devoted his first public speech to education, recognising that education is more important than ever in shaping the prosperity and stability of the nation and setting out the major contribution the Â鶹ԼÅÄ could make to the "knowledge society".

Part of the reason for educationÂ’s low profile in the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s public personality has been uncertainty about what we mean by education. We know for example what we expect from the Â鶹ԼÅÄ by way of high quality, absorbing and intelligent documentaries. But education?

In 2001 the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s most ambitious, popular and inspiring project was a factual documentary series that received unanimous praise - so I make no apology for reminding you of it and in doing so illustrate the way that education, like public service broadcasting itself, is evolving to remain relevant.

Blue Planet video

As one commentator said, thatÂ’s why I pay my licence fee. Our viewers seemed to agree. The programme attracted almost a third of the available television audience and one week reached over 16 million.

Compare that with Jacob BronowskiÂ’s Ascent of Man shown on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Two in 1973 - and seen by less than two million a week.

BronowskiÂ’s programme was no less in quality than AttenboroughÂ’s and has remained a landmark for 30 years.

However, I expect if you ask anyone under 30 what they know of it they will look fairly blank.

The fact is that it was right for its time, just as Simon Schama and David AttenboroughÂ’s programmes are right for ours.

But entrancing though the Blue Planet is, what has it to do with education?

It is true that broadcasters have sometimes agonised over what is and is not education.

Some would define it narrowly and esoterically, yet at the same time others have taken a broader approach - both, I would argue, are an essential part of public service broadcasting.

But there is also something new happening here - and it leads directly from the ideas expressed in GregÂ’s first speech.

You will have noticed that I followed the Blue Planet programme clip with an animated trail for the website.

Go there and you will find interactive learning, building on the facts introduced in the programme, and linked to short courses in marine biology from Hull University and the OU.

This trebled hits to the natural history site - during transmission there were nearly three-quarters of a million a week - and over 600 people, the maximum that could, have done the university course.

What we are doing is using television and radio in a new way - to engage peopleÂ’s interest, and then encourage them to go further. We maximise the educative value of our programmes, by drawing on the existing relationship with the mass audience.

And what traditional educator wouldnÂ’t envy the numbers that we can reach?

For the Â鶹ԼÅÄ, this has required a new approach - an acknowledgement that education in the broadest sense is not the work of a single department. In theory - and increasingly in practice - we can weave the learning element into virtually any sort of programme. And we do so from the initial conception of the programme - the learning is not tagged on as an afterthought.

This has particular relevance to services for children, where we believe it is not helpful to have a harsh dividing line between education and entertainment.

In the past our programmes came from two separate places - the childrenÂ’s department and the education department - although there was always a certain amount of seepage - how else could you explain a programme like Blue Peter?

We are now exploiting that crossover even more - and the results have included Teletubbies, Tweenies and Tracy Beaker. This approach also informs our recently launched new childrenÂ’s channels.

DonÂ’t think weÂ’re trying to pull a fast one on our younger viewers - these programmes are first and foremost entertainment - we are not trying to extend the classroom into the living room. But I see it as entertainment with added value - which, I believe, is another defining mark of public service broadcasting.

To many people, the Â鶹ԼÅÄ as educator may not seem a very seductive proposition. But we can interpret our obligation in different ways - by encouraging people to explore, beyond that to participate, and only beyond that to learn.

Exploration is illustrated most obviously through Blue Planet - literally an exploration of the deep. ItÂ’s what we can also do in many areas of science, history or current affairs. It means exciting curiosity and an appetite for knowledge - and that is evidently something broadcasting has all the resources to be superbly good at.

Participation is about motivating people - and here we are working on new projects to encourage participation in sport, music, the arts and citizenship. The Â鶹ԼÅÄ acts as catalyst, reaching beyond the programmes and the websites, working with grassroots partners.

Learning - fully-fledged learning - is perhaps most readily understood as education from the Â鶹ԼÅÄ - whether this is programmes for schools, the FE sector or the OU.

We will soon be submitting a proposal to Tessa Jowell for a digital curriculum - a multi-media resource stretching across the curriculum, available at school or at home, developed in partnership with teachers, the curriculum authorities and other content providers.

We believe this will make a significant difference to the experience of education.

Learning is also about a skills portfolio for adults - and here we have worked with the education sector to support literacy and numeracy, and internet literacy. In its first six months last year, 5,000 people completed the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s Becoming Webwise course and were accredited.

That leads me to our fourth implicit public service broadcasting obligation that I talked about at the beginning - to connect.

It is no longer enough to see the Â鶹ԼÅÄ as bountifully handing down information, entertainment and education to a passive audience. New technology means the audience can answer back.

And they do - the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is involved in a two-way relationship as never before - whether through websites, or contact centres - which receive around two million emails and calls a year.

One area of public service broadcasting that has been central to the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s purpose since its inception - indeed was the Â鶹ԼÅÄÂ’s inception - is connecting with audiences through local broadcasting.

And here new technology and learning are proving a powerful, new and relevant combination.

The Â鶹ԼÅÄ is opening learning centres at local radio stations, five by the end of this year, operating them in tandem with local education authorities.

We provide the facilities and access to the learners; they (the LEA) provide the tutoring expertise. The first one opened last year in Blackburn, complete with a touring bus. ItÂ’s already drawn in over 3,500 learners.

But figures alone donÂ’t tell the complete story. Listen to what the people have to say.

Video - Blackburn Learning Centre

The benefit of public service broadcasting, which the Â鶹ԼÅÄ has exemplified for 80 years, is to try out different things, to innovate, to experiment and to take risks.

Sometimes we get it wrong. Not everything will work. Mostly we get it right.

At its best public service broadcasting can offer people new understanding, not just of the world around us, but of ourselves.

So I believe therefore that a public service broadcasterÂ’s biggest mission in the early 21st century must be to help extend human experience, to reveal us to ourselves and to ensure that what we offer our audience is as relevant to them today as it has been in the past.

And we should also try to be entertaining.

Tomorrow will see a more sombre side of our output, as well as the most spectacular demonstration of the relevance of public service broadcasting, to the culture and traditions of this country.

Viewers and listeners will engage and connect with a unique moment in history.

ThatÂ’s because we remain a living medium.

Thank you.

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