Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland for a great speech with a lot of interesting points; she is clearly knowledgeable about this issue and her points get to the heart of the matter.
My own view is that I doubt very much whether this local TV solution will work or have any benefit. At the end of the day, the market will determine what will happen—and that market will come from the internet, not free-to-air. There is no broadband provision for the delivery of local TV via these franchises. That is deeply concerning. Obviously, broadcasting simply on Freeview negates not only broadband, but cable TV, Sky TV and any other media platform, such as mobile smart phones, on which we might receive local news.
Graham Jones: I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s point. At this moment, linear TV has an advantage in its capacity to carry, but that negates the point that broadband television is expanding fast and that what we have today will not be what we have in five years’ time, and certainly not in 20 years’ time. In passing legislation, we must look forward. I dare say that the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion looks just at the present rather than the future. I am going to address some of his other concerns and say why I believe that things will not work in that way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland made a perfectly valid point. When I came to this place, my concern on this matter was the failure of Manchester TV. It was an established operation with a huge urban area—one of the largest urban catchment areas outside London—and yet it failed. It was professional and had everything that we could wish for. It had the platform to drive advertising revenue. Why did Manchester TV fail? It did not just fail overnight in some catastrophic collapse; it regressed very slowly as it tried to make local TV work. It ended up with a very small service and eventually it folded. The ambition withered over a long period. The point is that it tried desperately to make local television work. It was not that the owners decided that it was a loss-making business and that there was no future. My hon. Friend made the point that that has happened with Channel One in Liverpool, and it has also happened in Kent. The successful television channel in Grimsby has used a completely different model in its approach to local television, which is more bottom-up than top-down.
I am concerned that the well-funded regional television stations represent a reduced ambition and that we will have a monopoly supplier in each area. We have been reduced to 20 stations and there will be no competition; I dare say that there might not even have been an expression of interest from the 24 that have been identified beyond that. There is a deep concern that the situation is gravitating towards failure. The Secretary of State suggested that there would be 65 stations, that there would be a plethora of interest and that this would be a huge success, but that idea appears to be withering rather fast. We will end up with monopolies in areas, and my hon. Friend mentioned problems relating to those. I shall touch on one or two of them, although she did that far better than I will.
On monopoly, format and ownership, my hon. Friend said that the provision for Ofcom to supervise or regulate ownership and content is unclear and that question needs answering. Not only does it need answering, but it needs answering in the affirmative. Ofcom must be involved in regulating, because monopolies are a real danger to our communities. The News of the World example succinctly sums up the problem. I know that it is no longer a newspaper title, but if it were involved in delivering local television, it would not serve our constituents well. Everyone I believe understands the issues behind that type of ownership and what occurred.
One of the issues about format is that local television has been reduced to being delivered in a one-hour period. Presumably, the remaining 23 hours will be delivered through a national delivery mechanism, and that really concerns me. My hon. Friend said that delivering 23 hours will be a disservice, because it will, effectively, be the equivalent of Channel 6. In addition, it would effectively attract a national provider rather than those interested in the local community. The opportunity will be to present 23 hours of national television with, by the way, one hour of local provision. Is that not where we were with Channel 3, ITV and regional delivery? There is a grave concern that we are skewing the playing field towards large, commercial providers and effectively moving towards Channel 6 and nothing else.
I am concerned about impartiality of the news. Nothing in the statutory instrument secures independence. Who will decide the news? How will monopoly provision of news in the 20 pilot areas conflict with advertising and its revenue and owners? Will quantity be put before quality in advertising? Will we end up with an American experience in which local television is driven by shock jocks and not by true civic programming, which, as the Minister tried to explain, reflects the communities’ concerns, cultural interests, and traditions in the locality? I am deeply concerned about that.
On public money—we have heard that the sum will be £80 million—I am also deeply concerned that some £40 million is being taken from the BBC. This is therefore not about private enterprise and private money; this is about the BBC and public money. If someone does not live in one of these 20 areas, they are paying the licence fee but not receiving a service. It really concerns me that some people in some areas will pay for something that they are not—
Graham Jones: As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland says from a sedentary position, those were pilots, and I do not want to be distracted by that issue. I want to focus on how the general public will see this. They will understand that their licence fee letter drops through their letterbox, that it is to pay for the BBC, and that they will not receive local television channels. Those three stages are how our constituents will perceive it. Once again, the urban areas or possibly the south or the wealthy areas—those that can fund it—are taking advantage of public money over those areas where there is not the capacity, the will or the means to deliver, but they will still pay for it.
The Minister mentioned varied content, and I am interested to find out what he means by that. I will highlight the issues to do with content delivery. I am also concerned that the local cross-media ownership rules were relaxed in the Media Ownership (Radio and Cross-media) Order 2011. The Minister has mentioned the United States, and my hon. Friend made the great point that there are huge differences between Spain, America and the UK. My experience involves Clear Channel. Local and college radio in America has congealed around two or three providers, including Clear Channel, which may not have a monopoly but it is certainly part of an oligopoly, and it may have a monopoly within that oligopoly on college radio stations. It has effectively become a channel 6 of radio in America. That is a big issue, and, as in America, we will see the aggregation of provision and the large providers moving in. We will not see what we all hope for in this Committee, which is local people and local interest representing the community that is covered and content that is meaningful to that local community.
It appears as though the licences will be offered through a beauty contest—I think my hon. Friend used that phrase—and there is concern over who is applying for the licences. She asked many questions about not only who will apply, but also the criteria and how it will actually pan out.
I want to touch on advertising revenue. As I have said, there is a problem with not only the relationship with the owners, but also the fact that there is a monopoly owner, and the fact that other advertising avenues exist, so advertising revenues will be spread, which will affect newspaper titles. As we have seen in America and as is now happening in the UK, newspapers diminish and their number recedes, which is a deep concern. We will all be fishing in a puddle if we do not watch the revenues. It is not just the relationship, but also the amount that is out there and whether local TV can be supported. As was said earlier, local TV apparently cannot be supported. The market is saying that and three big ones that I am aware of have collapsed, so perhaps only the smaller-scale models exist. Will the Minister reflect on that and on what is or is not successful? I urge him to consider a bottom-up process, in which we think far more locally than nationally.
To touch on the top-down view, there is a question about the infrastructure suggested by the Minister. I am concerned that MuxCo will be the monopoly provider of the backbone. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland made some good points about the relationship between the Government and MuxCo, about the fact that MuxCo have such a monopoly and how that will impact on the delivery of that airspace, and about whether MuxCo will have any ownership over any hours not taken or used by local television.
To conclude, I fear that this will be a carve up for the big boys. In setting the legislation, the Government are living somewhat in the past or in the present; they are not considering the future. There is an assumption that local TV will have a clear field by having provision on Freeview, but I do not think that that is true. As I have mentioned, all the other delivery platforms will expand in the next 20 years. It is foolish to believe that local television has a clear field on Freeview and that there will not be a market or alternative providers. Broadband delivery will undermine local TV—if it is viable, it will take off and ultimately destroy local television.
The reality is that we will see the launch of internet televisions this year from Apple, which will be successful, and from all the major providers, who will provide a seamless way to watch television. People will have a remote control and they will not know whether the delivery is by free-to-air, cable or broadband. By the time companies such as Apple have finished delivering a product, the delivery will be so seamless that the average person will not know the difference. They will not understand whether the BBC is delivered by broadband or over the internet, and the same will apply to every other channel. There will be an homogenisation of delivery for the viewer experience, which will open the market up completely. The so-called monopoly or advantage for Freeview, free-to-air or any other delivery network will be eroded.
With that, innovative supply-side software will feed internet television. People in their bedroom will be able to create a programme, a television station and a schedule and to slot in all sorts of programmes. That will undermine the principles of the Minister’s suggestions. The increased broadband speeds that I have mentioned and, crucially, lower costs will also undermine the proposals, as will private sector innovation in broadband delivery.
Finally, there is a snobbishness or an aloofness about the need for quality programming. On a cold day, home-made TV enthusiasts in Hyndburn made a local history documentary about a park, and 150 people travelled down and packed out my local library to watch it. I do not believe that people consume programmes if they are high quality and do not do so if they are not. That is the wrong way to look at it. It is a top-down industry view. A bottom-up view is that people are interested—not necessarily in quality, but in information—so such an assumption is wrong. In my constituency, each and every time there is a presentation or a video release in the local library, people turn up to watch it. They would also watch such programmes on internet television and that will undermine the Governments plans presented today at this committee for local TV. It is an arrogant assumption to believe only in top-down television; it should also be bottom-up.
We are talking about £80 million of public money, some of which is being taken away from the BBC. That is why the issue is of interest, rather than just a matter of market forces.
0 comments:
Post a Comment