We emphatically believe that Public Service Broadcasting cannot be left to the BBC alone. We are very struck by Ofcom's prediction that by 2012/13 the BBC will receive 91% of all PSB funding. A continuing plurality of public service broadcasters should be an aim of public policy. This is particularly crucial for news and current affairs.
BBC presenter Justin Webb has said the media needs to look again at how it covers politics and the way it holds people to account in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union.
Webb, one of the BBC Radio 4 Today team, spoke out after Oscar-winning film producer Lord Puttnam criticised the BBC’s coverage of the European debate as constipated and effectively hamstrung by its own strict rules on impartiality.
TV’s failure to properly scrutinise Boris Johnson’s EU claims a ‘criminal act’
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Webb said some people who campaigned to remain in the EU had felt let down by the media’s coverage of the debate before the the historic poll result on 23 June. “A discussion about holding people to account, a discussion about impartiality in the modern era, is one I suspect the broadcasters would rather welcome, if only to sort out their own thinking,” the BBC’s former North America editor, wrote in the Radio Times.
“And it should not be a discussion left to newsrooms and editorial offices and university journalism departments: it really should matter to us all.
“One of the clearest messages during the referendum campaign was that audiences were hungry for real knowledge. People wanted to go beyond claim and counter-claim so that they could work out what was true.”
The aftermath of the vote has been marked by leading leave campaigners backtracking on claims made before the vote, such as the pledge by Vote Leave to spend £350m “sent to the EU every week” on the NHS.
EU referendum: Corbyn criticises media focus on Tory divisions
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Webb wrote: “Some of those on the losing side think they were let down. The Oscar-winning film producer Lord Puttnam is among those who wonder if impartiality rules torpedoed the search for truth: he accused the BBC in particular of providing ‘constipated’ coverage.
“The impartiality question is a reasonable one to raise – and it is one the BBC has grappled with on subjects such as climate change, where most scientists are on one side of the argument but some very feisty campaigners think they’re wrong. But the question has to be part of a wider debate.”
Puttnam, the former deputy chairman of Channel 4, said last week that media as a whole had failed to tackle the “Monty Pythonesque vision of Europe” which he said had been allowed to go unchallenged for the last 30 or 40 years.
Puttnam himself had been one of the driving forces to change the way the BBC reports on climate change.
The BBC’s former director general Greg Dyke echoed Puttnam’s thoughts at the launch last week of a report into the future of public service broadcasting. “I understand exactly why they ended up reporting it the way they did, because there’s people with stop watches and all the rest of it, but the result I thought … was a little bit dull to be honest,” said Dyke.
Webb said: “We tend to regard campaigning as promising policies or aspirations that can be tested against the facts of the real world. A combination of forensic interviewing and zealous fact-checking strips away the nonsense and allows the public to make a balanced choice.
“Seriously? In the modern world, this is not necessarily what happens. It is a truism to say we’re post-ideological: we don’t vote tribally for ‘the workers’ or ‘toffs’, based on a love for socialism or capitalism. It is equally cliched to talk of post-factual debate, where no one accepts the version of reality presented by anyone but their own side,” he wrote.
“Our real problem might be that we are entering, as the Americans seem to have entered, an era of identity politics where the politicians, the campaigners, are seeking by a process of nods and winks to let you know: ‘Hey, this is where you belong. Your people are here.’”
In the United Kingdom, the term 'public service broadcasting' refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interests. The communications regulator Ofcom requires that certain television and radio broadcasters fulfil certain requirements as part of their license to broadcast. All of the BBC's television and radio stations have a public service remit, including those that broadcast digitally.
History[edit]
The BBC, whose broadcasting in the UK is funded by a licence fee and does not sell advertising time, is most notable for being the first public service broadcaster in the UK. Its first director general, Lord Reith introduced many of the concepts that would later define public service broadcasting in the UK when he adopted the mission to 'inform, educate and entertain'.
With the launch of the first commercial broadcaster ITV in 1955, the government required that the local franchises fulfilled a similar obligation, mandating a certain level of local news coverage, arts and religious programming, in return for the right to broadcast.
The next commercial television broadcasters in the UK, the state-owned Channel 4 and S4C, were set up by the government in 1981 to provide different forms of public broadcasting. Channel 4 was required to be a public service alternative to the BBC and to cater for minorities and arts. S4C was to be a mainly Welsh language programmer. Neither was required to be commercially successful as Channel 4 was subsidised by the ITV network and S4C received a grant from the central government. However, Channel 4 was later restructured under the Broadcasting Act 1990 to be a state owned corporation that is self-financing and from 2013 the BBC took over funding for S4C.
![Lords Launch Report Into Online Threat To Public Service Broadcasters Lords Launch Report Into Online Threat To Public Service Broadcasters](/uploads/1/2/5/7/125750936/271320061.jpg)
When the final analogue terrestrial broadcaster, Channel 5, was launched in 1997 it too was given a number of public service requirements. These included the obligation to provide minimum amounts of programming from various genres, minimum amounts of programming originally commissioned by the channel and of European origin, and maximum limits on the number of repeats.
Future viability[edit]
The advent of digital age has brought about many questions about the future of public service broadcasting in the UK. The BBC has been criticised by some for being expansionist and exceeding its public service remit by providing content that could be provided by commercial broadcasters. They argue that the BBC can distort the market, making it difficult for commercial providers to operate. A notable example of this is the Internet services provided by the BBC.[1]
However, those who defend the BBC suggest that the BBC needs to provide new services and entertainment, to remain relevant in the digital age.[2]Furthermore, there are also questions about the public service commitments of the commercial broadcasters. All commercial channels that broadcast solely on digital platforms do not have public service requirements imposed. After digital switchover many of these channels will have the same coverage as the analogue commercial broadcasters. This has raised the question of how the analogue commercial broadcasters, with their costly public service obligations, will compete on a level playing field with such digital channels.
ITV has been attempting to significantly reduce its obligations to produce and broadcast unprofitable public service programming, citing the increased competition from digital and multichannel television. Similarly, Channel 4 has projected a £100m funding gap if it is to continue with public service broadcasting after digital switch-over. As a result, Ofcom has recently been consulting on what direction public service broadcasting should take in the future.[3]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Brook, Stephen (18 May 2006). 'Media groups unite against BBC'. The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2006.
- ^Tryhorn, Chris (14 March 2006). 'Entertainment 'vital' to BBC's future, says white paper'. The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2006.
- ^– The Ofcom Review of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) Television Archived 19 December 2005 at the Wayback Machine
Further reading[edit]
- From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Communications, ed. Damian Tambini and Jamie Cowling (London: Institute for Public Policy Research; 2004). ISBN1860302297. Essays on the future of British public service broadcasting in digital media.
External links[edit]
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – Official site
- The BBC and the future of Public Service Broadcasting (archived from the original on 23 Jun 2009).
- Channel 4 Television – Official site
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