Voice of the Listener and Viewer (VLV) represents the citizen and consumer interest
in broadcasting and works for quality and diversity in British broadcasting.

The words in italics were edited from the speech at the last moment in order to save time and have been restored after delivery.

I am very glad to have been invited to speak at this important event.  I speak as chairman of Voice of the Listener & Viewer (VLV), which represents the citizen and consumer interests in broadcasting, but also on behalf of the voluntary sector, for which broadcasting is so important.  With only ten minutes I must necessarily be brief and selective in what I say.

Voice of the Listener & Viewer - and I - look forward to working with Lord Currie and the members of the OFCOM Board on this important project.  I was particularly pleased to hear Lord Currie say that he and his board would be reporting to Parliament and subject to scrutiny by several Parliamentary select committees because of the influential role that broadcasting plays in the democratic process.        

VLV’s over-riding concern is that the Bill ignores the public in their role as citizens.  The Bill went into its Second Reading two days ago with only a single reference to citizens - and that as citizens of the European Union, not of the UK, and with no reference at all to the needs of citizens or to the public interest.  

This is a slight improvement on the draft Bill in which the term consumer was only used in the title of the Consumer Panel, but where everywhere else listeners and viewers were referred to and treated as customers, a quite different kind of relationship based on a commercial transaction. The continuing lack of recognition of  ‘citizens’ and the public interest in broadcasting is, sadly, symbolic of a piece of legislation almost wholly concerned with the interests of commerce, for which members of the public are customers and consumers, not citizens.          

This point is of paramount importance because Britain has a long tradition of placing public service obligations on broadcasters which has enabled the public to regard them as impartial sources of information, and of education and entertainment. When commercial television was launched in 1955, advertising was used to fund a television service as an alternative to the BBC.  

I believe that the real miracle of British television has been its ability, through wise regulation, to harness commercial funding to create broadcasting services that could compete with the BBC in the quality and diversity of their programming.  And that competition, for audiences not for funding, delivered a beneficial jolt to the BBC that improved its performance to the benefit of viewers.  

Thirty years later, when Channel 4 was also created with funding from advertising, its status as a public corporation with a public service remit ensured that the delivery of programmes to viewers was its first priority.  Channel 4 was not in direct competition with ITV because ITV sold its advertising. 

Now in this Bill, despite Ministers’ claims, we see a reversal of the public service ethos.  The needs of business are put ahead of the needs of the audience. The customers referred to in the original draft are not the individual members of the audience, nor family groups, but the advertisers who have to be provided with the right audiences to enable the companies to deliver maximum profits to their shareholders. 

Note the emphasis at the very beginning of the Bill. Part 1, (3) (6) .   The general duties of OFCOM shall be to further “The interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition’.  Not a mention of the public interest or of the interests of citizens. The Bill simply re-iterates a, now largely discredited, faith that the ‘market’ and competition will provide choice and quality; it does NOT as  experience shows. 

VLV, therefore, agrees with - and supports - the first recommendation of the Joint Scrutiny Committee, that: 
OFCOM’s primary objective should be to serve the interests of all citizens.
Why did the Government not accept this? 

Our other concerns are all linked, in different ways, to the need to serve the citizen.
                                                      
First: the proposals to change the rules on media ownership and to lift the ban on 
non-EEC companies buying British media companies.  Ministers believe it would be illogical not to lift the ban when EEC companies are already allowed to do so.  

I cannot understand  why Ministers do not see the difference between companies brought up in the European tradition of public service broadcasting, and companies from the United States where broadcasting has always been left to the market.  

Where in the States, is there any parallel to the recognition given to public service broadcasting by the Council of Europe and, even more significant, by the European Union in the Protocol added to the Treaty of Rome at Amsterdam in 1997, recognising the importance of public service broadcasting and exempting public service broadcasters from certain competition rules.   

Why is the British government so keen to push though immediate, irrevocable change in the ownership of British media when it can offer no proof that either additional investment or better corporate practice will result?  The American companies most likely to bid to take over British companies actually invest less in their own domestic market than do the British companies in the British market.   What makes Ministers  believe they will invest more in British production than they do at home?  And what better corporate practice will companies like WorldCOM, AOL-Time-Warner or the Disney Corporation bring to the UK?  
  
Equally, if not more disturbing, is the proposal to abolish the limits on cross-media ownership, opening the way for newspaper interests to buy greater shares in television and radio companies and vice versa.  The objective for such concentration  of ownership must include the achievement of economies of scale, but also additional dominance of the means of communication.  What sort of response is this to the cynicism and indifference of many voters to the democratic process?  And for the  future of an informed and active democracy?

VLV’s concerns that OFCO should serve the citizen and the public interest as a first priority lead directly to our difficulties with the Content Board.  It is the quality of the programmes that will ensure the success of the government’s aims in establishing the new regulator; failure, in the shape of poorer quality programming, will have political repercussions far beyond the telecommunications and broadcasting industries. 

The Content Board is at the heart of OFCOM we are told - it is to exercise executive responsibility on behalf of OFCOM - indeed, it is part of OFCOM.  Yet elsewhere in the Bill the Board is allowed only to exercise ‘significant influence’ over OFCOM’s decisions within its remit. What a potential for conflict and bureaucratic delay!  A lawyer’s paradise. 

We welcome Richard Hooper as chairman of the Content Board and look forward to meeting him soon.  He is a member of  the main OFCOM board and will preside over perhaps ten members - four to represent the nations and regions, and six others, of whom some may be members of staff or of the OFCOM Board itself.  But  OFCOM’s representatives, under the Bill, should not, as far as practicable, outnumber the outsiders.  What does that mean?  Won’t anyone on OFCOM be able to count? 

And where will the Chief Executive of OFCOM stand if there are differences between the Content Board and its parent body? As his or her Chairman’s principal advisor, where do the Chief Executive’s loyalties lie ? 

The lack of clarity in the Bill regarding the powers and remit of the Content Board, and indeed the Consumer Panel, and their relationships with each other and the main Board, must be cleared up. 

One of the Content Board’s responsibilities will be to oversee and licence the terrestrial public service broadcasters.  But it will judge the fulfillment of their remit by taking together the provision across all channels.  What a let out that could be!  VLV is especially concerned that it will not meet the needs of the child audience. 

The BBC has - and does - a marvellous job in Children’s Television but the BBC needs healthy competition from ITV in this, as in other areas.  Children are a very special case - the future of our nation. 

We believe all terrestrial channels, but especially Channel 3, should be required to meet positive obligations in regard to the range, scheduling, and hours of original British-production, in order to counter the influx of imported material.   Satellite and cable channels targeting young British audiences should also now be required to invest a suitable amount of their revenue in original indigenous programming.

One further area where I believe that the public interest and the democratic process are not served at present is in the provisions allowing the Secretaries of States to introduce and change many key aspects of the statute through secondary legislation which needs no affirmative action from Parliament.  We recognise the need for flexibility, but it is essential that Parliament has the right to debate important proposals for change.  The ambiguity over which of the two Secretaries of State should take precedence should also be removed.  We consider the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport should take precedence in all matters to do with the content of broadcasting.  

Finally, the BBC. 
I do not agree with those who think that, to achieve a level playing-field, the Corporation should be placed under OFCOM.  A level playing-field is not an appropriate metaphor. 

The BBC is funded in a special way because, in providing the public with a wide range of programmes that cater for many different interests, often not commercially viable, the BBC  has a different job to do from the commercial operators,  who are obliged to deliver audiences to their customers, the advertisers, and profits to their shareholders. 

I personally believe that the BBC is now at risk of becoming over-competitive.  I recently heard Greg Dyke described as a man who considers a nil-nil away draw to be a defeat.   The BBC should be less aggressively combative, perhaps try less hard to be all things in all fields. 

But the principle of public service broadcasting, buttressed by the licence-fee, has served our democracy well and must continue to be allowed to do so on both publicly and commercially funded channels.  Unless it is changed, we believe the Bill risks destroying that very precious heritage.  We look to Lord Currie and his Board to preserve it and we look forward to working with them in fulfilling that important task.

Key points:  
           1. the Bill’s lack of reference to OFCOM’s duties in regard to citizens 
               and the public interest. 
           2. the dangers of opening British media companies to foreign ownership          
               and of permitting greater concentration of cross-media ownership.
           3. the role of OFCOM’s Content Board - and the protection of public service 
               broadcasting - especially when the provision is judged together across all 
               channels. 
           4. the Bill’s lack of safeguards for indigenous children’s programmes. 
           5. the powers of Ministers to change legislation and the ambiguities contained 
               in the Bill about which Minister takes precedence in a dispute.
           6. the need to retain the independence of the BBC governance outside OFCOM

Telephone: 01474 352835.
Fax: 01474 351112.
E-mail: vlv@btinternet.com

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