Media Bill

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 46 and 47 are in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. We had a bit of a knock-around on “prominence” at Second Reading—was it “appropriate”, “significant” or, as the right reverend Prelate ventured, neither? Indeed, he was right; the word itself should be enough, for the Oxford English dictionary defines it as

“the state of being important, well known, or easy to notice”.

We want the PSBs, on any screen that offers choices between PSBs and streamers, to be important, well-known, and very easy to notice. It is vital, as commercial operators do not always want us to choose the PSB, because their gods are commercial. As we know, things can get very small and difficult on-screen when customers choosing it means less income—think about how hard it is to find that tiny “unsubscribe” notice when we want to get out of emails from some commercial arrangement we no longer want. It is not in commercial entities’ interests to make life easy for us; that is why we have to mandate and prescribe “prominence”. We on these Benches do not believe it is sufficient to leave it to Ofcom to define. I have heard the arguments about “appropriate” being perfectly adequate, and we beg to disagree.

For clarity, I am trying to get across that we on these Benches believe that prominence must be defined in legislation to guide Ofcom, and not be left open-ended for it. That definition should be crystal clear: that in every and any situation where channel choice is being offered, the PSB logo or whatever should be of equal or greater prominence to any other choice offered on the electronic programme guides.

The dangers of not specifying what prominence means or seeks to achieve in the Bill could include a loss of funding. PSBs often rely on public funding or subsidies to fulfil their mandate of providing programming that serves the public interest; without prominence, they may struggle to attract viewership and advertising revenue, leading to financial difficulties that could jeopardise their ability to produce the sort of high-quality content we want them to. PSBs may find it challenging to reach a wide audience, particularly in a crowded media landscape where viewers have numerous options for their entertainment; that could lead to a decline in their influence and relevance, making it harder for them to fulfil their role as a source of impartial news, educational programming and cultural content.

The public service mandate could be undermined, as PSBs are tasked with providing programming that serves the public interest, including news, current affairs and educational content. Without prominence, they may struggle, and their content may be overshadowed by commercial broadcasters or streaming services prioritising profit. It could also be a threat to media diversity and cause a loss of trust and accountability. Lastly, if public service broadcasters are not given prominence in a democratic society, there are issues around this that could arise: an erosion of media pluralism, a threat to freedom of information, diminished public discourse, a loss of accountability, and the undermining of democratic values, social cohesion, education and lifelong learning, and cultural preservation.

As this is a probing amendment, I encourage the Minister to think about bringing back his own amendment as an instruction to Ofcom in dealing with prominence, to say that, however it writes it regulations, PSBs must have equal or greater prominence than any other offer on the screen.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords, summing up from these Benches on the amendments in this group, I congratulate those who have spoken, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It crossed my mind as I was about to stand up that on the first day in Committee I was congratulating and following a prima ballerina and today it is an Olympian—which rather reduces my sense of myself. I am sure the Minister will agree that it is a remarkable example of what the Department for Culture, Media and Sport produces that we have as great legislators these great sportsmen and artists.

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[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Baroness has said apart from the language point. Why is “significant” an improvement on “appropriate”, when neither of them are defined? “Significant” has to mean significant of something—we might think that it just means “a lot”, but it does not. It is as meaningless as “appropriate”, indefinable and cannot be quantified.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

To my mind, “significant” is very different from “appropriate”, which is a wishy-washy, woolly term, whereas “significant” is a specific term.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, it is not. If we went around the room and asked, “Please quantify it, or tell us what it means”, I think we would—

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

What word would the right reverend Prelate use?

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

I have struggled with it, but “substantial” or “substantive” might get us somewhere, rather than something that does not actually mean anything. The General Synod of the Church of England has a similar problem; it put “collegiate” in some recent legislation when it meant “collegial”—it had nothing to do with colleges. I worry about putting things in legislation that cannot be defined.

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Debate on whether Clause 31 should stand part of the Bill.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest that I was a TV journalist and executive and worked for the BBC and ITV and made programmes for Channel 4.

We on these Benches are pleased that this Government’s attempt to privatise Channel 4 failed. However, one of the conditions of that attempt, removing its publisher-broadcasting status and allowing it to make its own programmes, has made it into this Bill as Clause 31, which we oppose.

As has been pointed out often to the Minister from these Benches, Channel 4 was created in 1982 by a Government led by Margaret Thatcher. Channel 4 certainly succeeded in fulfilling her business and economic philosophy, in that our world-beating independent production sector owes a huge debt to its creation. As for whether Mrs Thatcher was quite so happy with its creative content, I suspect not.

Channel 4 was conceived as a publisher-broadcaster, not like the BBC/ITV duopoly which existed at that time and made its own programmes in its own studios, but commissioning entirely from what was then a small and innovative band of producers. As a consequence, the television industry in this country diversified as it provided new and exciting opportunities to creative entrepreneurs throughout the UK. In the TV world, it empowered and nurtured small independent producers and start-ups—the companies we were talking about in our first debate today. It played a pivotal role in driving the growth, competitiveness and creative diversity of UK indies. These companies were one of the UK creative industries’ greatest success stories.

Channel 4 invests a greater proportion of its revenue in independent UK commissions than any other PSB or commercial broadcaster, and its publisher-broadcaster status has also meant that Channel 4’s commercial revenues are reinvested in UK content production. As well as being the incubator of our thriving independent production sector, Channel 4 is also the broadcaster of “Channel 4 News”. One hour of in-depth news and current affairs at the heart of peak time on a commercial channel is unheard of anywhere else.

And then, of course, there is its pioneering coverage of the Paralympics. I believe that Channel 4’s championing of this event has led to a worldwide change in the attitude towards disability—a view confirmed by Dame Sarah Storey on Radio 4’s “Desert Island Discs” this weekend about her experience at the Beijing Olympics. She revisited Beijing a year after the Olympics and went to a disabled sports club where she was told that the transformation in the way the disabled were treated in Chinese society was immeasurable.

Due to its expansion of digital channels, Channel 4’s viewing demographic is young and diverse. We believe the cost of establishing a new in-house production outfit would disrupt its business plan—these things that it has achieved—and take money away from commissioning from others.

I do not think we should change Channel 4. It was conceived for a reason: to grow the UK independent TV sector and to represent the voice of minorities. It has done that spectacularly. Channel 4 is a vital part of our creative economy, providing invaluable support to smaller independent production companies throughout the nations and regions, although, as mentioned earlier, this needs to be underpinned. It is a platform for exciting new programming, quality news and current affairs, and pioneering coverage of the Paralympics. Why change its remit?

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I too oppose Clause 31. Channel 4—what a brilliant initiative, how extraordinary, and what a success. It is a cauldron of innovative and original talent, fundamental to our brilliant, creative country, providing a stream of talent for use by all the others, streaming, literally, into our country. It was created to foster competition and innovation in the broadcast sector, and it did. The approach allowed independent production companies to compete for contracts to create programmes rather than relying on in-house production by the channel itself—an approach the Government now seem to want it to adopt. In that independence, it still had to maintain high editorial standards, ensuring accuracy and impartiality and fairness. It had to reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom and to fulfil certain public service obligations to educate, inform and entertain with social responsibility. That model, rather than an in-house production facility and staff, enabled Channel 4 to operate efficiently.

Of course there are challenges. Channel 4 itself had become a bit reliant on production companies that have now grown big, but it is a cauldron of creative opportunity. Right now it is not having the easiest of times, but if it was producing in-house, cuts would be swingeing and challenging. As a commissioning body, it can better cut its cloth to meet the vagaries and ups and downs of its and our economy.

If the Government’s desired change were to take place, it would reduce the opportunities for independent producers, impacting the diversity and range of voices represented. It would risk creative stagnation. It would have financial implications and require investment in additional production facilities, staff and resources at a time when it is cash poor. And any shift in its programming strategy would impact its ability to attract and retain audiences. There would also be an impact on the independent production sector if this significant source of commissioning independent production companies were to be reduced, particularly the smaller ones and the ones producing risky and innovative content.