Media Bill

Debate between Lord Bassam of Brighton and Baroness Grey-Thompson

Committee stage
Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 25, 26 and 30, which are in my name. I draw attention to my interests in the register: I am also a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Media Group.

Whether it is Wimbledon, the Olympic 100 metre final, the Euros joy and World Cup despair of the Lionesses, or the optimism of the FA Cup, listed events have a special place in people’s hearts and memories—but how and when we watch these big sporting moments that can unite nations and encourage participation, social cohesion and pride is changing. Thanks to the listed events regime, devised in the mid-1990s, major sporting events are freely available to all audiences, especially those who cannot afford to watch sport behind a paywall—great if you can watch in real time on your TV, but currently there is no protection for digital on-demand coverage of these much-loved events. If no action is taken, anyone who wants to watch, say, Team GB on their tablet or smartphone or see the highlights could miss out, especially with events taking place in different time zones.

At Tokyo 2020, the gold medal-winning performance by BMX specialist Charlotte Worthington was watched by just 400,000 people at the time, as it happened overnight, but in the days that followed different forms of short-form coverage of the race generated nearly a tenfold increase in views; and, while the TV reach to the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham was about 20% lower than for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, there were around six times more on-demand views of digital clips. Soon, digital and on-demand viewing will be the norm for watching legends being made. Looking beyond Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032, could Great Britain’s medal successes be behind a paywall?

Now is the time to not miss the opportunity. The Media Bill offers a once-in-a-generation chance to protect these moments for all of us, however, whenever and wherever we watch, and I am seeking to bring the regime up to date to safeguard the future of listed events for the next generation. The new clause will give enhanced regulatory protection so that these shared national moments are available to us all, making sure the benefits of watching on your TV in real time are afforded to clips and highlights, and will allow for time-shifted viewing, enabling people to watch on tablets and smartphones; and it would secure, where possible, adequate digital on-demand coverage of listed events made available free of charge to us here in the United Kingdom.

Audiences are changing. For Wimbledon in 2023, BBC coverage was streamed 54.3 million times on iPlayer and BBC Sport online—a new record. The men’s singles final peaked at 11.3 million on BBC1, with streams up by 58% on iPlayer, and the women’s singles final peaked at 4.5 million on BBC1, with streams up by 85% on iPlayer. For the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, 12 million watched England’s Lionesses versus Spain on BBC1, with an additional 3.9 million streams on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online. There were 25.7 million streams on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online across the tournament—a 75% increase on the 2019 World Cup.

It is not just the BBC that wants to see this. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee recently concluded that

“digital rights should be included as part of the listed events”

and an independent report commissioned by Ofcom last year concluded that

“as expectations about the availability of live and secondary coverage of sporting events of national interest changes, we think that the current linear TV-centred regime risks failing to take into account the increasing popularity of secondary coverage”.

We know the Government recognise the issue and consulted industry a year ago, yet nothing has been done. Please do not let this opportunity pass. The time to act is now.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a large group, as the Minister said in his opening comments, dominated mainly by government amendments. We are grateful to him for his explanation of the effects of the amendments, which we broadly welcome, although we have some questions about them. In particular, I would like a more precise understanding of the meaning of the Minister’s Amendment 19; I had hoped it might make our Amendment 29 irrelevant, but I do not think it does. All of us in the Committee are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for tabling Amendments 25, 26 and 30, and I look forward to hearing something positive about them from the Minister.

We on these Benches have two amendments in this group: Amendments 29 and 31A. Amendment 29 would have one simple effect: it is designed to make provision for the coverage of listed events, which is not the same as live coverage. As the noble Baroness has explained, the position regarding the Olympics is, frankly, ludicrous: unless you are able to catch the live coverage of an event, you cannot view the same event on catch-up TV or in an edited highlights programme. Where the Olympics, a World Cup or similar events are in time zones that are 12 or 13 hours different from the UK’s, the position is even more ridiculous: sports fans are forced to become insomniacs—and worse—to watch blue-ribbon events within the Olympics programme. I am sure that was never the intention when the listed events regime was created, and I hope that we will hear from the Minister today that this peculiar state of affairs will be put right.

Amendment 31A seeks to insert a new clause. This reflects the concerns brought up by internet providers about the quality of listed events in the face of competing demands on our internet system. As we consider these changes to listed events, it is important that we also consider the audiovisual quality of digital delivery. Our frameworks must ensure good reliability to support a viewing experience worthy of the importance of these live events. Can the Minister answer the question that the new clause asks about how we ensure that listed events get their fair share of internet infrastructure as we see the digital share of television viewing rise further? That is especially true for listed events but it is worth asking more generally as well.

In the same vein, Amendment 30, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is of course one that we support, although it seems to be a more belt-and-braces version of our own. I am not wedded to a particular form of words, and if the noble Baroness has spotted a deficiency that requires plugging and her amendment achieves the same end as ours, we will happily support it at a later stage.

We are sympathetic to Amendment 31 from the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Cricket misses out in terms of coverage, and that is surely the minimum that we should expect for this much underrated summer game. Test and one-day format cricket have the ability to capture the national mood and imagination, and the nature and rhythm of cricket, with its rolling narrative, is surely worthy of a more advanced listed billing. I have never understood why test matches are not listed; the Ashes series, with its long national rivalry involving Australia, certainly should be. As a devoted cricket fan and participant in 60-plus seasons, I make a strong plea to your Lordships’ Committee to listen to this argument. I appreciate that my case is highly subjective but the recent Ashes series in the last 15 to 20 years have been compelling, and there is a compelling case for this event to be listed as well.