BBC Charter Review (Communications Committee Report)

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for being a wonderful chairman and I thank my fellow committee members for the stimulating experience of putting this report together. I speak as a proud member of the committee looking into the future of one of our most valued treasures, the BBC, and I declare an interest as per the register. I want to concentrate on children’s programming and diversity.

Key figures in the children’s industry, including PACT, the Children’s Media Foundation, Animation UK and academics, contributed to this report. They called for a funding commitment by the BBC into children’s content at around 8% of the network original content spend and insisted that this should not fall below £100 million per year over the next charter period. However, it was felt that any ring-fencing of funding for children’s content before the final funding settlement for the BBC’s charter is negotiated would tie the BBC’s hands when it comes to negotiating the final funding package for BBC children’s programming.

There has been much talk of contestable funding for children’s programming, but everyone in the children’s industry, including those who gave evidence for the report, made clear their strong opposition to a contestable fund for children’s content. Nor is there any support for topslicing of the licence fee to establish a contestable fund, because of the risk of the BBC doing less and the uncertainties of establishing a fund without a clear idea of who would administer it, as well as the cost of doing so. Also, where would the content find a home? The direct and indirect costs of administering contestable funding would take money directly out of PSB content and therefore result in net negative investment. Also, it could mean that the funding would be taken from BBC’s children’s budgets or wider content budgets within the BBC. It is acknowledged that contestable funding that shifts PSB away from the BBC to other providers will most likely reduce audience reach and impact. It would be wholly unacceptable to have reduced BBC budgets to fund commercial PSB activity and there is a general consensus that contestable funding would not be an incentive for commercial PSBs to commission more children’s content.

Contestable funding has not worked when tried in other countries, such as New Zealand or Canada, where it has been criticised for being inefficient and bureaucrat-led and for commissioning low-impact and low-quality programmes. Any ring-fencing or topslicing would also impede the funding of new initiatives such as iPlay and tie the BBC down in ways that do not take into account how children’s viewing habits are evolving, as the introduction of the dedicated and highly successful BBC children’s channels CBeebies and CBBC has shown.

Investment in PSB UK original children’s content has declined sharply over the last 10 years. Spend has fallen by 95% since 2003 and it will not be long before there is little of our excellent children’s production sector left. If this decline is allowed to continue, the UK will no longer be the world leader in children’s content, as it has been for many years, which has contributed hugely to the UK economy. It is strongly felt that new money should be found to boost original production of children’s PSB content that is culturally relevant to them, especially in the areas of drama and factual.

Many believe that the answer could be to encourage Channel 4 and other commercial broadcasters to re-enter the children’s market specifically targeted at 12 to 16 year-olds to fill the gap in provision for older children. This would provide competition for the BBC because at the moment there is virtually only one buyer in the marketplace for UK-made children’s content—and that is the BBC. This is a chance—maybe the last chance—for real radical thinking, as supported by PACT and the Children’s Media Foundation. So I ask the Minister: will the Government consider addressing this issue through primary legislation and make children’s content a tier 2, rather than a tier 3, requirement for broadcasters, and include this in the digital economy Bill to be announced in the Queen’s Speech next month? Will they also set up a feasibility study into new ways of funding children’s content, which should not be dismissed as too difficult?

A 48 year-old woman once told me that as an eight year-old child she was abused by her foster parents’ sons, but the BBC’s children’s programmes and their presenters got her through it because they were there for her. They told her—through the television—that she was loved and was worthy. This still applies today; these programmes are a support tool for children. The whole landscape of broadcasting and media is changing but, whatever happens, quality and inspirational content has to be created for children, reflecting their world. We must not do anything to hinder the BBC continuing to do this in the way that it has historically.

I turn my attention to diversity. One in five nursery school children is from a diverse background. They are the future and they desperately need—and expect—to see role models to inspire them, to encourage them to find a place in society, so that they feel valued and appreciated. Without this feeling of aspiration, the gaps between the haves and the have-nots will for ever widen.

I have been dealing with the issue of diversity all my life and professionally, for more than 40 years, have been trying to make change. It started when I asked a television producer back in 1973 why we could not have a more diverse and positive portrayal of professional black characters, such as lawyers and accountants. He dismissively told me that it was not realistic. In 1976, when I first appeared on children’s programmes—good old “Play School”—I asked why there were no black, Chinese and Asian faces represented in the illustrations of the stories that I read. The producer said, “Oh, we hadn’t noticed”. Thankfully she acted on it immediately and, from that day on, BBC children’s programmes became the most diverse genre on television and a great example of how differences can be so brilliantly represented on our screens and, in turn, in society.

Television is perhaps the most influential sector of the media. It affects people’s thinking; it forms attitudes, tolerances, acceptances and how we have empathy with others. That is why I believe that it is important that we all work together to make lasting change. It is widely acknowledged that the lack of diversity within the television industry has always been a major issue. Many have fought hard to make changes for decades with very little effect, even after Greg Dyke called the BBC “hideously white” in 2001. Suddenly, however, things have taken a dramatic turn for the better and now all the major broadcasters are coming up with strategies, including the BBC’s dynamic drive to improve its diversity remit, which sweeps away the shocking practices of the past. But we need to see results—and fast—in the commissioning process, production staff, senior management team and, of course, the make-up of the independent production companies that the BBC commissions. Diversity has to freely filter down from the top with no blockages or obstacles in the middle. This is essential for change.

I am so pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Hall, director-general of the BBC, has set up a BBC diversity advisory panel, on which I sit along with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. We advise the BBC how to put right what should have been addressed decades ago: ensuring that diversity is sustainable and embedded in the BBC’s DNA, both in front and behind the camera, as well as in its promotional material. We must not forget that that needs to be reflected throughout BBC Radio as well.

Having said that, I am still concerned as to whether the BBC can and will deliver on all its promises. My heart has been broken on this important diversity issue so many times over the years. Many others are also justifiably concerned about this issue. As we have heard, the honourable David Lammy led a strong debate on BBC diversity in the other place last week, which was the first time in history that this had happened. But I am an optimist and I am encouraged by the commitment of the right honourable Ed Vaizey to address some of the diversity issues across our creative industries. He has become a true diversity champion; now, he really gets it.

On a personal note, after 43 years of campaigning, persuading and being told to shut up or I would never work again, I believe that at last things are really beginning to change for the better. Will the Government ensure that diversity features strongly in the White Paper as a requirement on the BBC to fulfil its obligations to all licence fee payers? I long for the day when everyone is given an equal opportunity to take part in the process of making Britain the great country that we know and love. The BBC must play a vital role in this process. It is its duty to comply.