Media Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

12: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of children’s access to public service broadcast contentWithin six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must prepare and publish a report on how to ensure that children have access to public service broadcast content.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require a review of how to ensure children have access to public service content.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I also enthusiastically support Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin.

These are important matters. If the Bill is to look to the future, we must address the issue of what is happening to our children. On Second Reading in the Commons, my honourable friend Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow Secretary of State, said that the Bill is welcome but misses the opportunity to consider how we can secure the future of UK public service media for school-aged children. She echoed the Children’s Media Foundation’s concern that legislators are failing to recognise the realities of young people’s viewing and how this will impact on public service loyalty in the future.

We should thank the Children’s Media Foundation because it has done a huge amount of work on understanding the patterns of media consumption by children and how those patterns might impact on their chances of viewing public service media. If we all agree that public service content is important for adults, we can probably agree that it is equally important, if not more, for our children. Certainly, the high-quality public service content that our public service broadcasters can provide for children has powerful potential. For the last 75 years, it has been the envy of the world. It can promote well-being, give children an understanding of where they live, teach them British values of tolerance, provide entertaining forms of education to supplement their learning at school, and show a diverse range of role models. Ultimately, public service media can encourage children to value culture, crave knowledge and value characteristics of the citizens they have to become in due course.

However, due to several connecting factors, this sort of content is under threat. As technology has rapidly evolved, the children’s content landscape has fundamentally changed for ever. Children as young as toddlers have access to new devices and platforms. They can navigate apps on tablets and choose content they would like to watch. It gives them access not only to video on demand services, such as Netflix and Disney+, but to platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. The popularity of these forms of content are such that Ofcom estimates that less than half of three to 17 year-olds now watch live television. Similarly, of potentially 9 million school-aged viewers for the top-rated programmes on CBBC, there will be as few as 50,000 viewers in any one week. Similar numbers will request that programme on iPlayer. That number is a fraction of what we would hope it to be, given the importance of children’s public service content.

As well as declining viewership, there has arguably also been a decline in the amount of children’s content produced that could genuinely be considered to be public service. It is not that the industry is unaware of the problems surrounding children’s public service content. In 2022, when the Government brought the young audiences content fund to an end, more than 750 creatives and executives from the UK’s children’s content industry signed an open letter and campaigned to extend the fund for another three years. The likes of Channel 5 and Paramount are also working hard to keep their “Milkshake!” offering. They are increasing their year-on-year spend on children’s programming just to keep provision at the same level but, where there is a met need for commercial demand, valuable children’s content will inevitably continue to suffer.

There is almost nothing in the Bill to show that this combination of concerning trends and declining viewership, alongside declining content quality, has been identified. There are no meaningful measures to stop the problem escalating. Children’s content is included in the new, simplified remit in the first clause, but it does little to increase accountability or individual channels’ contribution to creating children’s public service content, or to recognise the changing trends in how children consume their media.

For all those reasons, the Children’s Media Foundation argued that we must urgently accept that children’s public service media are under threat and rethink how we can best protect them as part of the passage of this Bill. As a result, we propose that the Government conduct a review to better understand how we can secure children’s content long into the future. Such a review would be an opportunity to ask bigger questions than the Bill currently allows. For example, do we need to go where children are and broaden our concept of public service media for children, encouraging and promoting such content on the likes of Netflix, YouTube and TikTok? Do we need to learn lessons from the ambitions of the Online Safety Act 2023, and consider how algorithms serve content to young people—perhaps adjusting them to ensure that they promote diversity of thought rather than simply more of the same? Should we target PSBs to hit a number of hours consumed rather than a number of hours produced when it comes to public service media for children?

We do not claim to have the answers to these sorts of questions, but I believe they need to be explored. The UK must address the reality of the matter and accept that a new approach will be needed if we are to ensure that valuable content reaches the eyes and ears of young people across the country. I hope the Minister can acknowledge this, and I look forward to his response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I fully support Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to which I have added my name, but I rise to speak to my Amendment 34, which says:

“Within 12 months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must prepare and publish a report on how to ensure that children have access to culturally relevant and age-appropriate original UK … content, and”—


importantly—

“how such content might be funded”.

The Children’s Media Foundation has summed up the two problems with UK children’s content as being about finding and funding, and we need to solve both. This amendment is very important as it is imperative that the Bill looks to the future and reflects what young people are doing now in their viewing, not what they used to do.

I have spoken previously about the crisis we face with respect to children’s media. At a time when our children are struggling to make sense of the world around them, we have allowed public service media for children to wither on the vine. A lack of investment and a failure of regulation have led to the current situation in which children and young people are no longer accessing this sort of age-appropriate and culturally relevant media content that can help them to navigate the challenges of growing up.

As adults, we quite rightly expect to have access to media content that speaks uniquely to us—dramas, factual programming and entertainment that embody the culture, values and concerns of our society. Why is it, then, that we seem prepared to deny our children the same opportunities? How can our children develop and grow to become citizens of this country if we continue to allow a media environment that fails to support or promote similar public media for children?

I am sure the Minister will say that this point has been considered by the Government and that the Bill is designed to ensure that our public service broadcasters will be required to offer the children’s audience appropriate levels of audiovisual content. But I am afraid that misses the point. My amendment would require a review to determine how we can ensure that children can access culturally relevant and age-appropriate, original UK content wherever they are watching or listening. The wording of the proposed new clause deliberately makes no reference to television services or to public service broadcasting, because I am afraid that for children and young people the old PSB system is simply irrelevant. They have no loyalty to our traditional broadcasters and very little interest in their platforms, except for the purposes of family co-viewing, which remains important and valuable.

I am concerned that the Bill in its current form does not address the needs of the children’s audience. When it comes to children’s personal viewing, as reported in great detail by Ofcom, the vast majority of their media content is found on video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. That is where we must turn our attention if we hope to create a new public service ecosystem that meets the needs of children.

If we allow the Bill to remain focused solely on the provision of content by public service broadcasters, it will have failed the children’s audience from the outset. We have to ensure that this does not happen. There is a crisis of childhood and this Bill has a part to play in addressing the roots of that crisis. The current media lives of children and young people have impacted on their mental well-being, their engagement with society and culture, and the formation of their values. Some of that is the result of harmful content, and the Online Safety Act will go some way to address this, but surely we must also find a way to provide constructive and life-enhancing content to counteract any negative content that may find a way through to our children.

Here in the UK, we have one of the most creative and child-centred media production sectors in the world. We need a review to consider how to create conditions that will facilitate growth in children’s media production. This new content will, in turn, help our children cope with the unique challenges they face in the 21st century media landscape. But without appropriate funding, there will not be anything to see so it is vital that we find ways of increasing the revenue available for original UK children’s content, now that the Young Audiences Content Fund has, sadly, ended.

My amendment seeks to set in motion a process that will determine how children can once again have access to the same range of culturally relevant, trusted and life-affirming content that was made available to previous generations, in a form and on platforms that reflect the way that children and young people live today. So what are the solutions to finding suitable content? Ofcom has identified a dramatic shift in viewing habits among young people, particularly children over the age of seven. Our young people are now consuming content in so many different ways and via a variety of devices. They are flocking to services such as YouTube and TikTok, and watching content designed for adults. We have to work out how children and young people will find culturally specific and original UK content on those platforms in future.

Regulation could be one solution. It is very difficult for regulated commercial PSB broadcasters to invest in kids’ TV content. They do not have the scale of kids’ audiences, or a fraction of the revenue from kids’ content, that they once had. The ban on HFSS advertising some years ago speeded up the decline. The PSBs have been replaced by services such as YouTube, which alone takes in around £50 million a year in advertising revenue around unregulated children’s content.

If the young audiences fund is not coming back— I think it should—perhaps we need to look for inspiration from other countries which have put levies on streamers. EU rules allow countries to impose investment obligations to support local content and language. In France alone, Netflix has agreed to invest at least €30 million a year, either directly or through contributing to local film funds. I am encouraged by how this type of intervention could be used to help fund original UK children’s content. Interestingly, Australia is currently consulting on a proposal that would require streamers to invest 10% to 30% of their Australian revenue in Australian drama and children’s content.

I also understand that, for the first time, it has been suggested that such an obligation could be imposed on video-sharing platforms such as YouTube. This idea has been floated by the Government in Belgium, which will shortly be taking over the presidency of the Council of the EU, and which may therefore influence future EU policies—hurrah.

It is this type of thinking that we will need if our children are going to see the best UK-originated culturally specific children’s content, as we all did when we were growing up. I ask the Minister: will the Government consider these common-sense interventions at the same time as my amendment and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton? The crisis is upon us and we need to act fast before we reach a point of no return. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin and Lady Thornton, for their important contributions on the value of public service media for children.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has also personally made huge contributions to this industry, not just through her time as a presenter—I count myself as one of her proud “Playschool” babies—but through her valuable championing of legislation in this space. This is a good opportunity for me to congratulate her on the wonderful news of the BAFTA Fellowship, the academy’s highest honour, which will be bestowed upon her this weekend. It is in recognition, as BAFTA has said, not just for her work on screen but her work in your Lordships’ House and outside it on the legislation that touches these important areas.

I will refer to both noble Baronesses’ amendments together. I strongly agree with them about the importance of ensuring that our children continue to have access to high-quality, original content which is relevant to their lives. The Government recognise that children’s television has a unique social and educational importance; it can be used to reflect and share our values and to support learning and development in a way that is fun and compelling for young people. My honourable friend Julia Lopez, the Minister for the Bill in another place, also feels passionately about this issue and has spoken about the significant impact that culturally relevant, original British programming can have on our children.

We are, however, aware of the challenges increasingly being faced by the children’s media industry, which the noble Baronesses alluded to. The way that our children are accessing content is changing rapidly, with shifts away from the traditional linear schedule and an almost endless digital library of global content easily accessible to them.

That is why we have included specific measures in the Bill to ensure that original British children’s programming, reflecting the lives of young people here in the UK, remains front and centre of the public service remit. I hope that sends a clear signal about the importance of high-value children’s programming being available to families across the UK on a free-to-air basis.

These updated remit requirements will complement Ofcom’s existing powers relating to children’s content. For example, the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, did on the Digital Economy Act 2017 resulted in the introduction of a section to the Communications Act specifically on this topic, allowing Ofcom to publish criteria on the provision of children’s programmes if it sees fit. This is supported by several of Ofcom’s ongoing reporting duties. In this way, the legislation already provides for considered assessment of the provision of the types of valuable content we have debated in this group. As the independent regulator, Ofcom is well placed to consider the broader market and how children are accessing content in an increasingly digital world. Of course, it has the powers given to it through the Online Safety Act, during the passage of which we debated some similar topics. It already has a wealth of experience in this area.

Ofcom’s current duties and reporting will continue to give us an invaluable insight into the challenges faced by the children’s television industry. This will be key to helping both the Government and industry to consider in the round, and in more detail, whether further work is needed in this important area. We will of course do that. In addition to this, as the noble Baronesses mentioned, organisations such as the Children’s Media Foundation have been doing some fantastic work recently to convene industry partners to look to the future and consider these important questions in more detail.

Amendments 12 and 34 would require reviews into children’s access to culturally relevant and age-appropriate original content, and children’s access to public service broadcast content respectively. Given the specific reference to children’s content, which we already have in the Bill, and given the extensive powers that Ofcom has to report and act in this space, as I have mentioned, as well as the updates we have made to allow flexibility to the ways in which the public service broadcasters can fulfil their remits, I am not persuaded that we need the amendments that the noble Baronesses have put forward. I would, however, certainly join them in recognising the importance of high-quality children’s programming, and I am glad for their continued vigilance in this area. I would be very happy to keep talking to them as we continue our scrutiny of the Bill, but I hope I have been able to reassure them that we have tried to cover this already in the Bill as it stands.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for her wonderful peroration and saying exactly the right things. I thank the Minister for his answer, but I confess to being disappointed, because if this Bill is about future-proofing, then it really does need to address what our children will be doing in the next few years in terms of what they are watching, what they are consuming and what they are hearing. I do not see anything in this Bill that is going to mandate Ofcom to do that kind of exercise of reviewing that. This is about the quality of what our children are viewing, and we certainly are not giving them any guidance on that. There is nothing in this Bill that does that. I do not think so: I have not seen that. That is what this amendment is about.

I am disappointed, and I hope we can continue to talk. Perhaps the conversation needs to be with Ofcom about what it thinks its remit is with regard to children. Perhaps that is the next conversation that we need to have. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

13: After Clause 7 insert the following new Clause—
“Delivery of public service content on relevant television servicesAfter section 264A of the Communications Act 2003, insert—“264B Delivery of public service content on relevant television services(1) OFCOM must monitor the extent to which the public service remit for television in the United Kingdom is met in respect of relevant television services. (2) If OFCOM considers that the public service remit for television in the United Kingdom is not being met in respect of such services, it may set whatever programming quotas it considers necessary to ensure that the remit is met.(3) For the purposes of this section, “relevant television services” means—(a) the television broadcasting services provided by the BBC;(b) the television programme services that are public services of the Welsh Authority (within the meaning of section 207);(c) every Channel 3 service;(d) Channel 4;(e) Channel 5.””Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause would give OFCOM powers to measure the delivery of public service content on the linear services of the public service broadcasters, and set quotas if it considered the current level to be unsatisfactory. This is to ensure access to content for viewers reliant on linear TV services.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 13 in my name hopes to force a discussion raised by these Benches and by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. The amendment seeks to introduce a safeguard so that, if Ofcom believes that delivery of PSB content on broadcast linear services is less than satisfactory, it will have the powers needed to set a quota to ensure that a certain proportion of public service content remains available to linear audiences through a broadcast signal. In short, quality should remain available to those families up and down the country who rely on their TV rather than watch online content.

This new clause makes no prescriptive requirements on how that should be achieved, nor does it set a specific figure on how many programmes might be available; it simply allows Ofcom to monitor the effects of the Bill. There is, and there is likely to remain, a section of the population for whom a broadcast signal is their sole connection to media, news, entertainment and information. Therefore, it is important that those people— some of whom more likely to be older citizens, families in rural areas and those struggling with bills as a result of the cost of living—are able to access their media. My husband regularly updates, as I told the House before, so I have ended up with an enormous television screen and lots and lots of choice willy-nilly, but I know that that is something that lots of families may not be able to afford.

This case has been argued extensively by the campaign group Broadcast 2040+, which is made up of a number of concerned organisations. We recognise that the direction of travel is that people are watching content online more than ever, but that does not mean there should be diminishing content on broadcast linear services, especially where that content caters to a local audience. That belief goes beyond the Bill and into wider worries about the impact that a digital-first strategy would have on traditional means of broadcasting, and, as a result, on audiences.

My new clause, therefore, introduces this safeguard and gives Ofcom the power to take action and monitor the effects of the Bill. As well as encouraging the Minister to accept this new clause, I also ask him to update us on whether the Government intend to support linear broadcasting beyond 2034, and, if they do not, what plans they are putting in place to manage possible transition away from linear services. This is just the beginning of the conversation. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 32, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for her support and for adding her name. I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interest in the register as a board member of Creative Scotland.

My Amendment 32 seeks to protect the provision of digital terrestrial television—DTT. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, outlined, the current provision of DTT is due to run out in 2034. Without this amendment, we could see a decline in the universality of free-to-air public service broadcasting and the further exclusion of vulnerable parts of our population who are already digitally excluded. This amendment safeguards the long-term future of these services to ensure that broadcast TV and radio that is free at the point of consumption will continue to be available across the UK.

The recent World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai secured digital terrestrial television’s place as the exclusive primary service in the crucial 470 to 694 megahertz frequency band across ITU region 1. This has secured reliable access to the radio frequency spectrum and regulatory conditions needed to deliver broadcast services such as DTT across the UK, and it solidifies their central role in the broadcasting landscape. However, I note that a further debate on spectrum use and future needs is scheduled for 2031, meaning that the call for certainty to 2040 and beyond is even more vital.

Let me be clear that I am not trying to act against the tide of progress towards IP delivery of television. However, I have spent far too much time looking at digital exclusion—most recently as a member of the Communications and Digital Committee of your Lordships’ House—not to understand the fatal flaws in believing that broadband provision will be the universal answer within 10 years. Our committee’s recent Digital Exclusion report noted that, even if rollout continues across the UK, take-up would not necessarily follow. Social broadband tariffs are still expensive; they are an additional monthly cost for the financially vulnerable—often with half the speed—and far too many people who could benefit from them do not even know that they exist.

Living in Scotland, I appreciate the fragility of the broadband network: how easily it is adversely affected by the weather and how so many parts of the country do not receive the speeds that are advertised by the providers. In fact, just this afternoon, I picked up on an email from a colleague from Alzheimer Scotland who has just done a piece of work on the impact on the elderly and vulnerable of BT moving all the telephone lines to digital. It is a shocking piece of work, looking at how this group has been left behind and how the telecom companies’ assurances about addressing the needs of vulnerable people have not been fully acted on.

A recent study by EY predicted that, regardless of rollout, more than 5.5 million properties in the UK will not have a high-speed broadband subscription in 2040. In contrast, DTT is free if you pay your licence fee. Yet, currently, these services, which the Digital Poverty Alliance describes as a “lifeline”, have no guarantee of a secure future. The Ofcom Online Nation report confirms that 6% of UK adults lack an internet connection at home. This is higher in Wales and Scotland, higher among older audiences—20% of people over 65 do not have an internet connection at home—and higher among people with disability, 11% of whom do not have one. As things stand, these populations face the threat of terrestrial TV being switched off forever within a decade, and many of the most vulnerable and excluded are in danger of being left further isolated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. As she was speaking, I was thinking, “Oh, I wish I’d said that”. It was a very coherent laying out of the issues. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for her support.

It is clear that this is a process, and a discussion will be needed all the way through it. I hope that Broadcast 2040+ is involved in some of the research and consultation that the department is doing, because there are 5.5 million premises that do not have high-speed broadband at the moment, and whose critical traditional TV and radio services have to be protected. We have to be able to take that into consideration.

The thing that troubled me a little about what the Minister said—which was reassuring in many ways—is that this is a very permissive matter for Ofcom. It is permitted still to make and advertise the licences. The question then is why it would do that. What are the criteria it would use for doing that? Those are the issues we need to tease out. We probably need to do that in the next little while because of the process of this Bill, which is about future-proofing. We are talking about how we ensure that linear television and radio, and so on, are still available to those who need it in the future. That said, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 13 withdrawn.