Independent Radio Production

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to add my voice to those taking part in this debate. I have come to feel like Tweedledum to the Tweedledee of my noble friend Lord Stevenson over the time I have been standing in this position, although his description of me as fully fledged is not one I am ready to accept. I feel half way between fully fledged and half-baked. I hope that, at least on good days, I am getting there.

I welcome the concentration on radio that this debate opens up for us. Perhaps I should begin by declaring my interests, as well as a little of my experience. I have been a contributor to BBC radio for over 30 years, mainly, but not entirely, to its religious output. I have worked with in-house production teams over that time, many members of which have since grown wings and are now occupying very senior positions in the corporation and other bodies. I sat alongside Brian Redhead, of beloved memory, and John Humphrys, James Naughtie, Sue MacGregor and others, in a 17-year stint with my “Thought for the Day”. I still do the “Daily Service” and “Prayer for the Day”, and, with BBC Radio Wales, “Weekend Word”. I can testify to the skills and experience, and the innovative and creative energy, of the teams that present these programmes. The plans and proposals we are discussing today should never be at the expense of the expertise gathered and honed in those production teams. However, these teams should, of course, constantly be kept on their toes by the knowledge that, even in religion, they do not operate by divine right.

Because of my decision to take the Labour Whip when I entered your Lordships’ House in 2004, I was obliged to drop out of the number of those doing “Thought for the Day”—par for the course. Another opportunity soon opened up. For the last four or five years, I have been offering my “Pause for Thought” on the “Chris Evans Breakfast Show” on BBC Radio 2. I assure noble Lords that moving from Radio 4 to Radio 2 was like moving from Neptune to Mars, but I have come to love the bustle and the culture of my new habitat very much. “Pause for Thought” is one of the strands won by an independent company in competition with the BBC. Its quality control mechanisms are good, and I am kept up to the mark by two levels of production scrutiny. Once again, the company is only too aware that its licence will need to be reviewed from time to time and that a renewal will depend entirely on the quality of its output.

Finally, I have been a long-time contributor to the output of Premier Christian Radio. For 10 years I co-presented a programme called “Taking the Tablet”, a half-hour show in which an Anglican priest, a woman, interviewed me, a Methodist minister, about three stories chosen from the Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, The Tablet. My association with the station has intensified of late, and in four days’ time I shall attend my first meeting as a trustee of Premier, where I will be meeting the issues and themes of this debate head on. The station operates in a fiercely competitive marketplace and, apart from the usual ways of funding such independent bodies, is greatly supported by private subscription. All this is by way of declaring my interests in this matter.

I would like to address the question of training, raised by my noble friend Lord Stevenson. If the independent sector is to take up even half the openings that are declared available between now and 2022, it will be increasingly necessary to ensure that the work it wins will be done by properly trained personnel. The question of payment for people involved in the commercial sector needs to be addressed; so many people are freelance, volunteers or interns, and it is necessary to monitor that.

A helpful briefing from RIG, the Radio Independents Group—I think that if I were the Radio Independents Group I would choose a more fortunate acronym—gives a snapshot of where we are now on the issue of training. It indicates that its members are involved in training “the next generation” of producers, and claims to have so far provided over 2,000 learner days, comprising over 1,100 individual learners and including a diversity mentoring scheme. It states that:

“Around 60% of learners have been women and around 15% BAME and 5% disabled”.


This is, of course, to be welcomed. But someone needs to monitor the figures as the great leap forward scheduled over the next three or four years takes place.

Is anyone doing the bespoke work previously undertaken by the Radio Authority? One feels that Ofcom treats radio as a Cinderella and gives it only marginal attention; the Radio Authority, of course, existed with the sole purpose of looking at the quality of radio. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? A bit of Latin—who will regulate the regulator? It seems to be a relevant question as we move into the different situations that face us.

Of course, the commercial sector is driven largely by finance. No problems there—expect that when difficult decisions about expenditure have to be taken, there will always be a temptation to make economies in areas that tend to be more costly. The results of the recent consultation on these matters recognised how, in the event of greater deregulation, the relatively expensive news service currently required of them may well be diminished or even abandoned. Yet local news, traffic conditions, weather and events would seem, for the most part, to be an essential ingredient in the output of any commercial broadcasting company anxious to give its audience what it most wants.

Indeed, once listeners are thought of merely as customers—and then, en masse, commodified—radio itself loses out on what it is, at the end of the day, all about, for radio is the most intimate medium of communication available to us. Whereas the BBC blazons its vocation at Broadcasting House as helping nation to “speak peace unto nation”, the actual activity is more about speaking peace to individuals in the privacy and intimacy of their own space. Certainly, that is how I was taught to do it; I always feel that I am talking to someone in their car, or in their bed, or at breakfast, or taking the children to school. It feels such a personal medium as a result of that way of looking at it.

Great care should be exercised to ensure that greater freedoms do not lead to lesser quality of output. The overarching responsibility for the commercial sector taking up its new opportunities must have the effect of:

“Holding the BBC to account for the delivery of its mission and public purposes”.


Good regulation should make this a priority. The National Union of Journalists is concerned that a proper review has not yet been carried out of the likely impact of the proposal to boost the number of hours available to independent companies to bid for production previously held within the BBC to see what damage it might do, both to the commercial sector and the BBC. The NUJ suggested that it might cost the BBC up to £1 million without the BBC benefiting from it at all. It is worth at least thinking through.

I have one further matter to bring forward. The commercial sector consists, so we are told, of about 150 companies. The self-styled “trade body” for two-thirds of these SMEs is the Radio Independent Group, which I have already mentioned. The bulk of commercial radio stations seems to have been consolidated within two large companies: Global and Bauer. No doubt this achieves critical mass for negotiating contracts, offering infrastructural support, sharing experience and ensuring solidarity in what can be a difficult commercial environment.

My concern is that the way these chips fall might well militate against the entry of smaller, innovative, aspirational newcomers. In the overorganisation of the commercial sector into large blocs, we must also throw in Arqiva, which is responsible for pretty much all of the transmission. We should be very careful about keeping space and offering opportunity to newcomers who may start in a very small way but might become something of great interest later on. There must be scope for bright new things as well as seasoned and organised veterans in the bidding process, which will increase in pace as that 60% of BBC output becomes open to others.

So I am delighted that, even at the fag end of an exhausting week, we can give our attention to the present and future needs of radio, and I hope the Minister can give us, with a little élan and freedom to anticipate the weekend, some firm assurances on the questions that we have asked.