Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to protect and support local radio broadcasting.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to supporting the provision of local radio services by commercial and community radio stations across the UK.
Radio continues to demonstrate its huge public value, including recently in response to the coronavirus pandemic, when it expanded its provision of trusted news and information while continuing to provide much-needed entertainment and companionship to its millions of listeners throughout the country. The Government negotiated significant packages of support from Arqiva for commercial stations, as well as providing additional direct funding to ensure that no station was left behind in terms of support with their transmission costs.
In 2019, we introduced legislation allowing Ofcom to license small-scale DAB multiplexes, to provide more community and small commercial stations with the opportunity to broadcast to their local communities. In 2020, we passed more legislation to enable national and local commercial stations to renew their analogue licences for a further period. Following the publication of the Digital Radio and Audio Review in October 2021, we are currently exploring legislative options for securing radio’s position on smart speakers.
We have also committed, following a consultation on future commercial radio regulation in 2017, to strengthen local news and information requirements - the key public service aspects of local commercial radio - and to extend this to digital stations as part of a package of changes to update the rules on commercial radio licensing. We intend to bring forward legislation in this area when Parliamentary time allows.
The Government has continued to make funding available to support the growth of the community radio sector, by way of the Community Radio Fund (CRF). The Fund distributes £400,000 on an annual basis to help fund the core costs of community radio stations (of which there are approximately 300 across the UK) and enable the sector to move towards self-sustainability. In both of the last two financial years, we have supported the CRF to go beyond this core funding, with significant uplifts targeted on tackling loneliness and to reflect the sector’s important contribution to the government’s ambitions on levelling up.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is she will make an assessment of the potential impact of local public services broadcasting on local communities.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Public service broadcasting continues to be highly valued by viewers from all backgrounds in the UK. On a local level, our public service broadcasters, local TV providers, news publishers and commercial and community radio stations all play a crucial role in disseminating accurate news, strengthening pride of place, reflecting the unique interests of the audiences that they serve, connecting communities, and helping to address social issues like loneliness and mental health.
The Government recognises the positive impact that local public service broadcasting has on local communities, and in our Broadcasting White Paper published in April this year we outlined our plans to support this diversity of content through a changing landscape.
Asked by: Lord Black of Brentwood (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the BBC’s use of licence fee revenue to produce online news services, which compete with commercial publishers, is compatible with (1) the BBC Charter, and (2) legal constraints on the use of public funds.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Under the Royal Charter, the BBC has an obligation to provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them. The Charter requires the BBC public services to promote its Mission and Public Purposes, including the provision of news in the UK through “online services”; it therefore allows for the use of licence fee revenue for online news services. In doing so, the BBC is required to have particular regard to the effects of its activities on competition in the UK and to seek to avoid adverse impacts on competition which are not necessary for the effective fulfilment of the Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes.
Her Majesty’s Government carefully considered the BBC's market impact as part of Charter Review in 2015/16, and designated Ofcom as the BBC regulator to ensure the BBC is robustly held to account on its competitive impact.
The Government also committed the independent Cairncross Review into the future of journalism. This was published in 2019, and urged the BBC to think more carefully about how its news provision can act as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, commercial news.
The Charter Mid-Term Review will look at the BBC’s market impact, evaluating how the BBC and Ofcom assess the market impact and public value of the BBC in an evolving marketplace and how that relates to the wider UK media ecology, including with regard to commercial radio and local news sectors and other content makers and distributors.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how much has been spent from the public purse on advertisements on commercial radio related to levelling up.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Levelling Up campaign has just ended. We will be publishing its expenditure as part of routine transparency commitments in due course.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much has been spent from the public purse on advertisements on commercial radio related to tackling covid-19.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Government developed a strong national campaign to provide information and reassurance to the public. As part of this, we utilised advertising in over 600 national, regional and local titles across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
As with any media planning approach, titles were selected on their ability to engage with audiences at a national, regional and local level. All of these titles have been selected independently by our media planning and buying agency, OmniGOV.
The spend breakdown requested is not held by the Cabinet Office as this information will be held by OmniGov. The Cabinet Office also publishes expenditure, including on public information campaigns, on a rolling monthly basis on GOV.UK as part of routine government transparency arrangements.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much has been spent from the public purse on advertisements on commercial radio stations related to the UK's exit from the European Union in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Government developed a strong national campaign to provide information and reassurance to the public. As part of this, we utilised advertising in over 600 national, regional and local titles across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
As with any media planning approach, titles were selected on their ability to engage with audiences at a national, regional and local level. All of these titles have been selected independently by our media planning and buying agency, OmniGOV.
The spend breakdown requested is not held by the Cabinet Office as this information will be held by OmniGov. The Cabinet Office also publishes expenditure, including on public information campaigns, on a rolling monthly basis on GOV.UK as part of routine government transparency arrangements.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the effect of the content produced by BBC Sounds on the quality of output of commercial radio.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has received representations from the commercial radio sector about the impact of BBC radio and audio services, including new services being launched on BBC Sounds. It is for Ofcom, as the independent regulator, to assess whether particular BBC services have an impact on the provision of commercial radio and audio services.
The Mid-Term Review of the BBC’s Royal Charter offers an opportunity for the government to consider whether current governance and regulatory arrangements for the BBC are working effectively. We will be publishing more details about the Mid-Term Review shortly.
Asked by: Lord Storey (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the ability of hackers to hack into UK terrestrial broadcasters' news output.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to making the UK the safest place to live and work online.
It is vital that organisations take action to ensure they are resilient to cyber threats. The National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of GCHQ, continues to support the BBC, commercial broadcasters, and terrestrial television and radio network operators by providing them with detailed advice and guidance on protective measures they can take to strengthen their cyber security resilience and reduce the risk of falling victim to an attack.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department plans to continue the £1 million-a-year of support it provides to the Audio Content Fund as part of the Government’s creative industries investment programme.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The three-year pilot phase of the Audio Content Fund is due to end in March 2022. There will be a full evaluation of the pilot to determine its impact on the provision and plurality of public service content on commercial and community radio, and any future action in this area will be informed by that evaluation.
The Government is committed to ensuring that audiences benefit from a modern system of public service broadcasting that remains relevant and can continue to meet the needs of UK audiences in the future. The potential of further investment of public funding will be assessed against the Fund evaluation and alongside future public service broadcasting needs.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 29 November 2021 to Question 80988, for what reason advertising on online services and broadcast services is regulated differently with regard to length of adverts.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
For television, the restrictions on the amount and scheduling of advertising are set out in Ofcom’s Code on the Scheduling of Television Advertising (COSTA). No such restrictions apply to commercial radio stations.
COSTA places no limits on the amount of advertising an on-demand programme service can show. Regulation designed for broadcast services has not always been directly transposed to apply to online services. This reflects the more complex, non-linear nature of online advertising. The regulation of online advertising is currently under review.