Small Screen The Future of Public Service Media Channel 4’s response March 2021 Big Debate Channel 4 Contents Foreword 2 Question 3 What do you think should be included in the PSM ‘offer’? 25 Summary of recommendations 3 Question 4 What options do you think we should consider on the terms of PSM availability? 27 Introduction 4 1. Public service broadcasting has never been more Question 5 important, culturally or economically 4 What are the options for future funding of PSM and are there lessons we can learn from other countries’ approaches? 28 Case study Gogglebox 7 Question 6 What do you think about the opportunities for Case study collaboration we have referred to? Are there other It’s A Sin 8 opportunities or barriers we haven’t identified? 34 2. Channel 4 plays a unique role for the British public Question 7 and British creative industries 10 What are your views on the opportunities for new providers of PSM? 37 Case study Yinka Bokinni 12 Case study Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back 40 Case study Hollyoaks 14 Case study 3. Our 4 All the UK strategy sees Channel 4 take Grayson’s Art Club 41 a leading role ‘levelling up’ the media and creative economy in the UK 15 Question 8 Given changes to audience consumption patterns 4. Channel 4 is transitioning to a digital future and wider market developments, is there any aspect with its Future4 strategy 18 of Ofcom’s Guidance on commissioning of independent productions which Ofcom should update to ensure 5. Regulatory intervention must be modernised it remains fit-for purpose? urgently to reflect technological change and 42 structural power shifts 19 Question 9 Is there any change to the independent production quota which Ofcom should recommend to Government Consultation questions as part of its ‘Small Screen Big Debate’ programme? 46 Response to consultation questions 20 Question 10 Question 1 Do you have any recommendations for potential changes Do you agree that a new regulatory framework for PSM to the definitions of ‘qualifying programmes’ or delivery should support a more flexible ‘service neutral’ ‘independent production’ which Ofcom should delivery approach that is more outcomes focused? 21 recommend to Government as part of its ‘Small Screen Big Debate’ programme? 47 Case study Channel 4 News 23 Question 2 Do you agree with our proposals for a clear accountability framework? 24 1 Channel 4 Foreword When I was 19 years old, I sat and watched the very first night of Channel 4 as it beamed out into the world. Brookside. Walter. The Comic Strip. What a night! Immediately, programmes with a style and content that felt new, tough, young, funny, risky and brave. In the space of one night, I could feel a distinct and powerful change. Seventeen years later, the channel changed my life. In 1999, Of course, we’re British. We’d rather apologise than boast. it broadcast Queer As Folk, a programme which confirmed But here, in this industry, right now, I have to make a stand and my hope that original work could be done, that I was capable be proud. I’ve spent a lifetime working in and promoting PSB, of finding a voice in this industry, that minority voices could and I’m more certain than ever that these voices are needed. become the mainstream. It set me on a path which has lasted Breaking the silence. Shining a light. Showing us the new, and until today. 22 years after that, I launched It’s A Sin on Channel showing us the old through new eyes. This form of broadcasting 4, and I’m now receiving emails, texts and DMs daily, telling me is one of Britain’s greatest traditions, and I’m so excited to see how lives have changed as a result of the show. Families now what it can achieve in the years to come. able to tell the truth about how their uncle died; men and women freely stating their HIV status out loud, for the first time, without Russell T Davies shame; charities telling me that HIV testing numbers have gone 11 March 2021 through the roof. £300,000 for charity has been raised from the sale of a single t-shirt design, based on the show’s catchphrase. That, to me, is public service broadcasting. Far more than a service. It’s a joy. I’ve done my best over the years, to recognise my responsibilities within broadcasting, and to use that authority well, I hope. (Aided and abetted by thousands of others, in case I make myself the hero of my own story!) Under Jane Tranter’s leadership, I took Doctor Who to Cardiff, which helped to revolutionise the Welsh film and TV industry. And working with Nicola Shindler, we’ve seen the Northern production centre go from strength to strength. And always, always, lives change. Lives are changed by television. I’ve seen it happen. These shows create ambitions, they foster dreams in the young, they use age-old skills and broadcast them in shows that are seen around the world. I often think, when we talk about a show’s budget, it sounds like the money is spent on champagne. But the money is spent on jobs. On people. On lives. As well as the dreamers, like the actors, writers and designers, it pays the riggers and drivers and hotels and caterers, the electricians and the carpenters and the accountants, security and secretaries, trainees and interns, hundreds of them for every show. The money goes out into the world and makes those lives better. I think we’ve seen the power of TV more than ever during the lockdown. We’ve all loved a good bit of telly in these strange days, but I think the PSB institutions in particular have provided a voice, a comfort, a debate, a challenge, even a friendship. Streamers will stream no matter what the weather; PSB loves to look at the world, and react, and help. The act of broadcasting with public service in mind creates a voice, an attitude, a dynamic, a drive, and a capacity to adapt, that simply does not exist in programmes created purely to be sold. 2 Channel 4 Summary of recommendations Channel 4 strongly supports Ofcom’s commitment to securing a robust public service media (PSM) framework for the future. To deliver this commitment, Channel 4 believes that Ofcom should: • Champion the value of national institutions in • Modernise the current quota system to give delivering significant long-term investment in flexibility over how PSM providers can best PSM content and infrastructure (e.g. skills, talent deliver programming commitments (for example, base, reaching young and diverse audiences), and by delivering news across digital and linear). ensure these institutions are the heart of any new Channel 4 is committed to maintaining its current PSM framework. Whilst we support sustainable remit and believes there will still be a role for provision of more PSM, it is vital that any benefits specific commitments that guarantee provision received by new providers of PSM are also of certain types of content that other matched by an appropriate level of obligations. broadcasters will not provide, such as news. Any future provision of PSM should also retain the • Acknowledge the imbalance of power between fundamental features of universal availability and UK PSBs and global digital platforms and free to air, which have been the cornerstone to the recommend that the relationship between success of the existing system. online platforms and PSBs is one of the • Urgently address the growing gap in PSM issues addressed in the ‘code of conduct’ prominence and risk of reduced availability recommended by the Competition & Markets by accepting the PSBs’ joint proposal on Authority (CMA), which is aimed at ensuring prominence, inclusion and fair value and platforms cannot abuse their market dominance. recommending that the Government legislate • Continue to encourage and enable PSB at the earliest opportunity. This would ensure collaboration so Channel 4 and the other PSBs a standardised regulated version of the PSB maintain scale in response to growing digital streaming players is offered for free to all major competition. This would include Ofcom support platforms, and ensure that these players were for PSB initiatives to future-proof free to air carried and made prominent on these platforms TV platforms. with built-in flexibility for platforms and PSBs to negotiate for anything beyond the standard • Identify ways to further support commercial regulated offer. broadcasters, including ensuring a level playing field with online providers in relation • Support the current funding model for PSM, with to advertising regulation and identifying its mix of public and commercial funding and opportunities to unlock further commercial funding universal, free to air provision. We call on Ofcom through reducing restrictions such as advertising to support Channel 4’s unique publicly-owned, minutage and product placement rules. not for profit business model. Channel 4 has a robust, resilient commercial funding model which • Endorse broadcasters updating their will remain driven primarily by advertising; and, as commissioning Codes of Practice to reflect highlighted by our Future4 strategy, Channel 4 is the wider set of rights needed to deliver PSM, well-placed to pivot its business model from linear including the central importance to broadcasters to digital advertising revenues, and to diversify its of VoD rights and an archive proposition. PSBs revenue beyond advertising. are now streaming services, and viewers expect to access streamed content from them as standard. A clear steer from Ofcom could be provided by an update to the existing guidance that supports the Codes of Practice, or as part of Ofcom’s Statement on the future of public service media.