Response to BBC Strategy Review: Putting Quality First
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Response to BBC Strategy Review: Putting Quality First 1. Executive Summary 1.1. Despite containing various encouraging statements, the BBC’s strategy review document, ‘Putting Quality First’, falls short in tackling the BBC’s now excessive scale in UK radio. We have particular concerns about the lack of any attention for 5 Live, which reflects the fact that it has so far escaped the public scrutiny of a BBC Trust service review. 1.2. Our submission sets out evidence that 5 Live is no longer the “continuous news and live sports” service it was set up to be. Our analysis indicates that just 45% of output across weekdays and weekends consists of news, rather than 75% as outlined in its service licence. Furthermore, 5 Live’s format has drifted towards that of commercial-style talk radio. Its output is increasingly dominated by football, entertainment features, personality-led presentation and chat. We also find that 5 Live is neglecting minority and secondary sports and fixtures, and argue that 5 Live should be subject to a radio- specific cap on BBC spending on sports commentary rights. 1.3. In other areas, we argue that the BBC should be careful not to race ahead of commercial radio or of listeners in promoting digital forms of listening. We add that BBC local and nations radio must sharpen their delivery of public purposes, focusing on programming that local commercial radio is unable to supply. 2. About UTV Media 2.1. UTV Media plc is a leading converged UK and Irish media business with television, radio, internet and publishing interests. Our thriving cross-media operations give us a unique perspective on the appropriate form for public intervention in UK radio. 2.2. UTV Media’s UK radio operations are largely operated through our UTV Media (GB) business division. They include an award-winning national speech station (talkSPORT), 13 local radio stations, substantial shareholdings in seven local and regional DAB multiplexes and co-ownership of the national radio sales house First Radio Sales, which currently represents 116 local and digital radio stations. 3. ‘Putting Quality First’ 3.1. Despite containing various encouraging statements, the BBC’s strategy review document, ‘Putting Quality First’, falls short in tackling the BBC’s now UTV Media (GB) response to BBC Strategy Review: Putting Quality First – May 2010 1 excessive scale in UK radio. The BBC’s recommendations come across as a series of concessions in areas where BBC Trust scrutiny has recently been applied, or where political attention has been concentrated. The measures fail to collectively add up to a cohesive strategy for delivering public purposes to licence fee payers in a digital age. 3.2. The document sets out some helpful guiding principles, including welcome commitments to “putting quality first”, “doing fewer things better”, “making the licence fee work harder” and “setting new boundaries”. 3.3. However, ‘Putting Quality First’ is not the root and branch review of the BBC’s operations in the digital age which it purports to be. The report’s proposals lack imagination and miss an opportunity to realign the BBC’s radio portfolio around the delivery of its core public purposes. We have particular concerns about the lack of any attention for 5 Live, which reflects the fact that it has so far escaped the public scrutiny of a BBC Trust service review. This is despite annual expenditure of £72.2m1. 4. 5 Live requires radical refocusing, and much firmer scrutiny from the BBC Trust 4.1. 5 Live is no longer the “continuous news” service it was set up to be 4.1.1. Analysis by UTV Media reveals that 5 Live is no longer operating as “BBC Radio’s home of continuous news and live sports coverage”. Instead, it is falling well short of its most significant service licence commitment – for 75% of its output to consist of news. Our findings indicate that just 45% of output across weekdays and weekends consists of news, which we define as ‘information or analysis related to recent or ongoing current affairs events or issues’. This rises to 48% if travel and weather bulletins are defined as news, and to just 56% if sports news and live sports updates are also included. This suggests a major performance failure by the BBC, and raises questions about the efficacy of the BBC Trust’s service review programme, which has so far shielded 5 Live from public scrutiny. Figure 1. 5 Live Output Breakdown OTHER PRODUCTION SPEECH 2% 13% NEWS 45% SPORT 37% TRAVEL / WEATHER 3% Source: UTV Media analysis. Methodology set out at 4.1.5 – 4.1.6. 1 BBC, Annual Report and Accounts 2008/09, June 2009 UTV Media (GB) response to BBC Strategy Review: Putting Quality First – May 2010 2 4.1.2. The creation of 5 Live in the early 1990s responded to “a pledge to create a 24 hour news service” following the success of the BBC’s “Scud FM” Gulf War service. As reported at the time (see Annexes 1 and 2), such a service was identified as a “major priority” in an early 1990s BBC strategic review entitled ‘Extending Choice’. Ironically, the Guardian predicted that “[Five Live’s] biggest challenge will be a clash of news and sport”, citing concerns within the BBC’s sports department that “news will take priority”2. Our evidence suggests that there is still a significant tension between news and sport output on the station, but that it is news which has suffered amidst efforts to increase the on-air emphasis on ‘talking about sport’, and more recently on entertainment, personality and chat (classified as ‘other speech’ in our analysis). 4.1.3. 5 Live is not required to offer non-stop news; its service licence states that “The remit of BBC Radio Five Live is to be BBC Radio’s home of continuous news and live sports coverage”. Yet the fact that its sole quantitative service licence condition requires that “News represents around three- quarters of output each year” underscores the strength of its intended news commitment. The section of 5 Live’s service licence in which this condition appears sets out 5 Live’s contribution to the BBC’s ‘Sustaining citizenship and civil society’ public purpose. As if to reinforce the point, this section reasserts that “Around three quarters of its output across the year should be dedicated to news programming, including the weekday peak hours at breakfast and evening drivetime” 3. 4.1.4. These conditions are ambiguously (and differently) worded, such that it is difficult to say with complete certainty what requirements they place on 5 Live’s output. In particular, it is unclear what is meant by the terms “news”, “output”, “programming” and “dedicated”. There is also significant ambiguity introduced by the requirement for this condition to be met over an annual (rather than daily or weekly) timeframe, and by use of the word “around”. Nevertheless, the condition sets out a clear requirement for 5 Live to be overwhelmingly a news service. 4.1.5. Our finding that 45% of 5 Live’s output consists of news is based on a definition of news as ‘information or analysis related to recent or ongoing current affairs events or issues’. We have calculated this figure by extrapolating data from programming analysis carried out by UTV Media for this review. Measuring actual annual performance over the year would be impractical, so we instead based our analysis on detailed monitoring of 48 hours of output, which we are supplying in full to the BBC Trust alongside this submission. 4.1.6. Monday 1 March 2010 was selected to be representative of weekday output, and Saturday 13 March 2010 was selected to be representative of weekend output. These dates were chosen at random from periods in 2 The Guardian, ‘BBC dismisses fears of ‘downmarket’ service’, 12 October 1992 3 BBC Radio Five Live Service Licence, May 2010 UTV Media (GB) response to BBC Strategy Review: Putting Quality First – May 2010 3 which 5 Live was not covering any major news or sport events (such as the 2010 General Election or Winter Olympics), in order to avoid skewing the results in favour of either sport or news coverage. Both days followed 5 Live’s standard schedule and editorial format for the full 24 hours, and none of 5 Live’s standard presenter line-up was absent on either day (5 Live’s published schedules for the dates are set out in annexes 5 and 6). 4.1.7. Our analysis of output on Monday 1 March 2010 indicates that news represents just 51% of 5 Live’s output on weekdays. This rises to 54% if information bulletins are included, and to 61% if sports news and updates are included (see Figure 2 and Annex 3). In other words, even if ‘news’ is defined in the loosest possible terms, 5 Live’s weekday output is still falling well short of its major service licence condition. Yet individual programming strands demonstrate that a more comprehensive commitment to news is achievable. The best performing programmes for pure news were 5 Live Drive (76%) and Breakfast (68%), with the programmes presented by Gabby Logan (42%) and Richard Bacon (36%) both notable for the low quantities of news they broadcast. Figure 2. Breakdown of 5 Live weekday output (Monday 1 March 2010) Peak Logan Bacon Gabby Overall Richard Victoria Daytime Phone-in Overnight Derbyshire Breakfast / / Breakfast 5 Live Sport 5 Live Sport 5 Live Drive 0600- 0600- 0600- 1600- 1000- 1200- 1400- 1900- 2200- Dayparts 1900 1000 1000 1900 1200 1400 1600 2200 0600 1600- 1900 News 51% 60% 72% 68% 76% 61% 42% 36% 6% 53% Info (travel / weather) 3% 5% 6% 7% 5% 6% 4% 3% 1% 1% Sport 28% 20% 18% 22% 14% 8% 45% 14% 91% 16% Sport news / updates 6% 8% 7% 8% 6% 7% 12% 7% 3% 6% Live sport coverage 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Other speech 16% 12% 2% 1% 3% 22% 6% 44% 0% 28% Production 2% 3% 2% 2% 2% 3% 3% 3% 2% 1% TOTAL 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% News + info 54% 65% 78% 75% 81% 68% 46% 39% 7% 54% News + info + sport news 61% 73% 85% 83% 88% 75% 58% 46% 9% 60% Source: UTV Media analysis.