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MINUTES OF AUDIENCE COUNCIL MEETING Held on Friday 18 September 2015, BBC Broadcasting House, .

Present: Elan Closs Stephens (Chair) Trust Member for Wales Carol Adams Joni Ayn Alexander Louise Casella Rhian Connick Rhys Davies Ryan Davies Owen Derbyshire Andrew Jones Catrin Lewis Ian Stevens Ceri Stradling

In attendance from the Trust Unit: Karl Davies Chief Adviser Wales Bronwen Roscoe Lead Adviser - Public Service Policy Governance Coordinator and Secretary to Siôn Brynach BBC Audience Council Wales Janet Davies Departmental Assistant

From the BBC Wales Executive (agenda items 53-63): Rhodri Talfan Davies Director, BBC Cymru Wales Adrian Davies Head of Content, English Rhys Evans Head of Strategy and Digital Siân Gwynedd Head of Content, Welsh Mark O’Callaghan Head of News and Current Affairs Lowri Rhys Davies Project Lead Patagonia 150 (for item 63) Suzanne Hay Head of Partnerships and Learning, BBC National Orchestra of Wales(for item 63) Michael Garvey Director BBC National Orchestra of Wales (for item 63)

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54 APOLOGIES, ANNOUNCEMENTS AND DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

54.1 There were no apologies or declarations of interest.

55 APPROVE MINUTES OF 3 JULY 2015 ACW MEETING AND ANY MATTERS ARISING

55.1 The minutes were agreed as a true and accurate record of the meeting. There were no matters arising.

56 DISCUSSION ON THE BBC CHARTER RENEWAL.

56.1 The Council discussion occurred with reference to five of the key questions asked by the UK Government in its consultation on the Green Paper it published in July:

- How can the BBC’s public purposes be improved so there is more clarity about what the BBC should achieve?

- How well is the BBC serving its domestic and international audiences?

- Does the BBC have the right genre mix across its services?

- Is the BBC’s content sufficiently high quality and distinctive from that of other broadcasters? What reforms could improve it?

- How could the BBC improve engagement with licence fee payers and the industry, including through research, transparency and complaints handling?

56.2 The Council was updated on the developments thus far, following the publication of the UK Government Green Paper in July. Members emphasised that despite the paucity of details on Governance in that document, it was inconceivable that there should not be a representative body in Wales as a part of any future governance structure for the BBC. The Council emphasised that the current Ofcom model was not suitable for a variety of reasons. The Council also said that it was essential that any representatives or advisory body in Wales should continue to express views on the entire gamut of the BBC’s output in Wales – both the national Wales output and UK-wide Network output. It was also key that the advice given was not just heard but acted upon. It felt that it was essential that any successor body to the Audience Council Wales should continue to directly engage with audiences, but that an additional mechanism that would permit feed-back on how the BBC had responded to points raised by audience members should also be proposed.

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56.3 The Council felt strongly that the any ‘market failure model’ for the BBC during the next Charter period should be completely rejected. It was clear that while audiences in Wales continued to enjoy the wide range of output broadcast on the BBC’s radio and TV UK-wide network, a priority was a proper broad national TV service for Wales within the current channel provision. The current somewhat nebulous BBC proposals for the Nations should be strengthened, especially in the light of the concerns associated with the further budget cuts envisaged as a result of the Licence Fee settlement agreed for 2017-2022.

56.4 The Council supported the proposal to reword the BBC Public Purposes and said that the current BBC Trust process of reviewing services had worked well. However, it proposed that in addition to the current procedures a new mechanism should be established to measure the success or failure of the BBC in fulfilling those purposes, and in implementing the recommendations of Service Reviews.

It proposed that a Service Licence for Wales should be introduced, so that the performance of the entire range of BBC output consumed in the nation could be considered.

56.5 The Council felt it important that the Licence Fee should be retained as the most effective means of funding the BBC but that the public should be made far more aware of the way in which that income was spent by the BBC – possibly through an e-mail, directly to Licence Fee payers, with a report along similar lines to those produced by Local Authorities outlining Council Tax spend.

56.6 The Council emphasised that what it heard from audiences time and again at its outreach events was that the public expected the BBC to provide something for everyone, but that it expected that content to be of a high quality including news, drama and coverage of international, UK-wide, national and local issues. Above all they wanted to see themselves portrayed and the good to be popular and the popular good.

56.7 The Council expressed its disappointment that the DCMS’ advisory group on the renewal of the BBC Charter had no representation from any of the UK’s nations other than England, and its disappointment that the licence fee settlement had taken place independently of the Charter renewal discussions.

56.8 It was agreed that BBC Trust staff would prepare a draft submission from ACTION: the Council, and would circulate this for comments via e-mail. Since the KD time before the submission deadline was so short, members were reminded of the need to respond with alacrity with any comments once the draft submission had reached them.

57 DISCUSSION ON THE TRUST SERVICE REVIEW OF THE NATIONS RADIO AND NEWS SERVICES WITH REFERENCE

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TO REPORTS FROM OUTREACH EVENTS HOSTED BY THE COUNCIL DURING JUNE, JULY AND EARLY SEPTEMBER.

57.1 The Council was informed that the formal launch of the Service Review was ACTION: SB now scheduled for November and the Council agreed that it would be helpful for comments relevant to scoping the Terms of Reference of this Service Review to be prepared as a report, agreed via e-mail by members and submitted to the Trust Unit’s Service Review Team.

58 DISCUSSION REGARDING BBC TRUST CONSULTATION REGARDING THE PVT PROVISIONAL CONCLUSIONS ON BBC THREE AND ASSOCIATED PROPOSALS

58.1 The BBC Trust’s Lead Adviser, Public Service Policy, reminded the Council of the provisional conclusions reached following the Public Value Test which included, for BBC Three, the imposition of conditions, including a requirement that all long-form programmes also air on BBC One or BBC Two, a commitment to nurturing new talent and programming as well as implementing a well-managed transition of BBC Three to the on-line sphere rather than a situation which saw the TV channel cease abruptly.

58.2 She informed members that while the BBC One+1 proposals had attracted support during the public consultation, the Trust had concluded provisionally that it could have a negative impact on the market (as per Ofcom’s MIA). Its provisional decision therefore was to reject the proposals. Technical issues also meant that around 24% of UK television households would have to purchase new equipment in order to access the service. Because of this, there was inadequate evidence that it would in fact benefit the target audience identified by the BBC in its proposals and the Trust therefore provisionally rejected the proposals.

58.3 The Trust had however agreed to the proposal to extend the hours of CBBC since it recognised the need to help manage the transition of young viewers from Cbeebies to CBBC and try and stem the general decline in their viewing. CBeebies’s schedule would remain unchanged.

58.4 In discussing its submission to the consultation – which closed at the end of September – the Council considered that the importance of BBC Three’s Sixty Second News should be re-emphasised since it regularly heard from younger audiences that it was often the only formal news output accessed by them, and was often a portal to further exploration on-line of particular news stories.

58.5 The Council also asked for its concerns that possible clashes could occur ACTION: SB between nations opts programmes, and the schedule slots proposed for content that was currently on BBC Three to be included in its submission. It was agreed that BBC Trust staff would prepare a draft submission from the Council, and would circulate this to members for comments via e-mail.

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59 NATIONAL TRUSTEE’S REPORT

59.1 The National Trustee informed Council members about some of the events and developments that had occurred since its last meeting in July. These included the publication of the UK Government’s Green Paper on BBC Charter renewal, the Licence Fee settlement and the publication, on 9th September, of the BBC management’s proposals for the next Charter period. During the past few days, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport had also announced that a review would be undertaken by David Clementi of the BBC’s current governance structure. The Council agreed that there were clear opportunities as well as threats to broadcasting in Wales within the BBC Charter review process.

60 DIRECTOR WALES REPORT

60.1 Director Wales began by paying tribute to former Controller BBC Wales, Geraint Stanley Jones, who had died recently, and whom he said had been a source of regular encouragement to him. The National Trustee echoed his comments, and paid tribute to ‘Geraint Stan’, informing the Council that he had been a great sounding board for her during her period as BBC Trustee.

60.2 Making reference to the recently published BBC proposals on Charter Renewal – British, Bold and Creative – Director Wales said that it was encouraging that they recognised the challenges facing the national services for Wales, and acknowledged the Council’s concerns that the proposed solutions to those issues remained somewhat nebulous. He reminded the Council that the UK Parliament’s Welsh Affairs Select Committee and the National Assembly for Wales’ Culture Committee were both undertaking reviews of broadcasting in Wales during the coming months and members of those committees would be made fully aware of some of the issues currently facing the BBC in Wales.

60.3 Council members were reminded that the BBC as a whole needed to realise additional savings of £150m before the end of the current Charter period. The next Licence Fee settlement was described as ‘cash flat’ which would probably mean a reduction of around 10% in real terms funding during the period 2017-2022.

60.4 Director Wales made reference to the Director General’s recent speech, delivered on 17th September, regarding the future of in-house production and the proposals to establish BBC Studios. There remained questions regarding the proposals, since it would mean a significant cultural shift as well as substantial regulatory changes.

60.5 Director Wales made reference to recent BBC Wales productions including the new series of Doctor Who, the Live Longer Wales season currently underway, the excellent cross-platform coverage of the National and welcomed the 33 nominations of BBC Cymru Wales productions for Bafta Cymru awards. He also informed the Council that S4C had recently

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decided to reintroduce a fifth episode of Pobol y Cwm each week, with the funding for this additional episode coming from S4C. It would be reintroduced from the middle of December.

60.6 The Council congratulated the BBC Wales team on securing broadcasting rights to the 6 Nations rugby tournament, and in particular on retaining it on free to air TV, since it regularly heard from audiences that nothing engaged them to a greater extent than this rugby tournament.

61 TV PERFORMANCE REPORT

61.1 Council was informed that many of the stalwarts in the BBC Cymru Wales English TV stable still performed exceptionally well, and made reference to Weatherman Walking and Iolo’s Welsh Parks, but noted that with Sky now having first choice of rugby matches for broadcast on Friday evening, the performance of Scrum V Live had dipped slightly, but was still on the whole performing well. A number of BBC Wales programmes had also performed particularly well on the BBC iPlayer recently. BBC Wales Today had also performed well during July and August, bucking the trend of past years.

61.2 The Council asked about the appreciation levels of The Wales Report and was informed that the programme performed well, with a key consideration being the importance of politics having a specific slot within the BBC Wales schedule.

62 RADIO PERFORMANCE REPORT

62.1 It was acknowledged that the latest Rajar figures showed that it had been a tough quarter for both Radio Cymru and Radio Wales, but that it was heartening that the share amongst fluent Welsh speakers for Radio Cymru was staying up well. However, there remained a question as to why the station’s performance at weekends was deteriorating when there had been no schedule changes. Similar considerations were under consideration for Radio Wales, and in particular its performance during weekday mornings. A fundamental question was the role of radio, in terms of providing information, in these days of ‘smart’ devices.

63 BBC PATAGONIA 150 PROJECT

63.1 Lowri Rhys Davies, Suzanne Hay and Michael Garvey were welcomed to the meeting, with Lowri beginning their presentation by outlining the scope of the project, involving as it did a key Welsh story and an important editorial project too. The Council was shown a show-reel of some of the project’s highlights thus far, including coverage of Gŵyl y Glaniad, marking 150 years since the first settlers landed at Porth Madryn in Patagonia.

63.2 One of the key drivers for the project had been a high level of audience interest that had continued through the range of events throughout 2015. There had been an opportunity too for partnership working, in particular

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with the British Council and with S4C, with programmes, such as the one from Huw Edwards, having been produced in both English and Welsh and shown on BBC Wales and S4C.

63.3 The key difference between this season and other anniversary events was that it covered a number of dates such as the anniversary of the departure of the Mimosa from Liverpool docks, Gŵyl y Glaniad marking the landing of the settlers at Porth Madryn and Eisteddfod y Wladfa in October. Some of the production highlights included a BBC iWonder guide, pieces on Radio Cymru, a series of news reports from Patagonia and a range of content on BBC Cymru Fyw, including a live feed of diary entries from someone on the Mimosa as the voyage progressed. Radio Wales and Radio Cymru had also covered the season, and Radio Cymru had been instrumental in facilitating the creation of a world record for the duet when both singers were furthest apart, with one half of the duet in Wales and the other in Patagonia. There had also been coverage on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

63.4 Michael Garvey and Suzanne Hay proceeded to inform Council about some of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’s output in an usual year, in Wales and beyond.A key highlight of this year for the orchestra would be a tour to Patagonia and other parts of South America, including the Argentinian capital city Buenos Aires, Chile and Uruguay, during the coming months. It would be a world first for a symphony orchestra to visit the Chubut region of Argentina, with the orchestra also having a residency period in Patagonia. For a week, 12 of the orchestra’s players would be holding workshops in schools and special schools for teachers as well as pupils, and undertaking performances in unusual locations at unusual times, and visiting housebound people. There would also be a number of concerts in Trelew, and the visit had become an impetus for converting an old wool warehouse into a concert and arts venue that would be the location for October’s Eisteddfod y Wladfa. The project had involved a vast amount of planning and partnership working and it was hoped the visit by the orchestra would have a lasting impact.

63.5 The Council congratulated the Orchestra on the scope of the tour’s vision and the community visit to Patagonia as well as the potential legacy of such as visit. The Council was of the view that the visit would clearly be beneficial to the local communities visited, as well as of course the musicians themselves.

64 CHIEF ADVISER’S REPORT

64.1 The attention of Council members was drawn to its programme of business, and in particular the forthcoming audience outreach events in Aberbargod, Llanelli and Cwmbran and the proposed dates for Council meetings during 2016.

65 ISSUES TO DRAW TO THE TRUST’S ATTENTION

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65.1 The key issues that Council wished to draw the Trust’s attention related to its submission to the Trust’s consultation on Charter Review, in particular the paucity of details regarding the governance structures being proposed for the devolved nations in the next Charter period.

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