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Open PDF 128KB Written evidence submitted by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) NUJ submission to the DCMS committee inquiry into public service broadcasting June 2020 Introduction 1. The NUJ supports a vibrant, creative and well-funded public service broadcasting (PSB) sector which is accessible and affordable and reflects the interests of the public it serves. All democracies require balanced, impartial news coverage which do not depend on the personal prejudices and foibles of media moguls, commercial pressure to appease shareholders or government interference. A functioning democracy cannot exist without a plural, trusted and vigorous media; the UK’s PSBs should provide the bedrock for this. 2. The NUJ accepts the purposes of PSB under the Communications Act 2003: to inform our understanding of the world; to stimulate interest in knowledge of the arts, science, history and other topics; to reflect our cultural identity through original programming; and to represent diversity and alternative points of view. PSB programmes should be trustworthy, innovative, challenging, of high quality, well- funded and original with new UK content. 3. The present Covid-19 crisis has shown just how vital it is for people to have trusted, reliable news sources; and it was to the BBC and other PSBs they turned to. With social media awash with dangerous misinformation such as the conspiracy theories linking the coronavirus to 5G mobile networks and anti-vaccination campaigns, the regulated PSB broadcast sector provided an essential bulwark. People who relied on social media for information about coronavirus were more likely to believe conspiracy theories and breach lockdown rules, according to a study by carried out by King’s College London and Ipsos Mori based on surveys of 2,254 UK residents aged between 16 and 75. “Our findings suggest that social media use is linked both to false beliefs about Covid-19 and to failure to follow the clear-cut rules of the lockdown,” said Dr Daniel Allington, senior lecturer in social and cultural artificial intelligence at King’s College London. The study found that more than one in 20 believed the 5G network story and of those who did 60 per cent said they got their information from YouTube. 4. As the BBC is soon about to celebrate its 100th birthday, it has shown it was able to rise to the challenge of Covid-19. The corporation said it would postpone the planned £40m cuts and redundancies in news and the introduction of licence-fee payments for the over-75s. BBC local radio launched a Make A Difference campaign, which has led to 800,000 listeners getting in touch to offer help to their communities. The BBC opened its PSB offering beyond increased news coverage by using the One Show to include health and well-being advice alongside keeping fit and healthy eating tips. Its BBC Food website provided collections of recipes especially for older people, and for low-income families. It offered families forced to school their children from home more BBC Bitesize content and a daily educational programme for different key stages or year. It broadcast religious services. It increased its offering on iPlayer to entertain families stuck in at home. BBC Culture in Quarantine provides a rich offering of online arts, music and theatre. This is public sector broadcasting at its best. But the BBC faces financial free-fall; the Covid-19 crisis alone has cost it £125million. Northern Ireland needs to save £3.6million which will equate to between 30 and 40 post closures, fewer resources being spent on the 10.30pm bulletin and watered-down coverage of party conferences. Scotland needs to save £6.2million, of which £3.5-4million would come from staffing, the equivalent of around 60 posts. Wales has already delivered £6million of savings over the past 3 years, partly due to a move to new premises, but still needs to save another £4.5million; that’s 60 posts in 2021/22. The figures for England are not yet known but are expected to be substantial. The corporation has called on all staff to consider applying for voluntary redundancy. Announcing the redundancies call, Lord Hall, director general, said the BBC now had 24 per cent less to spend on its UK public services than if the licence fee had risen with inflation over the past decade. 5. Channel 4, which relies for almost all its income from advertising faces a bleak future. While viewers have lately flocked to the PSBs, including ITV, advertising revenue has shrunk. Media analysts Enders said: “Journalism is on the precipice with more than £1 billion likely to fall off the industry’s top line. Several years of projected structural revenue decline in advertising and circulation have occurred in just the past few weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, with no let-up in sight.” In terms of broadcasting it said: “Flexibility is built into some types of programming, however nothing can replace live sport, while disruption in the production of scripted programming—especially high-volume soaps—will have knock-on effects that continue for years.” The reduced revenues will inevitably have an impact on news budgets. ITV is reducing its £1.1bn programming outlay by at least £100m, while C4’s £650m annual spend is to fall by £150m. C5 also announced it would be slashing programming investment because of the advertising downturn. A report in the Financial Times (June 23) said that television advertising was expected to fall 17.6 per cent in 2020 and rise 6 per cent in 2021, according to media investment company GroupM. It quoted one senior executive at a big advertising holding company saying there were fundamental shifts in the market, particularly for television. “This shock may do for free-to-air broadcast television what the financial crisis did for newspaper advertising,” they said. “It never recovered for newspapers. The question is how can broadcasters stop that from happening to them.” Regulation: Are the current regulations and obligations placed on PSBs, in return for benefits such as prominence and public funding, proportionate? What (if any regulation) should be introduced for SVoDs and other streaming services? 6. Many of the present regulations date back decades and were established at a time when there was limited choice. However, looking specifically at news it is paramount that all public service broadcasters, with national coverage on TV, should continue to be required to produce a minimum number of hours of high-quality news and factual programming. 7. The union has concerns over the record of the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. Experience has shown it to be a light-touch regulator. It has a record for accepting requests for reduced hours of regional news. The NUJ took issue with its decision to allow ITV local news to be reduced by one-third in its latest 10-year broadcast licences for ITV, STV, UTV and Channel 5. Ofcom did nothing when ITV slashed its current affairs coverage, including World in Action. 8. Television is a highly regulated medium and this regulation is in recognition of its important role in providing information and shaping opinions. It helps provide the gold standard of PSB and sets it apart from the Wild West of the internet and platforms such as Facebook. Comparisons with Netflix and the BBC and other PSB broadcasters are specious. They are competitors, but Netflix is a debt-laden American organisation which does not produce news or investigative journalism. Netflix makes some good programmes, but the reason why PSB should maintain their prominence, for example on the electronic programme guide, is because they perform a public function. In most cases they have earned their place, at least on the grounds of providing trusted programming. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Digital News Report 2020 shows the level of trust of news organisations: BBC News 64%; ITV News 60%; Financial Times 58%; local or regional newspaper 55%; Guardian 54%; Channel 4 News 53%; Sky News 53%; Independent 49%; The Times 44%; The Daily Telegraph 31%, the Sun 16%. 9. The lax regulation of the provision of local radio station news has led to its virtual demise. In 2019, Global Radio replaced the 40-plus local breakfast shows across its Capital, Smooth and Heart networks with just three nationwide programmes hosted from London. Bauer is folding almost 50 regional radio outlets into a national network. Dozens more towns and cities across England will lose their own distinctive local radio stations later this year, with stations such as York’s Minster FM and the West Midlands’ Signal 107 being replaced with largely syndicated programmes made in London, hundreds of miles from the communities they serve. Radio mainly affects only the BBC in terms of true "public service" - but there was been a long tradition of the regulator requiring news content on commercial stations. In particular there should be a need for meaningful local or regional news content where licence areas have been merged. Local radio comes into its own during crises such as Covig-19 or floods when they provide literally a live-saving service for local communities. But local radio is also there for when the sun is shining, connecting people in their county or region; for many lonely people, local radio is their friend. 10. SvOD and streaming services are different in their nature, namely that the method of distribution is usually a single product rather than, say, local or regional variations. Any services funded by public money must demonstrate a certain level of quality and where providing factual content, this should be broadly regulated along the same lines as linear broadcasting. In particular the principles of due impartiality should be a cornerstone, to avoid these services being open to abuse by political or partisan groups.
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