The History of the Development of British Satellite Broadcasting Policy, 1977-1992

THE HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH SATELLITE BROADCASTING POLICY, 1977-1992 Windsor John Holden —......., Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of PhD University of Leeds, Institute of Communications Studies July, 1998 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others ABSTRACT This thesis traces the development of British satellite broadcasting policy, from the early proposals drawn up by the Home Office following the UK's allocation of five direct broadcast by satellite (DBS) frequencies at the 1977 World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC), through the successive, abortive DBS initiatives of the BBC and the "Club of 21", to the short-lived service provided by British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). It also details at length the history of Sky Television, an organisation that operated beyond the parameters of existing legislation, which successfully competed (and merged) with BSB, and which shaped the way in which policy was developed. It contends that throughout the 1980s satellite broadcasting policy ceased to drive and became driven, and that the failure of policy-making in this time can be ascribed to conflict on ideological, governmental and organisational levels. Finally, it considers the impact that satellite broadcasting has had upon the British broadcasting structure as a whole. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract i Contents ii Acknowledgements 1 INTRODUCTION 3 British broadcasting policy - a brief history 6 1979 - An end to consensus 9 Approaches to policy making 17 CHAPTER ONE: Policy Development, 1979-83 22 Geostationary Satellites: A Brief History 23 The aftermath of the WARC: Sir Harold Wilson and the "foreign TV invasion" 29 The Home Office Response: Direct Broadcasting by Satellite 35 Cable: ACARD, ITAP and the Hunt Report 40 The BBC and DBS 65 L-Sat and Unisat 75 Conclusion 81 CHAPTER TWO: Policy Into Practice, 1983-87 87 IBA interest in DBS 87 Collapse of the BBC DBS project 90 The BBC / IBA Joint Venture 97 The "Club of 21" 105 Franchising DBS 127 BSB - early development 140 Conclusion 143 11 CHAPTER THREE: Practice Into Policy, 81-88: The History of Sky 150 Brian Haynes and the birth of "Satellite" 152 From "Satellite" to "Sky" 165 Coronet and SES / Astra 179 Conclusion 190 CHAPTER FOUR: Policy Into Failure, 1987-90 194 Policy development - I: The Peacock Report, the "Downing Street Seminar" and the Future of Broadcasting 195 Competition 208 Policy development -II: Lord Young's intervention and Broadcasting in the '90s 212 Service development: Sky vs BSB 219 Policy development - HI: The Broadcasting Bill 233 From BSB to BSIcyB 237 Conclusion 246 CHAPTER FIVE: Policy Outcomes: 1990 and beyond 255 Policies in transition: the international dimension 255 Policy in transition: Thatcherism and DBS 257 Regulatory issues: pornography and parasites 267 Broadcasting: 1997 & 1998 277 Outlook 286 List of Abbreviations 292 Chronology 295 Bibliography 299 List of Interviewees 308 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The response to my requests for interviews was extremely favourable, a fact which greatly facilitated my research. There were, however, a few exceptions. In his reply, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach stated that since he left the No. 10 Policy Unit, he has made a point of not discussing policy matters. Kenneth Baker, Lord Sterling of Plaistow, and Lord Thomson of Monifieth declined due to other commitments. I would like to thank Sir David Berriman, Patrick Cox, David Ciclitira, Bill Cotton, Amanda Cuthbert, Jon Davey, John Gau, Chris Irwin, Steve Maine, Sir Geoffrey Pattie, Andrew Quinn, John Rowe, Anthony Simonds-Gooding, Viscount Whitelaw, and those who chose to remain anonymous, for consenting to be interviewed. Additional information was supplied by Dennis Flach, Mike Goddard, Brian Haynes, Bernard Herdan, Sir Timothy Raison, Gerry Stollard and David Webster. Tony Dukinfield and Hamish Keith of Swindon Cable provided much illuminating material on the British cable industry. I am also grateful to the ITC for the use of its library. Special thanks are due to my supervisors at the Institute of Communications Studies, Dr Robin Brown and Howard Smith, for many helpful and constructive suggestions throughout the development of the thesis. I am also indebted to my fellow researchers at the Institute, particularly Gordon Ross (now at the University of Jena) and Terry Hemmings, who have had the misfortune to share an office with the mounting pile of paperwork that has since become this thesis, and to my colleagues on the "MERCI" project, Dr David E. Morrison in Leeds and Dr Paul Statham at the University of Berlin, 1 for their patience as I attempted to juggle doctoral research and my work on an ESRC- funded study of press coverage of immigration and asylum issues. I have been obliged to spend a good deal of time away from Leeds in the course of my research: I am therefore profoundly grateful to Richard and Gill Ainley, Dan Batten and Gary Birkenhead for their hospitality (and sofa-beds). Finally, my greatest gratitude is reserved for my parents, for taking the time to read the proofs, and for their love and support. This dissertation is dedicated to them. 2 INTRODUCTION This thesis is a history of the development of British satellite broadcasting policy, starting in 1977, when the allocation of broadcasting frequencies was agreed at a meeting of the World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC), and concluding in 1992, following the Conservative Party's fourth successive election victory and BSkyB's successful, momentous bid for the rights to screen live English Premier League football matches. Denis McQuail and others have recognised in the changes to the British broadcasting system features common across Europe throughout the 1980s which were due to a number of factors: a decline in the legitimacy of monopolistic arrangements, stimulated in part by dissatisfaction with the limited supply, in conjunction with a growing vogue for market solutions to these problems.' But to what extent were these changes due to the development, and implementation, of a government policy? For British broadcasting policy in general - and the so-called "new media" policy in particular - was notable throughout the 1980s for its chaotic, inconsistent and incoherent nature. Indeed, at times it seemed as though Government policy was to have no policy. On those occasions when initiatives were pursued, they were either stillborn or died shortly after birth. Although each successive initiative witnessed a gradual move towards a more commercial minded, market-oriented approach, the venture that ultimately succeeded did so by operating beyond the parameters of existing legislation. While this may have earned approval within a Government that favoured the laissez-faire approach of "not picking winners", it also I Denis McQuail, Rosario de Mateo & Helen Trapper, "A Framework for Analysis of Media Change in Europe in the 1990s", in Karen Siune & Wolfgang Truetzscler, edds., Dynamics of Media Politics: Broadcast Media in Western Europe (London: SAGE, 1992), pp. 10-11. 3 fractured the careful constructed plans of the Home Office and the IBA: policy had ceased to drive and had become driven. What this thesis does is to trace the development of this policy process, from initiation to implementation (or, as was all too frequently the case, to abortion). Its contention is that policy broke down largely as the result of a number of conflicts at different stages of development: ideological (during policy formulation), governmental (the failure to co-ordinate different arms of government towards a common goal) and organisational (the inability of bodies charged with the implementation of policy to take it to its conclusion). For the whole policy cycle, as the construct of these conflicting perspectives on broadcasting, as a battleground in the dispute between governmental departments, as the tool of broadcasters all too often indifferent to its success per se, was nothing less than a shambles from beginning to end. This thesis will contend that a fundamental reason was that this conflict inevitably produced a series of short term policies wholly ill-suited to the needs of the situation: like Topsy, it just growed, with the result that policy goals were radically transformed even as the policy process was in operation. The absence of any recognisable strategy produced what could be described as a crisis of identity at the centre of policy-making, as the various interested parties sought to exert their influence: and in the resulting confusion, all conventional notions of public service broadcasting were excised from satellite policy. Hence, the intention to utilise direct broadcasting by satellite (DBS) as an extension of public service broadcasting (the original Home Office goal) coupled with its potential as a means of enhancing the prestige of the British aerospace and electronics 4 industries on the international stage (the DoI 'angle') would be replaced by an acceptance of an alien entity, justified by market-liberals as an illustration of a successful private enterprise that broadened audience choice. When British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) struggled in the face of foreign competition, the internal system - which contained at least some commitments to the traditional public service broadcasting ethos - was jettisoned in favour of an external system, Sky, that owed allegiance wholly to market principles; indeed, which had, through its

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