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MINUTES OF AUDIENCE COUNCIL MEETING

Held on Friday 14 December 2012 at BBC Cymru Wales,

Present: Elan Closs Stephens (Chair) Trust Member for Wales Rhian Connick Bethan Darwin Robert Humphreys Pamela Hunt Ian Stevens Ceri Stradling Alun Williams

Apologies: Andy Carter Aled Jones-Griffith Ruth Marks

In attendance from the Trust Unit: Karl Davies Chief Adviser Wales Governance Coordinator and Secretary to Siôn Brynach ACW Siân Pitman Departmental Assistant Mahnoor Naeem Work experience placement

From the BBC Wales Executive: Items 60 - 63 Rhodri Talfan Davies Director Wales Items 60 - 63 Adrian Davies Head of English Language Services Items 60 - 63 Rhys Evans Strategy and Policy Manager Items 60 - 63 Mark O’Callaghan Head of News & Current Affairs Item 61 Tristram Biggs Head of Technology Transfer BBC R&D

60 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

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60.1 There were no declarations of interest.

61 PRESENTATION ON YOUVIEW

61.1 Head of Technology Transfer BBC R&D informed the Council that YouView was more than a set top box and was a joint venture established by seven media companies including broadcasters (BBC, ITV, , Channel 5) internet service providers (BT and TalkTalk) and DTT infrastructure providers (Arqiva).

61.2 YouView is a set of technical standards and legal agreements which allows manufacturers to create hardware, network providers to produce services and content providers to reach audiences. YouView, being a ‘not for profit’ company, does not set the price of boxes. Boxes could be acquired either through broadband providers such as BT and TalkTalk or by purchasing them from a retailer.

61.3 He said that the original strategy had been to provide an Internet Protocol enabled upgrade path for Freeview for the mass market; to experiment with Internet Protocol TV in a BBC friendly environment and to ensure a close connection with audiences in their voyage to IPTV, avoiding the potential of proprietary ‘walled gardens and app stores’ of manufacturers and internet giants.

61.4 There was a need for the BBC to influence the YouView roadmap to ensure that a path was followed which was consistent both technically and editorially with the BBC’s connected-TV ambitions.

61.5 The Council received a demonstration of the key features of the YouView box, including the option to record HD material if available and access on- demand content. Future options were being explored included adding film providers.

61.6 Turning to Wales, the Council asked to what extent the YouView service was accessible across Wales, since broadband speed in some areas of the nation remained under 2mb/s. Head of Technology Transfer informed the Council that the minimum recommended broadband speed for using YouView was 3 mb/s.

61.7 The Council asked whether the YouView service would be an integral part of Smart TVs in future and was informed that this was an ambition but that there was no time-scale for its realisation. Other ambitions included a PVR free variant, IP channels, HTML5 and the exploitation of data, but there was no specific time-scale for the implementation of these. There was an ambition to provide a interface but no time-scale had been identified for implementing this.

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61.8 The Council also expressed its disappointment that Wales’ national radio stations were not available through the iPlayer on the YouView platform and asked the National Trustee to raise this matter at the Trust’s next meeting

62 MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING AND MATTERS ARISING ACW (12) 7

62.1 The minutes were accepted, with one minor redaction, as a true and accurate record of the Council meeting held on 16 November 2012.There were no matters arising.

63 REPORTS

63.1 NATIONAL TRUSTEE The National Trustee informed the Council that the Pollard report on the circumstances of Newsnight dropping its investigation into Jimmy Savile was expected to be presented to the Trust and published shortly. The MacQuarrie report on the Newsnight report on abuse in was expected to be published at around the same time.

63.2 The National Trustee also said that since the last meeting of Council, Tony Hall had been appointed to the post of Director General of the BBC. He would take up the post in early March 2013. Members asked about the appointment process and the National Trustee outlined the process which had led to his appointment. She said that an extensive trawl for possible candidates had been conducted only a few months previously and that it had been felt that there was a need to move swiftly on this occasion.

63.3 The National Trustee informed the Council that she had met recently with Baroness Randerson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Wales Office and that the meeting had been positive.

63.4 The Council was informed that the BBC- Operating Agreement was nearing completion and that it was now expected to be approved in January. The Council expressed its concern that S4C had been included in the UK Government’s Autumn Statement announcement on reductions in funding for public bodies which would lead to a further cut in the broadcaster’s budget.

63.5 BBC CYMRU WALES EXECUTIVE BOARD Director Wales informed the Council that the Government of Wales had taken exception to one recent episode of and had received a letter requesting that the episode not be repeated and that it be removed from S4C’s Clic service. Both BBC and S4C had rejected the request. There had been no complaints from members of the audience. This was commended by the Council and members said the BBC reaction had been consistent with what they had heard from audiences.

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63.6 Providing news coverage of the floods in north Wales had been very challenging for the news teams. As part of the coverage, the issue of building on flood plains had been highlighted.

63.7 Some of the results of the 2011 Census had been published recently and had received significant attention in news reports. The Council asked whether a previous idea to hold a seminar on the demography of Wales could be revisited following the publication of these results. Chief Adviser Wales informed the Council that it was planned for 2013.

Director Wales informed the Council that a new series, Wales in a Year, exploring some of the themes arising from the Census would be broadcast in the New Year

63.8 Turning to the dispute between Welsh language musicians and the Performing Rights Society (PRS), Director Wales said that the situation could lead to a very limited amount of Welsh language music being broadcast by Radio Cymru from 1 January 2013. Negotiations were continuing with the new body, EOS, established by those musicians who had withdrawn from membership of the PRS.

63.9 A major new Network drama had recently been commissioned from BBC Wales – The Game. Negotiations for the broadcasting rights for the autumn rugby internationals and Pro 12 rugby were happening at present and an announcement was expected shortly.

64 TRUST BUSINESS (IN PRIVATE)

64.1 Chief Adviser Wales informed the Council that the follow up report to the Science Impartiality Review suggested that the BBC Executive had made progress in implementing the Report’s recommendations. The Council said that one helpful addition would be to highlight the world class expertise in the universities of Wales

64.2 CHIEF ADVISER’S REPORT The Council was informed that the Trust’s Service Reviews to be held in 2013 were children’s services, TV services and News. would have significant input into the scoping of these Service Reviews, as had occurred recently with the .co.uk Service Review.

64.3 The Council was informed that the deadline for applications for membership of the ACW had now passed and that the appointment process was progressing.

64.4 Turning to the Council’s business plan for 2013, he informed the Council that no meeting would now take place in June, but would instead take place on 12 July.

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64.5 REPORT BACK FROM RECENT COUNCIL AUDIENCE EVENTS The Council was informed that the reports of its recent outreach events had now been placed on the Audience Council Wales website.

65 TRUST MEETING WITH AUDIENCE COUNCILS AND APPROVAL OF TEXT OF ACW AUDIENCE PRIORITIES FOR 2013-14

65.1 The Council welcome the draft agenda for the day. In particular the Council approved of the emphasis on the BBC’s mission to explain. The Council was content with the draft audience priorities but suggested a greater emphasis be made regarding news coverage from across Europe. Members were invited to send any further comments to staff by 21 December.

66 CHILDREN’S SERVICES REVIEW AND SALFORD SEMINAR

66.1 The Council welcomed the outreach events which had been arranged for it ahead of the scoping seminar to be held in Salford on 21 January 2013 and expressed its satisfaction at the proposed time-table for that event.

67 ACW SUBMISSION TO TRUST REVIEW OF ONLINE

67.1 The Council was content with the paper and agreed to its submission to the review.

68 PRIORITY ISSUES FOR THE BBC TRUST

68.1 The Council expressed concern that Radio Cymru and Radio Wales were not yet part of the iPlayer proposition on YouView.

69 DATE OF NEXT MEETING.

69.1 The next meeting of the Council is to take place on Friday 1st February 2013 at BBC Cymru Wales.

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