Media in Wales – Serving Public Values Media in Wales Serving Public Values Geraint Talfan Davies and Nick Morris May 2008 Media in Wales – Serving Public Values The Institute of Welsh Affairs is an independent think-tank that promotes quality research and informed debate aimed at making Wales a better nation in which to work and live. We commission research, publish reports and policy papers, and organise events across Wales. We are a membership-based body and a wide range of individuals, businesses and other organisations directly support our activities. Our work embraces a range of topics but especially focuses on politics and the development of the National Assembly for Wales, economic development, education and culture, the environment and health. Contact details: Tel: 029 2066 6606 Email: [email protected] Web: www.iwa.org.uk This research was produced with the support of a Welsh Assembly Government grant. ISBN: 978 1 904773 34 4 Media in Wales – Serving Public Values CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 2. BROADCASTING – MIXED SIGNALS......................................................... 7 3. BROADCASTING – TELEVISION .............................................................. 15 4. BROADCASTING – RADIO ......................................................................... 37 5. WALES IN PRINT......................................................................................... 50 6. WALES ONLINE ........................................................................................... 72 7. JOURNALISM IN WALES .......................................................................... 78 8. WHAT THE AUDIENCE THINKS .............................................................. 83 9. REFLECTIONS.............................................................................................. 88 Media in Wales – Serving Public Values 1. Introduction In the past decade technological developments have wrought more change in our media landscape than ever before. The familiar peaks of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and S4C no longer stand out against a flat and featureless plain but are increasingly hidden by a multitude of digital channels in television and, to a lesser extent, in radio. The internet has also reshaped the way in which we seek out information and entertainment. This has had an effect on every part of the media landscape, print, broadcast and electronic, without exception. A broadcasting system largely shaped and driven according to public service values has begun to feel the force of markets as never before. Market pressure and technological developments have forced change, too, in newspapers. Arguably, public service values are more vulnerable than ever before. 2008 will be a watershed year, the beginning of the total switch from analogue to digital television signals. This is the backdrop to Ofcom’s second review of public service broadcasting (PSB), being carried out as part of its obligations under the Communications Act 2003. The speed of technological change and, in particular, the imminence of digital switchover will mean this review could be much more influential than the first in reshaping public service provision for the decades ahead. This is why the widest possible public debate in Wales is essential. In the past, Welsh responses to Ofcom consultations have been restricted in the main to the broadcasters and to a formal response from the Assembly Government. There has been little public debate beyond the confines of the media industry itself. That must not happen this time. This is particularly necessary since media policy has in the past rarely been shaped specifically to Wales’s needs. With so much at stake in this review, Wales must take the utmost care that it does not end up as the final square on the Rubik’s cube that does not fit. The distinctive circumstances of Wales – two living languages, sparse population in places, difficult topography, pockets of multiple deprivation, extensive poverty both urban and rural, the prevalence of the small scale in broadcast and print media markets, external media ownership, and a new democratic institution – more than justify a closer look at how Wales is served by the media. This report seeks to put Ofcom’s review of public service broadcasting into the context of the totality of means by which the public in Wales is informed. Print media cannot be left out of account. The Ofcom Review The Communications Act requires Ofcom to carry out a review of public service broadcasting at least every five years. Its first review was carried out between 2003 and 2005, and brought forward the following definition of PSB: 1 Media in Wales – Serving Public Values To inform ourselves and others and to increase our understanding of the world through, news, information and analysis of current events and ideas. To stimulate our interest in and knowledge of arts, science, history and other topics through content that is accessible and can encourage informal learning. To reflect and strengthen our cultural identity through original programming at UK, national, and regional level, on occasion bringing audiences together for shared experiences. To make us aware of different cultures and alternative viewpoints, through programmes that reflect the lives of other people and other communities, both within the UK and elsewhere. It argued that public service broadcasting should be: High quality – well funded and well produced. Original – new UK content, rather than repeats or acquisitions. Innovative – breaking new ideas or re-inventing exciting approaches, rather than copying old ones. Challenging – making people think. This second review, which need not have taken place until 2010, has been brought forward because Ofcom judged that ‘in some areas change has occurred even more rapidly than anticipated’, that pressure on services such as Channel 4 and on ITV’s regional services were growing, and that any change might need time-consuming legislation. The terms of reference for the current review are as follows: To evaluate how effectively the public service broadcasters are delivering the purposes and characteristics of PSB, particularly in the light of changes in the way TV content is distributed and consumed. To assess the case for continued intervention in the delivery of TV content to secure public service purposes. To consider whether and how the growth of new ways of delivering content to consumers and citizens might create new opportunities for achieving the goals of public service broadcasting, as well as posing new challenges. To assess future options for funding, delivering and regulating PSB, in light of these challenges and opportunities, and uncertainty about the sustainability of existing funding models. Ofcom’s Phase 1 consultation document seeks to answer four questions: what has intervention or regulation been aiming to achieve? have those goals been achieved? 2 Media in Wales – Serving Public Values what is likely to happen if there are no changes to the regulatory framework? what does PSB need to deliver in the digital age? A Phase 2 document, expected in the autumn of 2008, will present options designed to deliver public services effectively in changing circumstances. Wales, too, needs to ask how its own needs and aspirations will be served in the digital age. Public value in broadcasting At the core of the dilemmas facing Ofcom and society is the need to ensure that our media systems deliver and support important public values that are relevant to our existence as citizens, values that might not survive in a system wholly given to satisfying the desires of consumers. The nature of this ‘public value’ has been stated in many different ways. ‘Inform, educate and entertain’ – in that order – were inscribed in the tablets of stone that John Reith had carved for the BBC in the 1920s. The corporation created in 1927 was to be ‘a public service operating upon a democratic policy’, and Reith infused it with a sense of moral obligation towards the public, an obligation made necessary by ‘the brute force of its monopoly’. The same values that were embedded in the radio medium were transposed to the BBC’s television service. When ITV was first established in 1955 it was to be regulated by a public corporation. Balance and impartiality and an array of public service commitments, including children’s programmes and religious programmes, were imposed from the outset. It was to be an advertising funded public service, that - for technical reasons and to avoid a monopoly over programme supply - took on a regionalised form with a provision that each station should include in its output ‘a suitable proportion of matter calculated to appeal specially to the tastes and outlooks of persons served by the station’. When Margaret Thatcher’s government introduced the auctioning of ITV franchises in 1990, Parliament insisted on adding to the financial bidding a ‘quality threshold’ that each bidder had to cross. Faced with an increasing challenge to its funding, the BBC has since the early 1990s responded with a succession of documents – Extending Choice, The BBC Beyond 2000, Building Public Value - setting out ever more fully dimensions of public value that have included fostering an active and informed citizenship, developing British culture and creativity, extending educational potential and community cohesion through online services and promoting the UK’s voice in the world. From