A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
on their Nation or region being portrayed
fairly to the rest of the UK has increased
across the UK since 2008.” 350
The concern that we wish to highlight is
the growing gap between expectations
and performance. This gap is likely to grow
given the increased demands of audiences
together with current pressures on public
service broadcasters to cut budgets and to
secure ‘value for money’ which, if narrowly
interpreted, could lead to a further reduction
in ‘minority’ services.
For example, despite the fact that we have
had a Scottish parliament and assemblies
in Wales and Northern Ireland since 1999
and despite the increased infrastructural
investment linked to the creation of both
a ‘Northern Powerhouse’ and a ‘Midlands
Engine’, investment in television for the
‘nations and regions’ does has not kept pace
with these developments. Non-network
output in 1999 reached 17,891 hours (that is
first-run original output produced for the
‘nations and regions’ by the BBC, ITV and
S4C; by 2014, 15 years after devolution, it
had fallen to 13,814 hours (and that includes
programming by BBC Alba), a decline of
nearly 23%. 350 The main reason for this is
the reduced obligation for Channel 3 licence
holders to provide such programming (a
situation we referred to in Chapter 6) though
there have also been significant declines
in BBC output – in Wales, for example, the
BBC’s English language television output has
dropped by 27% since 2006/7. 352
If we focus only on the period between 2009
and 2014, the picture appears to be more
stable with an overall 7% increase in hours.
However this headline figure disguises a 9%
fall in Wales, a 3% decline in Northern Ireland
and a small fall in the English regions. The
picture is affected by the very welcome 57%
increase in hours in Scotland but, even here,
there were very specific explanatory factors
notably the increase in resources provided
to cover the 2014 Commonwealth Games
and the independence referendum as well as
the distorting impact of STV’s low-budget,
overnight programme, The Nightshift, that ran
from 2010 to 2015. 353
Spending on programmes produced for
the ‘nations and regions’ has also declined
markedly in the past few years: from £404
million in 1998 to £277 million in 2014, a drop
of just under one-third in real terms. This is
due to the significant decrease in Channel
3 spend which has overshadowed a small
increase in BBC investment. 354
The most worrying declines have been in the
English regions and in Wales with spending
down by 11% and 16% respectively. It could
be argued that the situation in Wales has
been improved by the contribution of S4C
to the Welsh cultural economy although its
own creative capacity has been squeezed
by a highly uncertain economic picture. It
suffered a 24% cut to its core funding in 2010
when the bulk of its source of income was
transferred from the government to the BBC,
while BBC Wales’ contribution to the channel
is also set to decline. According to the
Institute of Welsh Affairs, these reductions
threaten the ability of Welsh broadcasters
to tell the full range of stories in the widest
possible range of forms: “pluralism needs to
be viewed not just in terms of the number
of providers, but also in terms of the range,
form, purpose and tone of programmes and
the voices they carry.” 355 Rhys Evans of BBC
350
Ofcom, The Nations of the UK and their regions, p. 6.
351
Data from relevant Ofcom Communication Market Reports.
352
Institute of Welsh Affairs, IWA Wales Media Audit 2015, Executive Summary, p. 2.
353
Ofcom, Communications Market Report: Scotland, Ofcom, 2015, pp. 46-47.
354
Ofcom, The Nations of the UK and their regions, p. 11.
355
IWA Wales Media Audit 2015, p. 2.
117