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

CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
with a range of informed positions and a
commitment to drawing on credible evidence
as opposed to unsubstantiated claims.
The nature of the ‘crisis’ in current affairs is
rather different. There was a steep decline
in current affairs provision in the 1980s and
1990s 410 followed by a 35% fall in output
between 1992 and 2002. 411 Yet, in recent
years, far from falling off a cliff, the average
consumption of current affairs appears to
be increasing with a 52% rise in viewing time
since 2003 across all channels (albeit with a
slightly smaller rise of 23% on the main PSB
channels). 412 Ofcom figures also show a 10%
rise in hours produced across the schedule
between 2009-2014 with BBC Two and
Channel 5 showing increases of nearly 60%.
The situation is not quite so rosy when it
comes to peak-time current affairs where a
majority of the overall increase is accounted
for by the BBC’s digital news channel and
where both BBC One and ITV show less than
one hour a week of current affairs. 413
The problem, therefore, is not about the total
number of hours transmitted but with the
very delicate position that current affairs
occupies in a ratings-driven environment.
Despite the public’s appetite for high quality
investigations and analysis, current affairs
programmes remain expensive to produce
and do not attract the largest audiences. That
they still continue to feature in prime-time
schedules is largely to do with the obligations
placed on public service broadcasters by
regulators. According to one anonymous
producer quoted in a 2013 report on the
future of current affairs, “if there were no
regulation, current affairs would disappear
overnight. It would legitimise the race for
ratings”; another argued that “broadcasters’
commitment to current affairs is dubious and
is slipping fast. They are doing our stuff, but
grudgingly, because they have to. There is
relentless pressure to soften what we do.” 414
There appears to be a quite different
atmosphere – and of course a very different
financial landscape – from the 1970s when
programmes such as ITV’s World in Action,
This Week and Weekend World reached
collectively 20 million viewers a week and
had huge resources thrown at them. 415 The
small increase in peak-time current affairs
output since 2009 has been matched by a
14% fall in spending and there is anecdotal
evidence, according to Steven Barnett, “that
there is now more emphasis on the personal,
the human interest and on celebrity issues
than in the late 1990s.” 416 ‘Infotainment’ is
gradually replacing output that used to
focus on international stories and costly
investigations. Channel 4’s Dispatches and
the BBC’s Panorama remain the cornerstones
of this latter genre but they are becoming
increasingly reliant on ‘safer’ topics such as
consumer or lifestyle stories. 417 In the light
of these shifts, we want to reiterate our
commitment to in the democratic importance
of “accountability journalism” 418 . We believe
that not only should the quotas remain
(and in the case of ITV, as we have already
argued, increased) but that there needs to
be a revival, monitored by Ofcom, of the
‘hard-hitting’ investigative strands that have
410
Steven Barnett, The Rise and Fall of Television Journalism, London: Bloomsbury, 2011.
411
David Bergg, ‘Taking a horse to water? Delivering public service broadcasting in a digital universe’, in J. Cowling and D. Tambini (eds.), From Public
Service Broadcasting to Public Service Communications, London: IPPR, 2002, p. 12.
412
Thinkbox, TV Viewing in the UK, 2016.
413
Ofcom, PSB Annual Report 2015: Output and spend index, July 2015, pp. 30-31.
414
Quoted in Jacquie Hughes, An Uncertain Future: The Threat to Current Affairs, International Broadcasting Trust, 2013, p. 11.
415
Jeremy Tunstall, submission to the Inquiry.
416
Quoted in Hughes, An Uncertain Future, p. 12.
417
Tunstall, 2015, p. 184.
418
Hughes, An Uncertain Future, p. 4.
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