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

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A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION PSM refers to an evolving digital media ecology This ecology, as we discussed in the previous chapter, is shaped by institutional design and regulation and should not be equated with a single institution or channel. From the birth of ITV onwards, this ecology has encompassed the commercial public service broadcasters as well as the BBC and, potentially in the future, additional organisations. We want to reinstate this definition for the digital age. The PSM ecology entails complementarity between the different bodies delivering PSM’s public purposes, as well as benign competition to raise standards and stimulate innovation. It optimises the public interest by creating new markets and intervening in wider markets. We therefore question the current nostrum – prevalent in the government’s thinking in relation to BBC charter review – that PSM’s ‘market impact’ should limit their entry into new and existing markets. In contrast, new economic thinking stresses the essential contributions of publicly funded research and development, in technology and culture, to innovation, the creation of new markets and economic growth. We could speak of distributed innovation through partnerships with start-ups, universities, cultural organisations and so on: public-public as well as public-private partnerships. This paradigm in the economics of innovation is now gaining new life. As the economist Mariana Mazzucato argues, “the public sector not only ‘de-risks’ the private sector by sharing its risk, it often ‘leads the way’, courageously taking on risk that the private sector fears.” 69 “THE PUBLIC SECTOR NOT ONLY ‘DE-RISKS’ THE PRIVATE SECTOR BY SHARING ITS RISK, IT OFTEN ‘LEADS THE WAY’, COURAGEOUSLY TAKING ON RISK THAT THE PRIVATE SECTOR FEARS.” Mariana Mazzucato Of course, this reframing should not be read as a complete licence for PSM to do everything, everywhere – especially where public resources are limited and commercial provision is highly regarded. As we note elsewhere in this report, a holistic approach to PSM should consider how changes to one part of the ecology might affect other parts. A more sophisticated approach to market impact would place greater emphasis on the positive and longer term benefits of PSM in new markets as well as having careful regard to any possible detrimental effects. Yet despite the success of BBC iPlayer, DAB and Channel 4’s documentary platform 4docs, it’s remarkable how few sustained innovations public service media have made that exploit the rich potentials of digital media – such as creative participation, usergenerated content, low-budget experimental production, niche markets and the ‘long tail’ to host this activity. This absence, two 69 Born and Prosser, 2001, p. 676.Mariana Mazzucato, ‘The Future of the BBC: The BBC as Market Shaper and Creator’, LSE Media Policy Project, October 14, 2015. 34
CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD decades into the internet age, suggests either a failure of imagination, of sustained R & D, or of institutional commitment – or all three. New normative thinking can help to combat this state of affairs, framing new challenges for PSM. We therefore propose new linked principles: the obligation to animate participation and new creative practices, and to curate and disseminate the results. Tony Hall has spoken of partnership as a new principle in a digital environment, 70 while the white paper talks of the need for the BBC to improve its partnerships with other organisations. 71 However, this commitment should not be limited to the opening up of the BBC, or PSM more generally, to partnering only with established (and, in some cases, elite) cultural bodies such as the Royal Opera House, the British Museum and the British Film Institute. Partnership must extend to very local engagements with small-scale and amateur producers: they too should be invited to participate in the PSM ecology, answering also to the need for greater decentralisation in media and cultural production. This is what lies behind our commitment to a new fund for digital content providers that we discuss further in Chapter 7. The spectrum of production and services would therefore range from the fully professional to more ‘amateur’ practices: all matter today, and PSM in the digital era is about brokering partnerships and participation across this spectrum. Emulating the long tail model using the distributive powers of public digital platforms will allow PSM to open out, boosting its function of animating the creative economy. We want to emphasise the importance of partnership, animation, participation and curation. This would help to counter the current lack of engagement with the niche possibilities of the digital and stimulate the curation of low budget and experimental content – film, comedy, documentary, reality – on public portals that offer creatives a higher profile. The PSM ecology should involve deep reflection about socially and culturally enriching digital interventions of this kind that have the potential to empower, by vastly increasing the diversity of voices in the (three-way) public sphere, while contributing to, and even cementing, the growth of local, regional and national production hubs. A further proposition is that the PSM should intervene in and reshape what have become entirely commercial, in some cases globally oligopolistic digital markets. Under the prevailing ‘market impact’ discourse, obsessed as it is with short-term impacts on competitor revenues and profits, such interventions are almost unthinkable. But our argument is that, if they derive from PSM’s evolving normative principles – of independence, universality, citizenship, quality (which should now include innovation and risk-taking) and diversity – then interventions in digital markets are justified. Indeed, the more significant question is why they have been ruled out. When designing such digital interventions in the media ecology, PSM should meet the same criteria as PSB before it: they are justified when they complement or raise the game of commercial services. 70 Tony Hall, speech at the Science Museum on the future vision of the BBC, September 7, 2015. 71 Department for Media, Culture and Sport, A BBC for the future: a broadcaster of distinction, 2016, p. 66. 35
Page 1 and 2: A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVIS
Page 3 and 4: Contents Foreword by David Puttnam
Page 5 and 6: To instruct democracy, if possible
Page 7 and 8: Welcome Television is leading a cha
Page 9 and 10: CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL
Page 11 and 12: PSB channels 71.9% All other channe
Page 15 and 16: Why television matters Television i
Page 19 and 20: 1982 1990s 2012 The BBC-ITV duopoly
Page 23 and 24: Time for action Today’s policymak
Page 29 and 30: Basic principles At the core of pre
Page 33: CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL
Page 39 and 40: The multichannel revolution Perhaps
Page 51 and 52: The BBC For most people, the BBC is
Page 67 and 68: Channel 4 If the BBC is the most im
Page 71 and 72: Only 8% of Channel 4’s total spen
Page 79 and 80: ITV and Channel 5 The focus of atte
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The changing face of ITV 1993-2002
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CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL
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New sources of public service conte
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Television and diversity We have ea
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THE PEOPLE SHOULD BE TELEVISED If t
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Nations and Regions Public service
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Content diversity One of the key wa
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Sports content now accounts for som
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Talent development and training In
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Conclusion Television is changing.
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Recommendations General The UK’s
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Appointing the BBC board Sir David
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APPLICATION OF THE NOLAN PRINCIPLES
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BAFTA members’ survey delivered i
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Public service broadcasting, public
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Inquiry events Do we still need pub
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Acknowledgements Inquiry Report Con
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A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

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