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

CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD
programming – to do 30 minutes rather
than 15 minutes a week as now. This could,
for example, translate to two hour-long
programmes to be shown each month. The
first might take the form of a current affairs
discussion show, allowing viewers to hear
from, for example, local MPs, council leaders,
civil society organisations and other local
representatives. The second might be a
journalism-led magazine show, with serious
analysis of local political affairs as well as
features covering matters of local interest, or
an investigative current affairs series along
the lines of UTV’s Insight which was cancelled
in 2009 and that left “BBC NI as the sole
provider of such programmes at a time when
the region has been dogged by governance
and financial scandals.” 243 Between them,
these new programmes could hugely
invigorate local reporting and democratic
accountability. We do not believe they would
need to be transmitted in peak, but they
should be made available on the ITV Hub
and displayed prominently there. On-demand
viewing allows important programmes like
these to remain available for longer and to
be seen by viewers outside specific regions
who may nevertheless be interested in that
region or particular issues. These are just
suggestions, of course, and we would leave it
to ITV to come up with its own response to
any increased regulatory burden.
Current affairs
At the moment ITV is required to produce
43 hours of current affairs a year, less than
an hour a week. This quota is met by Tonight,
The Agenda with Tom Bradby, and the new
Peston on Sunday, as well as the Exposure
and On Assignment strands. These are not
negligible programmes, especially Exposure,
but in scale and ambition they do not always
live up to the best of ITV’s traditions and they
do not as a whole adequately meet the full
needs of the British viewing public.
We believe that the current quota is feeble
and propose that ITV should have to devote
more of its airtime to current affairs – a
return to the 90 minutes a week stipulated
by the 2004 licences seems reasonable. We
also believe it should repurpose its output.
For example, ITV could develop a hour-long
weekly flagship along the lines of the old
World in Action. This could conduct fulllength
investigations or sometimes adopt a
magazine format, allowing for the coverage
of arts, science and religion, topics that have
essentially been abandoned by ITV. There is
a great opportunity here to reinvent current
affairs TV for the 21st century, while building
on the best of ITV’s traditions. This would
have the additional benefit of raising the
game of other broadcasters, not least the
BBC, by restoring the competition for quality
that was a hallmark of the public service
television world of the 1970s and 1980s.
Again, this is just a suggestion but one to
which we believe any future review of ITV
should give close attention.
When ITV does this kind of hard-hitting
television even now, it wins plaudits and
improves its reputation among viewers who
do not necessarily watch its other output.
The award-winning Exposure documentary
on Jimmy Savile in 2012 is a powerful
example. It may cost money to produce high
quality current affairs television, but it is an
243
Dr Ken Griffin, submission to the Inquiry. Note that in Northern Ireland, ITV (now the owner of UTV) still has
to broadcast much more regional non-news programming than in the English regions: two hours per week
(against 15 minutes in the English regions), of which 33 minutes must be current affairs. See the UTV licence.
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