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

A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION
The most significant channel grouping
outside the public service broadcasters’
portfolios is that operated by Sky. Its channels
accounted for 8.2% of all viewing in 2014, with
0.7% of that to its news channel, the only one
in its portfolio offered on Freeview. 255 Sky has
built its business principally on the acquisition
of sports rights, as well as by offering movies
and entertainment programming. But it has
steadily invested more in content of a more
public service character. One particularly
notable feature is the Sky Arts channel, which
has been operating since 2007 and provides
programming not dissimilar to BBC Four’s
output. 256 Sky has also developed Sky Atlantic
as the home of high quality US drama,
following deals with HBO and Showtime.
Sky is now investing more in its own drama,
commissioning major series such as Fortitude
and The Tunnel. It is forging partnerships with
the likes of HBO and Showtime 257 to create
ambitious drama series, a move that has been
seen as a reaction to the potential threat
posed by Netflix and Amazon. 258
This push into drama is part of a muchheralded
drive to spend £600 million a year
on “home-grown British programming” 259 ,
a target Sky said it met in 2014 260 . There is
some confusion as to how exactly Sky has
reached this figure. Relatively little of the
money would seem to be accounted for by
drama. Enders Analysis has estimated that
the total production value, including funds
from co-producers, of first-run Sky scripted
entertainment series (drama and comedy)
was £70 million in 2015, up from £40 million
two years earlier. 261 Sky’s chief executive,
Jeremy Darroch, has said that a “reasonably
small” amount of the £600 million is spent on
news and a “pretty small” amount on sports
programming (the £600 million does not
include sports rights acquisitions). 262
Otherwise there is little detail available on
how this eyecatching figure breaks down
nor is it clear how it squares with Ofcom’s
suggestion that the entire ‘non-PSB’ sector
accounted for just £350 million of non-sport
spending in 2013. 263 ITV has estimated that
£80 million of this was accounted for by the
PSB portfolio channels, so the amount spent
by the multichannel operators would in fact
have been just £270 million. 264
Sky is not the only multichannel operator,
of course, and there are other sources of
original UK programmes or public servicelike
content. Another significant channel
business is UKTV, which is 50%-owned by
BBC Worldwide and was originally set up to
exploit the BBC’s archive. It now commissions
its own programmes for channels such
as Dave and Really, although its output
is largely entertainment-based. Another
notable channel group, Discovery, features
science, history and wildlife programmes.
Satellite and cable viewers (and to a lesser
extent, Freeview households) can watch
a huge variety of news channels, from Al
Jazeera to CCTV, as well as foreign-language
channels and children’s services such as the
Nickelodeon and Disney channels.
255
Ofcom, The Communications Market Report 2015, 2015, p. 202.
256
The channel emerged from a previous service, Artsworld. Until last year, there were two Sky Arts channels. It now has an on-demand
service, with some content exclusively available on demand.
257
The traditional terrestrial broadcasters used to be the home of top US shows but have increasingly been priced out of the market.
258
See Enders Analysis, Sky’s originals: seeking iconic differentiation, 2016.
259
See Sky Annual Report 2014, p. 14.
260
Tara Conlan, ‘Sky vows to ramp up spending on original British content’, the Guardian, February 4, 2015.
261
Enders, Sky’s originals.
262
Conlan, ’Sky vows to ramp up spending on original British content.’
263
Ofcom, PSB in the Internet Age, p. 8.
264
See ITV’s submission to the inquiry, and its presentation to the Westminster Media Forum in June 2015.
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