Part I: The Justification for Public Interest Regulation of Broadcasting

1.1. People in the richer parts of the world are spending more and more of their disposable income on audio-visual pleasures, while those in the poorer parts of the world are still seeking access to clean water, basic foodstuffs, universal primary education and a reliable electricity supply.

1.2. Contemporary broadcasting services in the United Kingdom offer a myriad of specialist 'niche' channels to meet a variety of separate and distinctive tastes and interests. By contrast we have, as a democracy, one electorate, one Parliament and one government. There is arguably a tension here between the radical fragmentation of culture and society reflected by multi-channel broadcasting services and the role of democracy in clarifying conflicts of interest, identifying areas of consensus and promoting the 'general good' and the 'public interest'.

1.3. The new UK regulatory body, Ofcom, seeks to operate in a non-partisan and non-Party-political way. But the remit it has been given by Parliament to 'further the interests of citizens in relation to communication matters' and to 'further the interests of consumers in relevant markets' requires it to address some of the 'bigger picture' political questions indicated above. This is so because both citizens and consumers have an interest in understanding the environment that enables or blocks their aspirations and choices. And since the communications regulatory body plays a part in shaping the information and entertainment environment, broadly conceived, it has the opportunity to become a key player in developing those public communications that feed and sustain the democratic political process.

These communications provide the means for the recognition and expression of our identity and for the shaping, sharing and contesting of our cultural values. And these fundamental processes (of identity formation and cultural development) can be seen to be at work as much in the programme genres of entertainment, drama and sport as in the fields of news, current affairs and documentary.

1.4. After nearly a century of experiments with the 'command economy', we now know that more-or-less free markets, driven by individual human choices, can offer an appropriate method for meeting human needs and for managing the rational allocation of scarce resources. But we also know that there are basic human needs (for food, housing, health care and - increasingly - for information) that cannot always be met by the market. This is self-evidently the case since there are millions of people, in Britain and throughout the world, who have insufficient income and/or insufficient information to function as 'sovereign consumers'. Since the development of universal adult suffrage these millions of people, in their identity as citizens or the children of citizens, claim the right to exist, and the right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'.

1.5. No regulatory body with a democratically accountable brief for public communications in the twenty-first century can ignore these issues, unless it has defined such communication as exclusively a matter of private economic transactions. This restrictive definition is the 'elephant in the corner' of debates about public service broadcasting, it propagates the view that broadcast programmes are nothing but entertainment or information commodities, ignoring their wider social and cultural role.

Part II: Defining Public Service Broadcasting

2.1. Public service television sets standards of excellence in output across the full range of broadcast programming, with work that informs, entertains and educates. Its programmes offer some insight into the social environment that (at least in part) enables or blocks the aspirations and choices of citizens, consumers and children.

2.2. In fulfilling these objectives public service programmes may:

• facilitate the recognition of human rights (whether in fictional or factual genres)
• enable democratic processes (through news and current affairs programmes, investigative journalism, authored documentaries and drama-documentaries that deal with subjects of current public interest)
• represent controversies and reflect conflicts especially where these impact upon cultural values or the political process
• reflect the complexity of human interactions in public and private life
  
• examine the details and preoccupations of everyday life as well as the 'big issues'
• explore contemporary and historical realities
• offer stories in comic and tragic mode
• recognise the dignity and explore the dark side of our many identities
• entertain and satirise within a framework that recognises individual and collective human rights
• reflect the pleasures and values of different sports
• promote the recognition, expression and exchange of cultural values
• present and explain scientific findings and artistic projects
• recognise that audio-visual communication has an aesthetic dimension as well as a more directly communicative function
  

2.3. Public service programmes will:

• be of a high general standard
• draw on the best available ideas, images and stories
• include where appropriate the experimental and the innovative
• include where appropriate the representation of cultural and ideological conflicts
• respect and facilitate the creativity of cultural producers
• investigate and respect the declared wishes and interests of audiences
• be adequately resourced.
  

2.4. Public service programmes will not:

• support or uncritically reflect, for example, national chauvinism, misogyny, racism, ageism or homophobia
• take pleasure in the misery of others (though they may entertain audiences with political and social satire)
• involve non-consensual investigations of the private lives of those who lack the financial resources to protect their privacy (except where there is a clear public interest in pursuing the investigation).
  

2.5. A suitable 'test' of ability to produce work within this framework will be the track record of a broadcaster or production company, although there must be scope for considered support for newcomers.

Part III: Priorities for Maintaining and Strengthening Public Service Television in the United Kingdom

• Identify appropriate measures for assessing the qualitative as well as the quantitative aspects of television programmes and programming
• Identify robust and appropriately flexible measures for assessing the quality of programming in selected genres over periods of 3-10 years, establishing benchmarks in order to make meaningful comparisons
• Recognise the importance of creative people in the production process and seek to ensure that their freedom is not eroded in a way that diminishes the quality of programme-making
• Establish robust systems for researching the changing views and priorities of individual audience members and of groups and types of viewers
• Seek appropriate measures to support and strengthen a heretofore highly successful indigenous programme-making industry
  
• Seek appropriate measures to strengthen the local television sector, with special reference to local community needs and interests; include the award of longer licence periods for local television and confirm access to digital frequencies; explore appropriate forms of public funding
• Augment the provisions on regional programming and 'outside the M25' sources of production for network programmes through a renewed commitment to the presence of Ofcom staff and offices in the nations and regions. It is as important to develop long-term contacts in the nations and regions as it is in London. Particularly sensitive research will be required in relationship to emerging forms of devolution and democracy in the English regions and in identifying the role of regional development agencies in the growth of the creative industries
• Seek to ensure meaningful competition between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five in the provision of news, documentaries, regional programmes and other programmes of specialist or minority interest. The facilitation of this competition should not involve a 'top-slicing' of the BBC's licence fee
• Seek to ensure competition and choice in the provision of programmes for social and cultural minorities particularly where these minorities, classes or groups have limited financial resources
• Support the system of universal payment for broadcasting and related services (currently the 'licence fee'), designed the avoid the use of advertising finance for at least four television channels and for the provision of high quality web information and services
• Consider the establishment of a democratically accountable, expert body with responsibility for establishing the level of the universal payment mentioned above
• Support the development of pro-active media literacy initiatives designed to promote the interests of citizens and young people
• Avoid the use of the hybrid, compressed term 'citizen-consumer' since this does not do justice to the needs of either citizens or consumers
• Publish a selection of relevant statistics in a more detailed and usable form that those provided in the last annual report (2002) of the Independent Television Commission
• Advise licensees to refine the category of 'factual television' in order to give a new prominence to the 'civic-rich' forms of factual programming
• Recognise the importance of fostering an appropriate public service culture of broadcasting production and regulation
• Seek to ensure that changes in the ownership of television licences do not result in a lowering of programme standards and a reduction in meaningful choice for viewers
• Ensure vigorous and extensive coverage of international issues
• Ensure up-to-date coverage of scientific issues
• Monitor the implementation of the impartiality obligation in news and current affairs to ensure that audiences are receiving an adequate range of information and opinion on national, local and international issues.
  

Contact:

Sylvia Harvey
Professor of Broadcasting Policy
Principal Associate Director
AHRB Centre for British Film and Television Studies
Faculty of Media and Humanities
University of Lincoln
Brayford Pool
Lincoln LN6 7TS

Tel: 01522 886431
Email: sharvey@lincoln.ac.uk