By Miranda Blazeby, Broadcast, 29th June 2016
Lord Puttnam’s Future of Public Service Television report has called for the creation of a public service content fund that is bankrolled by digital conglomerates and internet providers.
The proposal is that a 1% levy should be placed on UK revenues of digital intermediaries such as Google and Yahoo and internet service providers such as BT or EE.
That money would then be made available to the UK’s “brilliant cultural institutions” and bodies outside of the traditional broadcasting sector.
It could be accessed by museums and performing arts colleges, for example, which the report said are now producing video content “of public service character”.
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The BBC’s licence fee should be replaced, its royal charter abolished and government intervention curtailed to protect the corporation’s independence, according to Lord Puttnam.
The recommendations have been outlined in Puttnam’s Future of Public Service Television report, which calls for the formation of several independent bodies to protect the BBC from government interference.
Puttnam warned that public scepticism encircling the media has spread to broadcasting and public trust could only be restored by minimising government interference.
“A well-resourced and fully independent public service television system that is free of political coercion offers our most reliable means of rebuilding public trust and accountability,” he said.
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Adam Sherwin, inews.co.uk, 29th June 2016
A “Google tax” on the revenues of digital media giants would fund new public service television programmes produced by arts organisations, a report by Lord Puttnam has recommended.
A wide-ranging review into the future of broadcasting, conducted by the Oscar-winning film producer, has produced radical conclusions, including the abolition of the BBC licence fee and its possible replacement by a Council Tax supplement.
Lord Puttnam said the need for “trusted sources of information” was vital if an informed democracy is to thrive in a digital era when “market totalitarianism” threatens public service broadcasting.
The report, A Future for Public Service Television: Content and Platforms in a Digital World, which followed an eight-month inquiry held at Goldsmiths, University of London, recommends a new fund for “public service content.”
Grants would distributed from a levy on the revenues of the “largest digital intermediaries”, including Google and internet service providers, such as BT, Virgin Media and Sky.
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Janice Burns, The National Scotland, 30th June 2016
THE prospect of a BBC Scottish Six television news programme has been backed by a report on the future of public service broadcasting in the UK.
Labour peer Lord David Puttnam, chairing the Future for Public Service Television Inquiry, also called for more devolution in BBC budgets.
He said the current provision for Scottish audiences fell short and that BBC Scotland’s news output should reflect the world to Scots “as seen from Scotland”.
“There’s no question that the world as viewed from Edinburgh and Glasgow is a different world as viewed from London.
“Those editorial decisions ought to be located in Scotland because they affect Scotland,” he added.
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The Future for Public Service Television Inquiry, chaired by Lord Puttnam, will publish its report and executive summary on 29th June.
According to Michael Foster (co-founder, Creative Access), the government’s apprenticeship levy is a great opportunity for a radical rethinking and reform of training and talent development in the television industry. In particular, the initiative can be used to reverse the trend of the alarming reduction of socio-economic diversity within the television sector. Foster argues that the freelance nature of work in the sector does not provide a sufficient excuse not to adapt to the forthcoming apprenticeship levy – rather, training the workforce and ‘widening the funnel for the intake’ will benefit the television industry, as the freelance labour force will have more opportunities to transfer and carry skills from job to job and from company to company. Foster’s recommendations include a call for the industry to ‘act in concert’ and to ‘create standards that are of real value and benefit’. Foster also calls for the foundation of a National Media Apprenticeship College, the industry’s own self-funded training school, and for a Media Apprenticeship Training Agency. Read Foster’s submission in full here.