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PSBs Risk Not Having the Sort of Universality and Prominence in the On Demand Environment Compared to the Linear World

Channel 5

VIMN/Channel 5’s submission to the Inquiry positions Channel 5 as an integral part of PSB system. The submission emphasises that one of the PSB system’s great strengths is in its ‘range of ownership, funding and programming characteristics’, all serving to generate generate ‘a rich mix of predominantly British quality programmes.’ In this environment, Channel 5 ‘exceeds its licence obligations on nearly every front’, by delivering a range of high quality and diverse programming, exceeding the commitments to original UK programming and over-delivers on ‘the voluntary commitment on original children’s programmes.’ In safeguarding PSBs future, Channel 5 proposals include ‘rebalancing the relationship between PSBs and pay platforms, so the latter make a financial contribution to the PSB channels rather than benefitting from carrying them free.’

VIMN Channel 5

 

Diversity in Media: How to Solve a Problem Like Ethnicity? Put a Ring Round It.

TV Collective

The submission by Simone Pennant of the TV Collective, who campaigns for a more inclusive TV industry, refers to a study of 200 of its members which revealed that there is a lack of trust in their abilities and that ‘the overriding feeling was talent felt the industry viewed them as a ‘risk’.’ Training schemes and initiatives, the TV Collective argues, inadvertently create the perception that BAME are “not good enough” for existing roles. As the issue of the lack of diversity ‘has been discussed for over twenty years with no long-term resolution’, the TV Collective believes that the time has come ‘for a drastic intervention’ as the TV industry in the UK is ‘haemorrhaging skilled and experienced talent at an alarming rate and losing audiences as a result.’ The BBC charter renewal therefore provides a very real opportunity to tackle the issue at the BBC and the industry as a whole.

TV Collective

The Media Cannot Reflect Society if Society is Not Reflected in the Media

Creative Access

The evidence submitted by Creative Access, a charity organisation which provides media job opportunities to BAME, focuses on diversity of representation in/on television. It states that the media is ‘still far from representing visually the society that pays it bills’, not tapping into a ‘vast pool of talent out there’ which, it argues, is also an economic issue for media organisations: ‘in not recruiting black and Asian workers, [the media] is limiting its labour resource and it will be unable to understand and sell back to significant proportion of the UK population that is non white.’ The economic case for diversity needs to be promoted across the creative sector, and there should also be ‘concrete measures on diversity to the BBC’s public purposes under the charter review process.’

Creative Access

The Need for Religious Literacy, Provided by PSBs, Has Never Been Greater

Sandford St Martin Trust

Religious programming is one of the core purposes of public service broadcasting, according to The Sandford St Martin Trust. At a time when religion is ‘seen as such a powerful influence on world events’ the need for religious literacy has never been greater. However, there has been ‘the clear market failure in religious programming’ as a result of changes to the PSB regime in commercial broadcasting. One of the recommendations given by The Sandford St Martin Trust is that the status of religious broadcasting needs to be raised and promoting religious literacy needs to be one of the core BBC’s public purposes.

The Sandford St Martin Trust

Comprehensive Publicly Funded Service, Free at the Point of Use, Remains a Policy Priority

Murdock, Graham

 

According to Graham Murdock (Professor of Culture and Economy, University of Loughborough), in a communications environment which is increasingly organised around digital networks, and in which the dominant players (such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple) are all based outside the UK, there is a compelling case for a stronger public service and therefore an extension of the BBC’s public service remit.  According to Murdock, in the UK, the BBC offers ‘the only effective institutional base for a comprehensive alternative to this corporate annexation of the internet’. Additionally, as Murdock argues, there are many other issues that have not been so far sufficiently taken into account in policy making processes concerned about the future for public service media, such as the ecological impact of infrastructures, the open source movement, and internationalisation of networks.

Graham Murdock