Assembly Committee responds to Ofcom review of Public Service Broadcasting
The National Assembly for Wales’ broadcasting sub-committee – a sub-committee of the Communities and Culture Committee - today (Thursday) issued its response to the 2nd phase of Ofcom’s review of public service broadcasting.
The response recommends that additional funding is found to sustain funding for public service broadcasting (PSB) beyond the BBC, and that a fund for public service content in Wales is established to be responsible for disbursing monies for PSB content. It further recommends that if ITV wishes to withdraw from its public service obligations, and surrender its licence, the licence for Channel 3 in Wales should be separated from the Channel 3 licence for England and advertised separately, with specific public service provision, and that Ofcom should require Channel 4 to commission a minimum of 5% of its output from Wales.
Other recommendations made by the sub-committee in its response are:
The appropriate model for the future should be an amalgam of the ‘Evolution approach’ and the ‘Competitive Funding approach’ described in the Ofcom consultation document;
ITV1 in particular should continue to have public service obligations until at least 2014, and subsequently there should be a separate franchise for Wales;
Ofcom should consider the specific needs of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in relation to the funding of public service content related to each nation – the sub-committee recommends that significant funds from a variety of sources be used to support a public service broadcasting content fund;
The target of 5% of network production in the BBC from Wales should be met in 2012 rather than 2016, and the BBC should be monitored and held to account for that target by Ofcom;
In view of its significance to audiences in Wales, and the lack of any alternative provision at present, ITV Wales’ present level of output should be maintained until 2012 at least;
Ofcom should re-consider its agreement to ITV’s proposals to reduce the ‘non-news’ output for ITV in Wales, and press for a sustained commitment from ITV to 5 hours and 20 minutes of news output and 3 hours of ‘non-news’ output per week;
Ofcom should ensure that S4C is universally available after digital switchover, and digital switchover should not take place in Wales unless there is a guarantee of at least 97% coverage for DAB in Wales;
Ofcom should consider applications for licensing of community radio by its advisory committee in Wales;
Ofcom should commission a survey of Channel 4 programming and ITN news to gauge the level of coverage of Wales in its services.
The Ofcom consultation document does not deal with the issue of how Wales is portrayed on network services. The BBC’s King Report, published in July, 2008, has already led to an improvement to the way Wales is reported on the BBC’s network news and current affairs programming. The Sub-committee requests Ofcom to commission a similar survey of Channel 4’s programming, and of ITN’s news service for ITV, to gauge the level of coverage of Wales in its services.
The Broadcasting sub-committee is chaired by Nerys Evans AM and its other members are Peter Black AM, Paul Davies AM and Joyce Watson AM.
Copies of the report are available from:
Communities and Culture Committee
Committee Service
National Assembly for Wales
Cardiff Bay
CF99 1NA
Tel: 029 2089 8429
E-mail: annette.millett@wales.gsi.gov.uk
An electronic version of this report will be available on the Committee’s Homepage