Lord Carter vs Ofcom on Channel 4’s future…
The Times reports that Stephen Carter will possibly consider privatisation of Channel 4 as the state-owned broadcaster’s finances look unstable (under the current CEO Andy Duncan, it should be noted).
That’s a smart move on Carter’s part. A policy maker should explore the costs and benefits of all appropriate courses of action. Probably for ideological reasons, Ofcom did not gather evidence or otherwise outline scenarios in which Channel 4 would be wholly or partially privatised. I criticised Ofcom for that. At the time I wrote on Ofcom’s PSB review blog:
Ofcom have already seemingly taken certain options off the table by simply not researching them or consulting on them.
For example, isn’t it also short-sighted to ignore the option to privatise Channel 4?….
It seems to me that it is Ofcom’s role to advise the government on all possible prudent options relating to PSB during this time of transition and uncertainty — surely a sale of Channel 4 is one of those prudent options?
Ofcom said at the outset of this review that the focus would be on the viewer. I wonder whether viewers are fully aware that Channel 4 is state-owned and about to start making losses for the state?
I wonder what viewers would make of the option to sell C4 and use that money for PSB?
I wonder what C4 is worth?
Anyway, these are some useful questions if you want to think and debate about things other than top-slicing the licence fee to prop up a loss-making state-owned entreprise.
Well, it looks like Carter is a bit more interested in the total policy picture than Ofcom. If Carter seriously considers privatisation, it will make Ofcom’s PSB review look very incomplete.
Two other observations:
– This and other articles suggest Carter will take a very activist role in policy formulation, putting Ofcom in the role of an advisory body, but not the only (or necessarily the most valued) advisory input into policy making in this area. Once again, the politics of regulation clashes with evidence based policy making. Why would a broadcaster bother participating in Ofcom’s PSB review when it’s clear the communications minister has a robust vision that might not be completely aligned with the regulator’s vision? And his voice will be stronger… perhaps. It may be too soon to say and of course the entire government will likely change soon. If Carter wants to again put his stamp on communications policy he better be clever and move quickly.
– Dan Sabbagh suggests that the value of Channel 4 might be 500 million GBP. I would imagine the media group is worth far more than that, particularly if: (i) the current management were shown the door; (ii) UK broadcast advertising regulation is liberalised*; (iii) Channel 4 were liberated to actually compete instead of shackled to an early vision of itself as a special cultural force; and (iv) foreign investment were encouraged.
*Folks, I am the voice crying in the wilderness when it comes to advertising liberalisation: The UK policy making and regulatory machine constantly bemoans the television advertising squeeze whilst at the same time enthusiastically banning many types of political / issue advertising (not to mention other types of advertising, such as HFSS) that have never been shown to create any social harm. Animal Defenders was prohibited from declaring ‘my mate’s a primate‘ and Make Poverty History was prevented from having its say — but only on television. Google, which lets these groups have their say, is raking in the advertising spend. Not only is the internet getting the money — it is the place where people turn to for debate and critical thinking (Andy Burnham’s statement to the contrary was just wrong).
There is plenty of creativity and money already in the system to sustain quality broadcasting. The best policy measures to ensure that those key resources flow to right places are privatisation, advertising liberalisation, and further deregulation.
While I agree with the majority of this, I’m not with you on the political advertising deregulation which allows the winner of an argument to become the one with the most money. I do still prefer the method of allowing everyone their 5 minutes, and the journalistically difficult but presentationally even-handed rules for presenting all political opinions during elections on TV and radio.
Hi Dan — Yeah, I realise that political / issue advertising liberalisation is not a favoured option for most people. But your comment prompted three further thoughts:
1. No one wins an argument solely by their money — they win it by the best appeal to reason. Okay, maybe that makes me an idealist, but I think there has been research which has shown that more political spending does not always translate to political victories. I very much bet the ‘Yes’ lobby for the EU Constitution spent more money than the ‘No’ lobby, particularly in France where it was defeated in the referendum.
2. Even if I am wrong on point 1, the people with the most money are governments and corporations. So, Tony Blair can garner huge media attention for his argument that Iraq must be invaded, but the Stop the War Coalition cannot advertise a rebuttal. Similarly, Tesco can advertise battery chickens or BP can advertise that it is a friend of the environment, but campaign groups cannot air issue adverts that oppose these points of view. The current system is one-sided in many respects.
3. The UK government will never be able to fully control the internet, so as that medium becomes more powerful, most cutting edge political debate will simply migrate over, away from television. Maybe it already has to some degree. I certainly find the best political analysis on the internet, not on TV. So, maybe advertising liberalisation will simply be forced on the UK broadcasting industry as a result of the internet’s rise.
Russ, whilst you are correct that no one wins an argument solely by their money, I thinkk the point Dan is trying to make (sorry if not the case dan!) is it would only be those with access to money who would get their adds on tv. If broadcaster are offered ad by group x who have £1 million to spend on their opinion/propaganda v group B who has £100,000 … as businesses, it is obvious whos money the broadcaster will take – unless it starts not accepting certain types of things because clash with owner’s views etc – which is a whole separate issue.
Good point, Scott. There are tweaks that let you get around that. One rule could be that — as a condition of their licence — broadcasters could not discriminate (on price or placement) amongst issue ads. The US does something like that — I’m not certain of the details, but for certain types of ads they must charge their lowest average cost.
But I think the issue advertising market should be liberalised immediately and then the policy makers adopt a wait-and-see approach. These problems of imbalance may never really surface to such an extent where regulation would be required. For every big corporation, there is a big union… For every Murdoch, there is a Soros… For every Eurosceptic, there is a Europhile. I think it would make television a bit more fun to see more opinion about the future of Europe and less advertising for NatWest and Churchill car insurance. People might skip fewer adverts if they were of more political and social relevance (don’t get me wrong — I love the new Hovis ad)…
It would be interesting to see which voices are silenced / displaced / affected under a liberalised system. I predict fewer voices would be silenced than are silenced now. I would argue that the current system is dominated by a few editorial gatekeepers and ordinary commercial adverts (which do contain a world view about consumerism, etc.). I don’t see a huge independent voice for civil society under the current system.
I suppose under any system not everyone will get to have their say to the extent that they might wish, but the blanket ban that is in place now I think just displaces much of that type of expression to the internet.
The argument – whether valid or not – still remains that TV /radio is a special case that ‘comes into all of our homes’; and therefore the average viewer needs ‘protecting’ – just in the same way children need protecting from hard-core porn on tv, even if encrypted and only available via pin number. Like the kind of ads you are talking about, the argument is there is plenty of porn on the internet for those looking for that kind of thing, so tv is not needed to serve that information need.
I would also argue this also ties into the whole issue of impartiality in broadcasting – why should the broadcasters be (or at least give impression of being) impartial. Whilst I would agree there is scope for being less restrictive on advertising, I don’t think following the american example on issues ads is one we should be in a rush to follow.
As for the ads themselves, the ASA – who I know you’re a fan of Russ – would spend all its time issuing rulings that the claims made in the ads are unsubstantiated – which they probably would be. Also how would it work? If Channel B shows an anti-abortion ad, does it then have to show a pro abortion one right after?
Why not just create an ‘Issues channel’. Wall to wall ads for anyone and eveyone’s cause all stuck on one handy channel that you could watch/ignore? – problem solved.
Stellar idea! I’ve just named it: Blog TV!
(although I am sure it would promptly be taken over by people arguing about Israel and Palestine)
But basically, the idea would be to take something like Comment is Free and put it on TV — without the heavy gatekeeping…
The Al Gore channel here in the USA: Current, is a but like that…