Regional reprieve?

As a flag-waver for traditional forms of journalism in the face of the many threats ranged against it, this blog is usually engaged more in wishful-thinking than prophesying.   

Yet just a fortnight after musing that ITV might be persuaded to reinstate the seventeen regional news programmes it once boasted in return for a slice of surplus digital switchover cash, there is a very real chance that the smaller regions and sub-regions abolished in 2009 could be poised for the unlikeliest of comebacks.   ITV Plc has this week submitted a proposal to OFCOM indicating its intentions for regional news if and when its licence is renewed in 2014.

For a decade, the smart money has been on ITV walking away from this particular aspect of its public service broadcasting remit altogether, just as soon as digital switchover gave it the opportunity to do so.   Fortunately, though, this interminable regulatory brinkmanship has climaxed at a point when those at the helm of ITV have more of an appreciation of the channel's heritage than some of their predecessors - and, no doubt, an eye to getting their licence renewed without the pesky business of a franchise auction. 

The proposal involves ITV de-merging the super-regions (Tyne Tees and Border/West and Westcountry) and pan-regions (Anglia/Central/Meridian/Yorkshire) created three years ago and resurrecting the channel's more locally focused news service.   The price?   A cut in the duration of the programmes provided.

ITV wants the flagship 6.00pm regional magazines (in England) reduced by a third to twenty minutes.   However, by reinstating the pre-2009 boundaries, most areas still see a significant increase in tailored coverage.   The proposal provides something of a windfall for the former sub-regions, which currently get just a six minute opt-out in the main programme.   It is also a modest increase for the constituent parts of the super-regions, which have received fifteen-minute opt-outs since they were merged.   Ironically, it is the regions which were untouched in 2009, which would take a hit this time round - Granada and London simply lose ten minutes of their main bulletins.

Even for those of us from the IBA school of regulation, it is difficult to advocate playing hardball with ITV over what is a generous, largely unexpected, offer.   To be talking of providing a more localised service beyond 2014 is quite remarkable in the context of the doom-laden predictions which have characterised the regional news debate in recent years.   Whilst it is much more than might have been expected of ITV, it is not without its limitations.   Even with narrower geographical boundaries, is twenty minutes sufficient time to create a fully-rounded running order, when things like sport and weather are taken into account?

The proposal has come about as part of a wider OFCOM submission to the embattled Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to inform his decision about renewal of the Channel 3 licences at the end of 2014.   Incredibly, it is now two decades since the last ITV franchise round (the first and only one based on a blind auction) and the incumbent licencees hope that they can persuade the government to automatically renew their right to broadcast.  The new commitment to local news (as well as unchanged quotas for national/international news and current affairs) suggest the value of the licence - a high position on the electronic programme guides and guaranteed spectrum on Freeview - has not diminished in the digital era as much as has previously been forecast.

If the government does not opt for automatic renewal, then it follows that there would be a franchise auction along similar lines to that held back in 1991.   Surely, this time round, such an auction would encompass a single licence for all of England (with regional commitments, rather than individual regional entities), plus separate applications for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.   The attractions of this option would be to place a true market value on the Channel 3 licence and its associated public service obligations - it is conceivable that a bidder could put forward a PSB offering which exceeds that proposed by the incumbent.    However, the vagaries of the auction process, such as the blind bids and the quality threshold criteria, could introduce variables which would not necessarily see the strongest programming proposition come out on top.

Instead, is it now time to introduce a small subsidy to guarantee to plurality in public service provision?   The regulator would have a stronger negotiating position regarding PSB if it came to the table with a bit of cash in its back pocket.   All of a sudden, eeking a few more minutes out of those more localised news programmes (and more besides) becomes eminently achievable.

Whatever happens next, a fuzzy picture of the future of public service plurality is - at last - about to become much clearer.