The future starts here

Since its inception, this blog has keenly charted the tortuous issue of the future of regional news on ITV.  In recent years, the only thing certain about that future was the fear that there might not be one.   

Successive management regimes made increasingly gloomy predictions about the ability of the channel to continue to provide one of its founding, core services.   Champions of plurality and competition in regional news watched in dismay as ITV's regions became larger and its staff fewer.  

Alternative propositions - like independently-financed news consortia and sharing resources with the BBC - came and went, finally to be trumped by former Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt's great white hope/elephant (delete as appropriate), the soon-to-be-launched local TV.   Whatever the future looked like and in spite of the exceptional output still being created by those working in its newsrooms, ITV seemed to be inching closer to the regional exit.

Yet despite this relentlessly bleak narrative, last week saw the start of a series of changes designed to create a sustainable and enhanced regional news service for the digital age.   The sprawling super-regions created back in 2009 have made way for the regional and sub-regional coverage that viewers previously knew.   This more targeted output does, however, come at a price - the flagship 6.00p.m. programmes, whilst still 30 minutes in duration, can now include 10 minutes of 'out-of-area' material drawn from other regions entirely.

When mooted by ITV eighteen months ago, it seemed a perplexing prospect.   This shared material would, according to the channel, have "relevance, resonance and application" across more than one region.   Yet within the constraints of a regional programme, it would be a daily challenge to ensure it was logically and seamlessly incorporated.   Surely all but the most unsavvy of viewers would query the sudden presence of stories from outside even their pan-region;  alternatively, if the geography were stripped from a story completely, the result could easily be an issue-led package more suited to the national bulletin.

ITV has, however, tested the model and is convinced it can be made to work.   Although clearly a trade-off for the return of the sub-regions, the out-of-area quota is no mean undertaking in itself and will require deft editorial handling and delicate linkage so as to create a rounded programme in each region.

Of course, the occasional dual-region story has long been a feature of the output.   Granada and ITV West both recently broadcast the story of a woman from Weston-super-Mare who had unearthed memorabilia of the Beatles, a group which - hey presto! - emanated from Granadaland.   Such a gift of a shared story won't come along every day, but if the out-of-area strands are well-woven into the programmes (as ITV obviously intends them to be) and it sustains their increased sub-regional commitments elsewhere, then it could prove an inspired, if unlikely, innovation.

The '20+10' rule will not apply to all the English regions after OFCOM uncharacteristically refused to sanction it in the North West and London.   As regions without any sub-opt-outs, ITV was unable to argue that it was a quid pro quo for more localised coverage.   Instead they pointed to the fact that local TV would be strong in these areas and so viewers would still be well catered for.   This was a shame as it didn't chime with their more positive vision for the other regions and it was ultimately rejected by the regulator.   Meanwhile, the sparsely populated Border region has been rewarded for its continued love affair with regional news (whose viewing share in this area reads like a BARB statistic from 25 years ago) with the generous reinstatement of a full 30-minute Lookaround and a weekly political programme to improve political coverage for those in southern Scotland.

Super-serving the regions after digital switchover?   That was a prospect which even the most optimistic flag-wavers for the ITV service (myself amongst them) failed to forecast.   And at a time when many feared screens would metaphorically be going blank, there's finally some good news about regional news.

Protecting plurality

In all the coverage of the fallout from James Murdoch's appearance at the Leveson Inquiry last week, I spotted the P-word - plurality - only once.   While the word itself has become rather stuffy terminology to describe the existence of multiple sources of news and media, the concept it represents goes to the heart of the story about News Corporation's aborted bid for full control of BSkyB.   Amidst the political ramifications of recent days, it is easy to forget that it was the simple notion of plurality that necessitated government (sorry, "quasi-judicial") approval of the Murdoch takeover in the first place.  

The test of whether an organisation or individual controls too great a share of the country's media is one which has radically changed in line with - and maybe even precipitated - a rapidly evolving media landscape.   For instance, it wasn't until the early 1990s that the same company was allowed to own more than one ITV regional licence - just a decade later and one merged company was given the green light to control every single region in England and Wales.   Similarly, it is only in recent years that there has been any attempt to relax strict cross-media ownership rules governing local radio and newspapers.

The BSkyB case is clearly the most extreme example of a potential restriction in choice of media provider - the country's most influential press baron (or not, apparently) seeking to acquire the country's largest paid-for TV service.   Concerns about plurality often centre on the need for multiple 'voices' in news and media provision, but consideration of this rather nebulous concept should, theoretically, be negated in the world of broadcast by rules governing impartiality.   However, speculation that Murdoch was hoping to get such regulations overturned and his subsequent offer to spin-off Sky News as a separate entity, reflected a general reluctance to allow the tentacles of News Corp to spread any further without the necessary safeguards.

Yet, as this blog has noted on several occasions, a less high profile, but longstanding threat to broadcast news plurality is that posed by the uncertain future of regional news on ITV.   That might not be as compelling a subject as attempts at world media domination by an octogenarian overlord - but it has been exercising those of us with an interest in these things for many years.   Of course, things are not as bad as they could have been.  In the mid-2000s, it was widely predicted that anybody writing about ITV regional news in 2012 would be doing so in the past tense.   To its credit, ITV continues to provide a regional service, albeit in a much slimmer form.

Coincidentally, in the same week that the Murdochs were on the stand at Leveson, two stories relating to Jeremy Hunt's beloved local TV project slipped under the radar.   The Minister's big idea to bring television journalism to a sub-regional level (no matter what ITV may decide to do in the future) has failed to persuade many, but the most damning verdict came when Manchester's Channel M  finally faded to black last month.   The city's local station - operating long before Hunt's grand scheme - was mothballed two years ago.   This was a worrying enough development for a man committed to a network of at least twenty similar stations, but Channel M was kept alive on the basis that it could be born again under the government's plans.   When the station's owners, GMG, finally pulled the plug, they did so because they were unconvinced that Hunt's vision for local TV could provide a sustainable future for the station.

Meanwhile, the government has just got its hands on the unused licence-fee cash which was intended to enable the BBC to prepare the country for digital switchover.   With that job done, there is now 305 million pounds worth of funding heading back to the Treasury, part of which is earmarked to buttress the embryonic local TV stations.   The government is clearly not too squeamish about subsidising these unproven ventures - but a more effective way of guaranteeing plurality in the regions might be to partly subsidise the established service on ITV.

That might sound like top-slicing of the licence fee, but, crucially, the switchover cash was a ring-fenced addition to the 2006 settlement.   The downside to that is that the money is consequently finite - but it provides a timely opportunity to experiment with ways of encouraging long-term commercial public service competition to the BBC, both in regional programming and wider PSB content.

All of which is reminiscent of OFCOM's long-forgotten idea for a Public Service Publisher - a contestable pool of money from which commercial broadcasters could bid to fund programming deemed unprofitable to produce.   The regulator bizarrely scrapped the plan in 2008 after years of talking it up.   The arrival of the switchover surplus provides a perfect juncture to resurrect it on a much smaller scale than the 300 million pound scheme first envisaged - thereby leaving plenty of money for Hunt's other (admittedly more eye-catching) plans for super-fast broadband.

Of course, the last thing any such fund should be designed to do is encourage the commercial PSBs to abandon their commitments and rely solely on subsidy.   So, for instance, any deal on regional news on ITV should only fund part of the cost and could perhaps be tied to a de-merging of the super-regions created in 2009 and an agreement to a modest increase in non-news regional output.   Other PSB genres could be similarly part-funded across the commercial networks, with conditions attached perhaps in terms of scheduling subsidised content in peak.   

The question that would inevitably be asked of such a plan (as it was in its first incarnation) is why should scarce resources be spent on subsidising commercial productions when the BBC exists to cater for all our PSB needs?   Because plurality matters.   It generates competition, engenders quality and is healthy for both the BBC and its competitors.   Viewers and listeners benefit immeasurably as a result.   

It is all too easy to theorise about plurality while it still exists and make it sound desperately dull and eminently expendable.   It's only if we lose it that we will realise its worth.  

Redrawing the map for ITV regional news

At last - an announcement about the future of ITV in the regions which isn't just about allowing further drift towards the impending digital glacier looming larger than ever on the broadcasting horizon.

For so long we've been used to OFCOM and the Department for Culture Media and Sport acquiescing to ITV's (from a commercial outlook, understandable) demands to reduce its presence in the regions.   First, the non-news regional quota was slashed and then virtually abolished.   Next, network production outside bases in London and Manchester sharply declined and once iconic production centres like Central and Yorkshire were reduced to little more than a collection of offices.   Finally, and most damagingly, various regions and sub-regions were merged to create geographically meaningless newsgathering areas - viewers suddenly found that their 'regional' news could now encompass places as far as two hundred miles away.

As a fan of ITV regional news and a firm believer in plurality, I feared for the future - I feared whether there was a future.   The announcement late last week by Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw that trials of so-called Independently-Financed News Consortia (IFNCs) would begin next year (in the Scotland, Wales, Tyne Tees and Border areas) was a welcome one.   It is probably not the panacea I would like to be, but it's a step in the right direction.

There are certainly some issues which need addressing, the most obvious being the question of where the "independent finance" comes from.   The perceived wisdom is that it will originate from that part of the licence fee reserved in recent years for funding the digital switchover.   That is top-slicing in all but name.   Personally, I am surprisingly indifferent about it, but it is far from a done deal.

Another issue is the composition of the consortia themselves.   Several local newspaper groups view INFCs as a much-needed way of diversifying, but concerns have been expressed about the ability of print media to operate a broadcast-led operation.   For me, local newspapers undoubtedly have a contribution to make in this evolving model, although I would probably be more comfortable with an established broadcast news provider like ITN taking the lead.

Then there's the Tories.   The other side of a general election, a future Conservative government would seem to favour taking the IFNC approach beyond what I believe to be its logical conclusion.   Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has suggested creating a network of local TV stations, adopting some aspects of the successful American model.    In the States, there is competition between local broadcasters serving the same populations.   Hunt concedes that there isn't the scale for this in the U.K., but believes monopolies of privately-funded local commercial broadcasters could be created.

As far as I'm concerned, the U.S. model, albeit modified, simply doesn't transfer to the U.K..   Local television news, let alone local television per se, would be too parochial and poorly funded to attract an audience.   It could only mimic what local radio and the struggling provincial press already does so well - but which would be too naff to contemplate on screen.   It would replicate the problem in local radio about ten years ago, whereby heritage stations with large populations were allowed to jettison many of their news commitments, whilst ultra-local stations had unrealistic quotas imposed on them even though they served unsustainably small audiences.   Television is much more deft at reflecting, perhaps even forging, a strong regional identity in otherwise disparate areas.

That's not to say the slightly anachronistic map of the ITV regions shouldn't be redrawn.   There are clear anomalies, such as the presence of the Scottish Borders in an English ITV franchise.   Other tweaks to questionable border demarcations could also be made and, at the very least, the level of regionality enjoyed by viewers pre-2009 should be reinstated.   This is eminently possible, since the annual budget for ITV regional news stood at £100 million before this year's mergers and that is now the level of funding being suggested for the IFNCs.   Noises from the DCMS suggest that they share my sentiment and it is one aspect of the proposals which should be non-negotiable.   If broadcast regional news needs one thing to survive it is an injection of relevance.

There is still plenty to be finalised, both about the trials themselves and any concrete inception of IFNCs in the near future.   For once, though, I'm excited - and it's a long time since I've been able to say that about the future of regional news on ITV.