www.broadcastnow.co.uk
Realscreen Special
■ US buyers: what they’ve got and what they want Pages 20-22 ■ What will be the UK’s next Stateside hit?
Pages 23-26
17 January 2014
ALSO INSIDE ■ Comment: Vaizey
must seize the moment on diversity Page 16 ■ In Focus: Crossing swords with The Musketeers Pages 28-99
Top-slicing back to haunt BBC Channel 4 and COBA join ITV in reviving debate as pressure mounts on the licence fee BY JAKE KANTER
The spectre of top-slicing is back to haunt the BBC after ITV, Channel 4 and commercial broadcasting body COBA called for it to be seriously considered during charter renewal. While none of the trio has made a direct claim for a share of licence fee funding, all three have told the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee that there should be a formal debate about putting the BBC’s £3.6bn annual income to use in new ways. In submissions to the committee’s inquiry on the future of the BBC, the organisations suggested top-slicing could improve the UK’s news ecology, provide a boost for public service content and improve technology. ITV argued that a conversation about top-slicing was “inevitable”, and that financial pressures on newsgathering resources meant the issue was “more pertinent than ever before”. The commercial broadcaster said the committee may wish to debate “whether some of the licence fee could be hypothecated for thirdparty news suppliers via some kind of contestable funding system”. ITV also quoted from a piece written by former BBC editorial director Roger Mosey in The Times last year, in which he said the BBC must confront the “hard question” of why, in a digital age, it should have “the whole pie to itself forever”. C4 picked its words carefully. Instead of calling for BBC funds to be siphoned off, it suggested the
Hidden Kingdoms: ITV, C4 and COBA argue that dividing licence fee could fund public service content beyond BBC
The BBC spends many millions on R&D, while other PSBs develop similar propositions Channel 4
BBC partner with other PSBs to develop technology and improve content distribution platforms. It said this would save the PSBs time and money, which could be put back into content budgets. “The BBC spends many millions of the licence fee on research and development, much of which is focused on their online proposi-
tion and iPlayer, while other PSBs develop broadly similar propositions in isolation,” C4 said in its five-page submission. This nuanced approach tallies with C4 chief executive David Abraham’s unwillingness to accept direct public funding because of the danger that it may compromise the broadcaster’s independence. “Would I like to have a £100m cheque in my back pocket? Of course I would. But what would be the price I would pay?” he told the Financial Times earlier this month. COBA, which lobbies on behalf of commercial broadcasters including Sky, Discovery and Turner, said dividing up the licence fee to help fund public
service content beyond the BBC’s borders is a “major debate” that “may warrant” discussion during the charter renewal process. The trio of submissions put topslicing seriously on the agenda for the first time since before the corporation’s current licence fee deal was agreed in 2010. In that settlement, portions of the licence fee were ring-fenced for operations beyond the BBC’s traditional remit, including funding the World Service and Welsh-language broadcaster S4C. It was also required to support the launch of former culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s vision for local television, a commitment that was ultimately worth £40m.