September

September 2014

DIVERSITY WHAT AMERICA CAN TEACH US

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Journal of The Royal Television Society September 2014 l Volume 51/8

From the CEO The new RTS “term” gets underway with a bang this month. We start with the keenly anticipated London Conference on 9 September. I am thrilled we have assembled such an exciting line-up of speakers for the event, “Power, Politics & The Media”, which will be held at Kings Place.

Our keynotes speakers – 21st Century Fox President and COO Chase Carey, Discovery Networks International President JB Perrette and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Sajid Javid MP – will set the tone for what is sure to be a mem-

orable occasion. The day will end with Lorraine Heggessey chairing a discussion with Jeremy Darroch and Tony Hall.

They will be talking about the challenges our industry faces in bringing on the next generation and addressing increasing skills shortages in the technology, software engineering and craft areas.

Following on from the success of last year’s Cambridge Convention, full paying delegates are able to nominate a “Next Generation Leader” from their organisation to attend the London Conference free of charge.

Our first early-evening event of the autumn is on 23 September. I am very

Contents 5

Emma Scott’s TV Diary

6 8

What can we learn from the US?

11 12

pleased to announce that Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Worldwide, will be in conversation with Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman.

Book your tickets soon for this fireside chat at The Hospital Club in London’s Covent Garden.

Meanwhile, I am delighted that the inaugural RTS Undergraduate Bursaries will be announced this month.

Watch this space.

Theresa Wise

16

Getting big in a big pond

18 20

Scripps flexes its muscles

Our Friend in the North

24

TV’s musical challenge

Happy landing for Jay Hunt

26 30

The UK’s next mega-indie?

Emma Scott drives the Mini Cooper of TV land out to meet its continental peers as industry consolidation threatens to overshadow her summer holiday

Gary Younge looks at how US television succeeded in becoming less white – while UK progress has stalled

A passion for dealmaking

Steve Clarke meets JB Perrette, the new head of Discovery Networks International, who explains what makes a winning team

STV Productions’ programme roster has benefited from a serious commitment to the three Rs, says Alan Clements

Channel 4’s creative supremo, Jay Hunt, is delivering a pipeline of successful shows, including Gogglebox and The Mill. Andrew Billen finds out how she turned the station around

Cover picture: AFP/Getty Images Editor Steve Clarke smclarke_333@hotmail.com

Production, design and advertising Gordon Jamieson gordon.jamieson.01@gmail.com

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

Royal Television Society 3 Dorset Rise, London EC4Y 8EN T: 020 7822 2810 E: info@rts.org.uk W: wwwrts.org.uk

ITV’s aim of reducing reliance on UK ad revenue has seen it become the largest non-scripted producer in the US. Neil Midgley investigates

Scripps Networks Interactive, owner of half of UKTV, wants to be a bigger player in the UK, says Raymond Snoddy

Economists vs diehards

A dramatic clash over the future funding of the BBC has redrawn the battlelines over the corporation’s future, reports Maggie Brown

Television channels need to develop radically new music programming for the age of audio abundance, says Meg Carter

What would life be like for BBC Productions and its rivals if it was a commercial studio? Tara Conlan finds out

IBC preview: Do more for less

Behind the hype about Ultra-HDTV and the Cloud, the real theme of IBC will be the pressure on costs, predicts Adrian Pennington

Subscription rates UK £110 Overseas (surface £140) Overseas (airmail £165) Enquiries: publication@rts.org.uk

Printing ISSN 0308-454X Printer: FE Burman, 20 Crimscott St, London, SE1 STP

Legal notice © Royal Television Society 2014.

The views expressed in Television are not necessarily those of the RTS Registered Charity 313 728)

3

RTS NEWS National events RTS LONDON CONFERENCE Tuesday 9 September

Power, politics and the media Principal sponsor: STV Group.

Conference chairman: Rob Woodward, CEO, STV; Keynote speakers: Chase Carey, President and Chief Operating Officer, 21st Century Fox; The Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; JB Perrette, President, Discovery Networks International Speakers: Sir Peter Bazalgette; Matt Brittin, Google; Ross Colquhoun, National Collective; John Curtice, University of Strathclyde; Jeremy Darroch, BSkyB; Bryan Elsley; Michael Foster; Karla Geci, Facebook; Alex Graham, Big Eck Consulting; Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Channel 4 News; Tony Hall, BBC; John Hardie, ITN; Lorraine Heggessey; Steve Hewlett; Laura Kuenssberg, Newsnight; Kevin Lygo, ITV Studios; Alex Mahon, Shine Gregor Poynton, Portland Communications; James Purnell, BBC; Stewart Purvis CBE; Jim Ryan, Liberty Global; John Ryley, BSkyB; Kevin Sutcliffe, VICE News; Fran Unsworth, BBC; Kirsty Wark.

Venue: Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG ■ Jamie O’Neill 020 7822 2821 ■ jamie@rts.org.uk RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT Tuesday 23 September

Tim Davie in conversation with Cathy Newman The CEO of BBC Worldwide Tim Davie interviewed by Channel 4

4

■ Daniel Cherowbrier ■ daniel@cherowbrier.co.uk

News presenter Cathy Newman.

6:30pm for 6:45pm start Venue: The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ ■ Events 020 7822 2820 ■ events@rts.org.uk

Programme Awards and Student Awards

RTS MASTERCLASSES Monday 27 October

Venue: TBC ■ Jayne Greene 07792 776585 ■ jayne@ijmmedia.co.uk

Production masterclasses: drama, factual and comedy One-day event Venue: BFI, Southbank, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XT Tuesday 25 November

Craft skills masterclasses: camerawork, sound and editing

One-day event Venue: BFI, Southbank, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XT RTS AWARDS Monday 1 December RTS Craft & Design Awards 2013/14 Venue: London Hilton, Park Lane, London W1K 1BE Wednesday 18 February 2015 RTS Television Journalism Awards 2013/14 Venue: London Hilton, Park Lane, London W1K 1BE Tuesday 17 March 2015 RTS Programme Awards 2014 Venue: Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London W1K 7TN

Local events BRISTOL ■ John Durrant ■ john@bdh.net DEVON & CORNWALL ■ Contact TBC EAST ANGLIA ■ Contact TBC LONDON Wednesday 24 September

IBC update

Venue: London Television Centre, Upper Ground, London SE1 9LT

Your guide to upcoming national and regional events

■ Charles Byrne (00353) 87251 3092 ■ byrnecd@iol.ie

MIDLANDS Thursday 30 October

NORTH EAST & THE BORDER Friday 7 November

25th anniversary of Byker Grove

With Chris Jackson, presenter, Inside Out. Venue: TBC ■ Jill Graham ■ jill.graham@blueyonder.co.uk NORTH WEST Thursday 25 September

Awards launch party

Venue: Compass Rooms, Lowry Theater, Pier 8, Salford Quays M50 3AZ Thursday 2 October

Puppetry

Venue: Compass Rooms, Lowry Theater, Pier 8, Salford Quays M50 3AZ Saturday 15 November

Annual Awards

Venue: 303 Deansgate, Manchester M3 4LQ ■ Rachel Pinkney 07966 230639 ■ rachelpinkney@yahoo.co.uk NORTHERN IRELAND Tuesday 11 November

Dan Gilbert Memorial Lecture With Noel Curran, Director General of RTÉ Part of the Belfast Festival Venue: The Mac, 2 Edward St, Belfast BT1 2LS ■ John Mitchell ■ mitch.mvbroadcast@ btinternet.com

SCOTLAND ■ James Wilson: 07899 761167 ■ james.wilson@ cityofglasgowcollege.ac.uk SOUTHERN Wednesday 24 September

The future of BBC TV Centre Adrian Poole, the BBC’s Director of IT and Technology Delivery.

7:30pm Venue: Queen Mary College Basingstoke Late September – date TBC

Are you ready for File Delivery Day? On 1 October the UK TV industry will adopt the DPP common standard for the delivery of television programmes as digital files rather than on tape Venue TBC ■ Gordon Cooper ■ gordonjcooper@gmail.com THAMES VALLEY Friday 28 November

Annual Dinner Dance Venue: In the grounds of Beaumont House, Old Windsor ■ Penny Westlake ■ info@rtstvc.org.uk WALES ■ Hywel Wiliam 0798 000 7841 ■ hwyel@aim.uk.com YORKSHIRE 3-5 September

International conference on the ‘Archaeologies of media and film’

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND September – date TBC

Visit to Ashford Studios Visit to the set of Vikings, in production for History Channel Venue: Ballyhenry, Ashford, Co Wicklow, Ireland

In association with the RTS Yorkshire Centre and the Bradford City of Film.

Venue: University of Bradford and the National Media Museum Tuesday 11 November Student Awards Venue: York Racecourse, Tadcaster Road, York YO23 ■ Lisa Holdsworth 07790 145280 ■ lisa@allonewordpoductions. co.uk

September 2014 www.rts.org.uk Television

TV diary Emma Scott drives the Mini Cooper of TV land out to meet its continental peers as industry consolidation threatens to overshadow her summer holiday

I

’m 10 days away from my summer holiday, timed for the traditional silly season.

Now whatever happened to that? BSkyB has just announced that it is buying its German and Italian sister companies; Liberty Global has bought a stake in ITV; Channel 5 is now owned by Viacom; and a flurry of other deals is mooted, none bigger than 21st Century Fox’s tilt at TimeWarner. Animal spirits are running high in TV land.

Bien sûr, Freesat is also reaching out across the continent. I have come to Paris to talk to Freesat’s equivalents in Germany, Italy and France – just to go one better than Sky – about how we might co-operate further.

We take time out for a Eurovisionstyle comparison of our mobile apps (“Freesat, douze points”).

■ Back in London, I meet Aaron, the intern, who I learn will be shadowing me while he learns the ropes at Freesat. I am more nervous than he is.

On TV, we’ve had a great summer of drama with the fabulous Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Honourable Woman alongside Nibali’s fantastic win in the Tour de France, and Amos beating Rudisha to a Commonwealth Gold.

Who says there’s no sport on free TV? ■ It’s Wednesday and I’m hosting the annual awayday with Freesat’s shareholders – the BBC and ITV.

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

Most of my time is spent looking at customers, content, collaboration and technology. Today is a chance to pull it all together for our board.

Kicking off the discussion is the unbiddable Claire Enders, who articulates a bold and optimistic future for linear television and freeto-air platforms.

Even with Claire suffering from what turns out to be a slipped disc, her focus is formidable.

■ Back at the ranch (aka Newman Street, W1), we’re preparing for the relaunch of our programme recommendations service. I’m really proud of Showcase.

With no algorithm in sight, it’s editorially driven to meet audience needs, but powered by state-of-­ the-art content management and by HTML5 on-screen. It’s popular with customers and it has legs.

■ After work I meet Rachael Prasher, Publishing Director at Haymarket, with whom I’ve set up a media/tech networking group for women.

We discuss speakers for the autumn and settle on a name for the group. I love meeting these bright, sassy women – competitors, but with a supportive common purpose.

■ Another window on the world is provided by a long overdue catch-up with the impressive Rohana Rozhan, CEO of Astro, the leading Malaysian media group.

It sounds as though the pace of change in Asia is even faster than it is in Europe.

Joel Hills, the new Business Editor of ITV News, comes in for a briefing.

Despite having to cover everything from banks to breweries, he is insightful and challenging on media.

By the time he goes, I’m sure I’ve convinced him to ditch Sky for Freesat when his contract runs out.

■ The week ends with Freesat’s annual sports day. So it is the silly season, after all. What used to be a hastily organised egg-and-spoon race is now a military operation in sweltering Regent’s Park.

Team Freesat is well known for its tenacity. They are also jaw droppingly competitive. Thank goodness the “umpires” brought the official rounders rules. Aaron the intern fronts the winning crew and many selfies are posted on Twitter.

Then there is just time for Aaron to conduct his end-of-internship interview for Nouse, the York student newspaper, where he is Deputy Editor.

I’m asked to describe what kind of car Freesat would be. Obviously, we’re a Mini Cooper: powerful engine, great design, small, but perfectly formed.

And with that, I’m out of the office and off to sunny Kefalonia with the family. On what’s bound to be a fast, yet impersonal, plane.

Emma Scott is Managing Director of Freesat.

5

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, presenter of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, in Cambridge

21st Century Fox/public domain

Diversity

Gary Younge looks at how US television succeeded in becoming less white – while UK progress has stalled

What can we lea

S

hortly before the Iraq war – and after I’d arrived in New York – I was invited to take part in a Panorama discussion. The BBC was facilitating a debate, between New Yorkers in a diner it had rented on Broadway and Jordanians in a restaurant in Amman, about their views on the war.

But, having gone to all that trouble of creating a scene that looked like New York, the producer had cast a panel that bore no resemblance to those living in the city.

New York is one-third white, a quarter black and a quarter Latino. The panel was 80% white, with just one black New Yorker and myself – a black Brit.

It even included a white, Anglo taxi driver – a demographic I had not seen since Bruno Martelli’s dad in Fame.

Since polling showed that blacks and Latinos viewed the war quite differently to whites, this was not simply a

6

question of presentation, but one that related to content.

When I confronted the producer about this afterwards his rationale stunned me.

“I don’t commission by numbers, Gary,” he protested.

“How about intelligence and context?” I asked. “Do those count?”

The question of racial diversity – both on-screen and off – is a necessarily vexed one. How could it not be?

It touches on issues of race, representation, exclusion and power.

That is fundamentally no different in the US, where I have lived for the past 11 years, than it is in Britain. What does feel very different is the way the debates have played out in the two countries in recent times.

Watching testimony on the BBC and diversity to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in June felt like slipping back into a cold bath. Three black professionals (declaration of interest:

one of them was my brother, Patrick Younge) laid out the figures highlighting the dire levels of employment of nonwhite staff in the corporation.

They called on an all-white parliamentary committee to ensure that the BBC actually reflects and serves the public that funds it. They made a devastating case.

But no instance of non-white people demanding equality in Britain would be complete without a white, privately educated politician making the case for meritocracy. Isn’t there a risk, asked the committee’s Chairman, John Whittingdale, “you won’t get the best programmes”?

The only thing that seemed to have changed since I left the UK 11 years ago was that those championing diversity had become more focused, strategic – and frustrated.

“At the BBC alone, in the past 15 years there have been 29 initiatives to increase ethnic diversity, and the

numbers have actually gone down,” Lenny Henry told MPs. “Things are being done, but they are not really working...”

The US is sufficiently different in a range of ways to defy a direct comparison. American viewing habits, like life itself, tend to be more segregated.

During the summer, Nielsen ratings showed that none of the five most popular primetime shows for African Americans were among the top five for whites. Latinos were watching something different again.

Of course, the US has no public service broadcaster on a par with the BBC, which means hearings of the nature I just described could not take place.

The non-white population here is larger, has been in the country in significant numbers for significantly longer and has a sizeable middle class.

This means that more substantial pressure can be applied by more established people on less democratically accountable organisations.

That has never stopped ordinary viewers making demands. At the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King made his “I have a dream”

actual pie chart of America. Who cares?”

Well, people of colour, among others, care. That’s why so few of them watched Seinfeld.

Back in the 1990s that wasn’t a barrier to it being a hit show. But by 2042 white people will be a minority in the US and a show such as Seinfeld, with such a narrow ethnic appeal, might well find itself on cable rather than network TV. While major US broadcasters do not have to answer to Congress, they do have to deal with shareholders. And ultimately the colour they really care about is green. To keep advertisers, they have to pay more attention to the census.

The result has been quite impressive.

From Modern Family to Cosmos, a hit documentary series about the history of the planet presented by a black astrophysicist, they are finding humour and smarts outside of their traditional comfort zone.

And there has been some progress behind the camera, too, most notably with writer-director-producer Shonda Rhimes, who is black. In the hit show,

[QUOTAS ARE] A BLUNT INSTRUMENT. BUT I… PREFER BLUNT INSTRUMENTS TO NO TOOLS AT ALL only are non-white people as adept at providing it and being in it as whites – but their exclusion drains the pool of talent from which good television might be made.

I prefer a public service broadcaster, accountable to all, to a private one where money alone talks. Indeed, we are only discussing the BBC because it has to open up its books. Good luck trying to find detailed figures about diversity in ITV’s published materials.

And I am not in favour of quotas in general. They are a blunt instrument.

But I am even less in favour of getting nothing done and I prefer blunt instruments to no tools at all.

The US, in this regard, is a cautionary

rn from the US? speech, one placard read: “Horses have their own television shows. Dogs have their own television shows. Why can’t Negroes have their own shows?”

This hasn’t stopped broadcasters continuing to resist them. Think if you can recall any non-white actors in hit New York sitcoms, such as Seinfeld, Friends, Will & Grace or Mad About You, who had talking parts, let alone who were among the lead characters.

None of this happens by accident. It takes a lot of effort to imagine a city as diverse as New York as monocultural.

And the defence for this limited imagination can be every bit as ­specious as the one made by the ­Panorama producer.

When questioned about why most of the guests on his web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, have been white males, Jerry Seinfeld was affronted.

“It really pisses me off,” he said.

“People think [comedy] is the census or something, it’s gotta represent the

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

Grey’s Anatomy, Rhimes has created a world with transracial adoption and lesbian relationships and black characters in leading roles; who’d have thought it’s set in the same city as lily-white Frasier?

And then she followed it up with Scandal, a show where a black Ms Fixit stops Washington DC from imploding under the weight of its own sleaze while having an affair with the President. Another hit.

The world did not cave in. Nobody died. Standards did not drop. Viewing figures went up.

There is, of course, an important moral case for greater representation of non-white people in the television industry.

But the best case is that it actually results in better television. People, of all races, have more vivid imaginations than they are given credit for by skittish TV executives.

They like good television. And not

tale. It took almost half a century to get from that placard-waving protester on the Mall to Olivia Pope getting her jollies in the White House. I’m not sure I can bear to wait that long for this kind of progress in Britain.

I was proud to see my brother testify.

But I don’t want to see my son, who is seven, having to make the same arguments when he is my age.

SEINFELD, WITH SUCH A NARROW ETHNIC APPEAL, MIGHT WELL FIND ITSELF ON CABLE RATHER THAN NETWORK TV [IN 2042] 7

J

B Perrette needs little by way of introduction to observers of the US entertainment sector. As a senior executive at NBC in the early 2000s, he was one of the innovators of American digital TV and helped to launch the pioneer online video service Hulu.

For two consecutive years (2009 and 2010) The Hollywood Reporter featured Perrette in its Digital Power list. Three years earlier, in 2006, Multichannel News selected him for its 40 Under 40.

In the UK, Perrette, now a youthful 43, is less well known. But that is about to change.

Two months ago, Perrette and his young family (he and his news producer wife, Amy, are parents to a fiveand eight-year-old) relocated to London, where he runs Discovery’s thriving international business. The operation is 25 years old this year.

“Credit is due early on to [Discovery founder] John Hendricks and the board for investing in the company instead of taking money out,” he observes.

8

International

Steve Clarke meets JB Perrette, the new head of Discovery Networks International who explains what makes a winning team “At a time when, frankly, a lot of people could have argued you should just sit fat, dumb and happy on a pretty healthy US business, 25 years ago he saw the international opportunity.”

Perrette is talking in a small meeting room at Discovery’s Chiswick HQ on a blistering hot afternoon in early August.

He wears smart designer jeans and an open-necked, blue business shirt.

A modest, big, broad-shouldered, clean-cut man, Perrette would look at home on any football pitch. He was

appointed President of Discovery Networks International (DNI) in January, and it is in this role that he will give a keynote speech at the RTS’s London Conference on 9 September.

Perrette succeeded company veteran Mark Hollinger. That he did so less than two and a half years after joining Discovery as its Chief Digital Officer speaks volumes about his abilities.

Discovery Communications CEO and President David Zaslav said at the time: “JB is one of the smartest and most versatile executives I have worked with in the media business…

He has it all – strong strategic vision, operational expertise and exceptional team-building skills.”

Perrette leads what is unquestionably the most dynamic part of the pay-TV giant’s increasingly diverse activities.

In its second-quarter results, Discovery’s international revenues rose 23% while the US contribution slipped 2%; for the first time in the company’s history, international revenues

Discovery

A passion for dealmaking

exceeded domestic revenues – $802m, compared with $777m.

He might be relatively new to Discovery, but Perrette’s zeal for the non-fiction specialist borders on the evangelical.

As if he needs reminding of the global scale of his new job, a quintet of clocks on one wall of the room gives local time in the UK, Washington DC, Singapore, Los Angeles and Warsaw.

The first thing that strikes you on meeting Perrette is how healthy he looks, despite the long days and constant travel. Does he work out? I ask.

“I did before this job. I now work out on a plane and at airports, running to gates,” he answers good naturedly.

Travelling, it would appear, is in his blood. His mother is American, but his father is French (at 83, Perrette Senior still works – in investment management) and lives in London.

The JB stands for Jean-Briac – the Perrettes come from Saint-Briac in Brittany. “If you work long enough in Anglo countries, particularly in the US,

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

JB IS ONE OF THE SMARTEST AND MOST VERSATILE EXECUTIVES I HAVE WORKED WITH IN THE MEDIA BUSINESS you get a little bit tired of the bastardisation of Jean-Briac. So I decided to go for JB,” Perrette explains.

He speaks French and returns regularly to Brittany. “My love of food is very French,” he says.

Prior to joining NBC, Perrette worked in finance, having begun his career as an analyst for Credit Suisse specialising in derivatives, based in London and Toyko.

When he moved to General Electric (then NBC’s parent company) Perrette was employed on the company’s leadership development programme in the

Discovery

Deadliest Catch

financial services division. This entailed him jetting here, there and everywhere on project-based work.

“I remember the job ad said ‘100% travel’. My wife’s comment was: ‘Only an insane person would actually think that was attractive’,” he recalls.

Following four years of globe-trotting for GE, in 2000 Perrette switched to a business development role at NBC and settled down in New York.

It was there that he met the man who would play such a major part in shaping the next phase of his career.

“From virtually the day I arrived at NBC, I was working with David Zaslav,” he says. “David has many strong traits that I have enormous respect for, but the one I love the most is that he is always playing offence [a US term for attacking in football or basketball].

“He’s a striker and wants to score goals. David has great ambition and great strategic sense.”

Zaslav, head of NBC Universal cable and domestic television, was appoin­ ted CEO of Discovery in 2006. �

9

� At NBC Perrette not only helped get Hulu up and running but also oversaw the launch of digital channels Sleuth, Chiller and Universal HD. “In a career one has to be good and fortunate,” he notes. “At the time, GE was investing heavily in NBC. “As a deals person, there’s nothing better than to actually work for a company that wants to do deals. We bought Bravo, Telemundo and, ultimately, Universal.”

Later, as Discovery’s Chief Digital Officer, Perrette led several successful acquisitions, including reputedly paying $30m for San Francisco-­based, online-video start-up Revision3.

Looking back on this time, he says candidly: “Compared with other companies that spent billions… The reality is that we learned a lot over that period. We got some great DNA into the company.

“But it is very hard to pair Animal Planet, which is about entertainment and telling stories, with a pet adoption site called Petfinder. They can’t do much together. There’s not that much synergy.”

Last year Discovery sold Petfinder.

In an increasingly online world, where audiences are moving towards non-linear and multi-platform view-

10

ing, Discovery remains a company built firmly on non-fiction storytelling.

Perrette’s digital expertise will play a big role in determining how successfully Discovery can future-proof its brands and content.

His top three Discovery shows?

Deadliest Catch, Treehouse Masters and Wheeler Dealers.

During the past two and a half years the scale of Discovery’s ambitions have been made plain: the firm has acquired free-to-air networks in Scandinavia, taken a controlling stake in Eurosport, bought half of UK super-indie All3Media and reportedly came close to purchasing the UK’s Channel 5.

Discovery

Wheeler Dealers

Discovery’s choice of London for its international hub underscores the importance of the UK to the firm’s overall activities.

Does Discovery want to own a British broadcaster? “We will look opportunistically at everything,” says Perrette. “The reality, and this shows how far Discovery has come, is that we are rumoured, rightly or wrongly, to be involved in almost every conversation.

“That’s OK. We’re comfortable with that. We probably do look at everything. And we will continue to look at everything, but we will do it with a very disciplined eye.”

Culturally, the new head of DNI says that Discovery is more akin to Google than to NBCU. “It’s a more focused company… We don’t have a film studio, we don’t have theme parks, we’re not trying to do 50 things.

“It’s all about igniting, and trying to satisfy, curiosity; informing while entertaining.

“We’re all trying to put points on the board. We’re less interested in who did it. We’re more interested in ‘Did we win?’”

He adds: “I’ve never worked for a mission-driven company or a purpose-driven company [before]…

“There is something incredibly powerful culturally about companies that are mission driven.

“David certainly lives it, leads it and breathes it every day… It was rooted in John Hendricks… I am a big believer in [the idea that] culture eats strategy for breakfast.

“If you have the right culture, with the right people who believe in the right thing, there is no stopping you.”

JB Perrette, President of Discovery Networks International, is a keynote speaker at the RTS London Conference on 9 September.

JB Perrette at a glance 2014 President, Discovery Networks International 2011 Chief Digital Officer, Discovery Communications 2006 President, Digital Distribution, NBC Universal 2004 SVP, New Media and Strategy, NBC Universal

2003 CFO, Bravo Media, NBC Universal 2000 VP, Business Development, NBC Universal 1996 Senior Manager, GE Audit Staff, GE Capital 1993 Analyst, Credit Suisse

September 2013 www.rts.org.uk Television

Happy landing for Jay Hunt The Billen Profile

Channel 4’s creative supremo, Jay Hunt, is delivering a pipeline of successful shows, including Gogglebox and The Mill.

Andrew Billen finds out how she turned the station around

W

hen I last interviewed Jay Hunt, Channel 4’s Chief Creative Officer, the context was crisis. She recalls the week, in July 2013, when Channel 5’s ratings beat Channel 4’s. It was a crisis only in the eye of certain beholders; it could be seen as a piece of statistical legerdemain from her old employers at 5.

At the time, if she was worried, the only hint was that she spoke at about a zillion words a minute. There were undoubtedly problems: topically, her summer crop of new shows had failed (including The Intern and Bedtime Live); structurally, her ageing daytime schedule was being crushed by BBC One, freed from the burden of children’s programming.

“When I saw you,” she says, talking a little more slowly now, in a meeting room at Channel 4’s Horseferry Road HQ, “it felt like it was hard to get stuff to land and yet I was very confident about the quality of what we were putting on air.

“Then this rather interesting thing happened. We got to the end of the year and there was this dawning realisation in the wider community that we had been putting out good shows.

“We topped The Guardian poll for best shows, did really well at the RTS

12

Programme Awards and then the RTS Television Journalism Awards and then at the Baftas. That was amazing for the team, and a huge buzz personally, to see that recognition. But yes, it was an odd time.”

In fact, the very weekend after I saw her, Channel 4’s historical drama, The Mill, steamed into its Sunday-night slot with 2.8 million viewers, its biggest drama debut in three years.

The following week, she read the almost equally impressive overnights for the drama, Southcliffe, by a beautiful lake in Canada, where she was on a canoeing holiday with her husband, Ian Blandford, a presentation coach, her son and their daughter.

“I think it would be a bit weird if I didn’t care,” she says, when I raise an eyebrow.

Things kept on “landing”. Overall, viewing this year is down 2% com-

PEOPLE THOUGHT I’D LOST MY TINY MIND [WHEN] I SAID… I’M GOING TO GO AND DO MAKE-OVER SHOWS

pared with 2013 because daytime is still struggling and Hunt is still looking for a riposte. In peak, however, Channel 4 is up two points, the second-best terrestrial performer after BBC One. Benefits Street became a succès de scandale, Educating Yorkshire surpassed Educating Essex and, after two middling runs, Gogglebox became a national institution.

“I think Gogglebox will ultimately become one of those case studies people talk about in the turnaround of a creative organisation, but it is a very Channel 4 story,” says Hunt.“It is a story about trying something and it not quite working, and finessing it and going back to the drawing board. It’s an idea that is so painfully simple.

“It could have been terrible and yet we grew it, and persisted with it and now it’s a massive hit and quite channel-defining.”

As for the controversially named Benefits Street, Love Productions’ documentary series set in a poor Birmingham suburb, it was criticised on the Left for demonising benefit receivers. Hunt appears delighted that it busted the notion that “we have a consistently liberal agenda”, while bringing millions, including young viewers, to a hot political issue, not least through its “noisy” title.

After a quiet first half of the year for drama, with the weird and violent Utopia doing, as she jokes, “discreetly”

Channel 4

AT A HIGHLY CHARGED LEAVING PARTY FROM CHANNEL 4 [SHANE ALLEN] DISTRIBUTED T-SHIRTS WITH THE SLOGAN, ‘END THE HUNT’

in the ratings, the coming months look splashy.

Highlights include: Indian Summer (“more edge” than The Jewel in the Crown); Russell T Davies’s Cucumber, “exploring the passions and pitfalls of 21st-Century gay life”; the police satire, Babylon; and Cut, starring Fresh Meat’s Zawe Ashton.

James Graham, who wrote about the 1970s Lib-Lab pact in This House for the National Theatre, has been commissioned to write Coalition – not, she insists, “The Trial of Nick Clegg”, but a dramatisation of his decision to go into coalition with David Cameron.

Still on politics, Hunt has been talking to Jeremy Paxman, a hero from her Newsnight days in the 1990s. “I think he still has a sense of danger about him, which is quite unusual on television, and if we could find something that works for him on Channel 4, I think he’d be a good fit.”

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

This all should be enough, you would think, to make Hunt – commissioner of Sherlock and Mrs Brown’s Boys (when she ran BBC One) – one of the most esteemed executives in television.

She is fun to meet, warm, a youthful 47. Yet here is a strange thing: maybe I mix in the wrong circles, but I hear little spontaneous praise for her, and some griping: rumours of staff bollockings, memories of her raising her voice as editor of the BBC Six O’Clock News, accusations of a lack of strategic thought.

Her CEO, David Abraham, in an interview with me in Television last year, wondered if there might be sexism at work here – but there are, and have been, other woman channel controllers.

If true, it would be ironic, for “hating women” was one of the charges thrown at her by Miriam O’Reilly when

the presenter was taken off Countryfile.

Hunt says she has expressed her “regret” to O’Reilly, but neither face to face nor in writing, she admits.

“Hand on heart,” she says, “that has never been any beat of my personality.

One thing I feel very strongly is that it is absolutely vital we reflect the audience that we serve.”

Hunt has had other vocal detractors.

One is the BBC’s Controller of Comedy Commissioning, Shane Allen. In 2012, at a highly charged leaving party from Channel 4, where he was her head of comedy, he distributed T-shirts with the slogan, “End the Hunt”.

“To be honest, I find that whole episode slightly bewildering, but it’s ended in a happy place. We’ve got a fantastic head of comedy [Phil Clarke], of whom I think very highly.”

The other dissenter was Charlie Parsons, creator of Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, who alleged that she micromanaged the fun out of working for the channel, and accused the station of dictation rather than collaboration with independents.

She says she has the advantage of knowing what the feedback was from the sector before she arrived from BBC One in 2011.

“To be blunt, predating me, it wasn’t great,” Hunt insists. “There were people complaining about cosy deals with former commissioners; they couldn’t get through the door; there was a preferred list of suppliers; it was incredibly difficult if you were an out-of-London indie to get in.” �

13

Jay Hunt: A life in TV Jacqueline Leigh Hunt, Chief Creative Officer, Channel 4 Born Sydney, Australia, 20 January 1967. Her father, John Hunt, was a university professor; her mother, Wendy, deceased, worked in PR Married Ian Blandford, TV coach, in 2005; one daughter. Previously married to Gary Rogers, former TV news editor, 1998; divorced, one son Lives Clapham, London Recreation Travel, running, cycling Education Lady Eleanor Holles School, London; St John’s, Cambridge 1989 Joins BBC 1990 Assistant Editor, Breakfast News 1994 Output Editor, Newsnight 1999 Editor, One O’Clock News 2003 Editor, Six O’Clock News 2005 Controller of Daytime 2007 Head of Programmes, Channel 5 2008 Controller, BBC One 2011 Joins Channel 4 as CCO Hits – BBC Great British Menu, Heir Hunters, Sherlock, Luther, Mrs Brown’s Boys, moving Countryfile to Sunday nights Hits – Five Cowboy Builders, Extreme Fishing Hits – Four Gogglebox, Educating Yorkshire, The Undateables, Live from Space, The Island with Bear Grills, The Jump, Benefits Street, Run, Southcliffe, The Mill, My Mad Fat Diary Misses The Intern, Bedtime Live, Ben Earl: Trick Artist, Compare Your Life What her goggleboxers are watching ‘My son loves The Big Bang Theory and my daughter is into This Old Thing.’

On Gogglebox ‘I’ve never had a better insight into the sofas of Great Britain.’

On BBC Three ‘I’m not delighted it’s closing. I think it’s important there’s great public service telly for a young audience, a role that we fulfil [at E4] very well.’

14

Gogglebox: the Tapper family � Channel 4 now works with more than 400 companies, with more than half of commissions going outside London. “I manage a large team. At any given point there might be one conversation that didn’t go quite the way someone wanted it to, or they were rejected when they didn’t expect to be rejected, or there’s a tiny piece of discourtesy that’s crept into that relationship.

“I’m sure there are instances like that, but we have put in place really stringent behaviours about getting back to people and not cancelling people when they’re halfway down the M1.”

The stick she gets in general comes down, she suggests, to her length of service as Controller, from 2005 onwards, first of BBC daytime, then, briefly, Channel 5, then BBC One, from 2008 to 2010.

She will have said “no” to an awful lot of people – and still has to. “But I look at where the channel is now and how far we’ve come.

“When I got here, three years ago, there was a barren cupboard in terms of development, with 200 hours of Big

All pictures: Channel 4

Gogglebox: Steph and Dom

Brother gone missing in action. And now there’s been almost a year of real signs of renewal, strong brands coming in across the board. That is achieved by hard work and by being brave enough to sometimes say no.”

Is she abrasive with her senior staff?

“I don’t think so.”

Every Tuesday morning she holds a 90-minute meeting with her top team, just talking about ideas. “That’s become a really vibrant part of how this organisation works.”

And she can be persuaded to change her mind? “First Dates is a very good example. It was a show I couldn’t quite see how it was going to land. Nick Mirsky [Deputy Head of Factual] hadn’t been here very long but was absolutely determined he wanted to make it.

“I think it’s a really clever little show, actually, and it’s a show I have persisted with and backed.”

If Channel 4 does have a collegiate controller, the trait may run in the family. Her father, John, is Emeritus Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School.

I THINK GOGGLEBOX WILL ULTIMATELY BECOME ONE OF THOSE CASE STUDIES PEOPLE TALK ABOUT IN THE TURNAROUND OF A CREATIVE ORGANISATION If, on the other hand, she can be abrasive, we should remember she is from an outspoken nation: “I’m afraid I am 100% Australian.”

Born in Sydney, she lived there until she was 13, when her father’s work took him to Pittsburgh and then Crete.

She did not watch much UK television as a child, “although, funnily enough, if you attend enough dinner parties in

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

this country then in the end you can talk convincingly about Mr Benn having never seen it.”

She read English at Cambridge. At the “milk round” in her final year, her options appeared to be the law or accountancy.

Neither appealed and she briefly returned to Australia, where she blagged her way into a small media agency. Her nine-month stint was sufficiently close to journalism for her to want to return to England and work for the BBC, where she rose through news, becoming Editor of the One O’Clock News in 2000.

Editing the Six, however, she realised she was becoming as interested in production techniques as the headlines.

“I was editing the most-watched news programme in Britain and then I was offered a job moving sideways into daytime. People looked at me as though I’d had a lobotomy. They thought I’d lost my tiny mind and I said, ‘No, I’m going to go and do make-over shows and look after Call My Bluff’, which was the most cerebral thing we had on the slate at the time.

Channel 4

The Mill But it was absolutely critical to what I then went on to do.

“I loved being in news, I always say to people it’s a fantastic discipline.

Basic storytelling and understanding the beats of journalism is vital in all sorts of aspects of working in TV. “But to then be released from that and to be able to play in a much more open way and to experiment with scripted and to do some of the crazy entertainment shows I’ve been involved with over the years, that’s amazingly freeing. I feel lucky to have had that chance.”

I ask her one final question, about where her self-confidence, not to say her thick skin, comes from. Her resilience, she answers, has been built up over years of weathering storms, but I am wrong about her self-confidence.

“I constantly look into my soul and ask myself if I’m getting this right. I wouldn’t want to be any other way, because I think you need to have the humility to know when you’re getting things right and when you’re getting things wrong. I think that makes you a better leader, actually.”

15

OUR FRIEND IN THE

NORTH

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

STV

I

am delighted to be the Executive Producer of the RTS London Conference on 9 September, which my boss, Rob Woodward, is chairing. The stellar line-up of guests is testament to the hard work, and brilliant contacts, of the organising committee and I hope you all come to enjoy their expertise and experience in person.

There are great sessions with international luminaries such as Chase Carey from Fox and JB Perrette from Discovery, and debates on the ownership of IP and the future of the BBC. And, of course, closer to home, a timely debate on the implications of the referendum on Scottish indepen­ dence, both for how modern political campaigns are fought and how the UK’s media might be shaped.

Perhaps most intriguingly, we have a session on the extraordinary wave of deals that has washed over the sector this year. It stars Kevin Lygo, who has driven the rapid growth of ITV Studios, Lorraine Heggessey, formerly of Boom, a major indie consolidator, and Jim Ryan, the Chief Strategy Officer of Liberty Global, which has just bought into ITV. However, working with such extraordinary talent and getting your head around deals counted in the billions rather than the millions really focuses the mind on the day job: the future for a medium-sized indie such as STV Productions.

Writer William Goldman’s quote about the movie business – “Nobody knows anything” – could easily have been penned for the TV production business.

What producer hasn’t been told that Saturday-night family entertainment is dead, or that no one is interested in gypsies? So, what should we believe in?

STV Productions’ programme roster has benefited from a serious commitment to the three Rs, says Alan Clements

Since I joined STV six years ago, my ambition has been to create a produc­ tion company that super-serves our Scottish consumers, is competitive with our UK peers and is able to forge international partnerships.

Being fond of a metaphor, I sought an appropriate guiding vision. I tried nautical, with lots of “choppy seas” and “seeking of ports”.

Next up was military, with the “opening of new fronts” and “launching offensives”.

There was even an ill-judged dating one that involved “getting to first base” and being invited to the party but not yet taken home by anyone.

Mercifully, I settled on an education image – the three Rs. Luckily, this is not “reading, writing and arithmetic”, especially given the number of arts graduates in the business, but “rights, returnability and reputation”.

If a show doesn’t have two of the three Rs, then I don’t think we should be doing it. Let me give you some examples. Catchphrase is fantastic for our reputation and wonderfully returnable, but the IP is owned by the legendary Hollywood producer, Marty Pasetta, who also ran the Oscars for years.

Fire in the Night, our moving feature documentary on the Piper Alpha disaster, won a clutch of awards and we co-own the rights.

But it is also “returnable” in the sense that it gets us into the high-end documentary market. And then there is the motherlode – the joyous format, Antiques Road Trip – which successfully captures all three.

Regardless of the result of the independence referendum on 18 September, I think these qualities will always be a useful guide for any Scottish company seeking to succeed in the international market. Business is business.

So how would the report card read?

There has certainly been progress. We have gone from having one product for one broadcaster – Taggart for ITV – to having lots of new genres for lots of new customers, from Tutankhamun and The Link on BBC One to Britain’s Worst Roads on Channel 5.

With apologies to William Goldman, the one thing TV producers do know for sure is that the report card’s verdict, even if “showing good progress”, will always be “must try harder”.

Alan Clements is Director of Content at STV Productions.

11

big

Getting in a big pond

I

f you came up with a list of programmes made by ITV, you might start with Coronation Street, I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and Mr Selfridge. You probably wouldn’t think at first of Duck Dynasty, Cake Boss or The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Yet all of these American shows are made by companies that are now majority-owned by ITV. After buying no fewer than five established US production companies over the past few years, ITV is now the largest producer of non-scripted television in the US. “Growth in the US – which we wanted and were impatient for – we were doing organically. But it takes time. If you want to get bigger quickly, you’ve got to acquire,” says Kevin Lygo, Managing Director of ITV Studios.

When Lygo took over ITV’s global production business in 2011 – as one of incoming Chief Executive Adam Crozier’s key lieutenants – ITV had what he describes as a “small but perfectly formed presence” in the US. ITV Studios America was remaking some British shows for US networks, such as Four Weddings for TLC. Crozier and Lygo spotted an opportunity to build that business – and, in the process, help achieve one of Crozier’s core transformation aims for ITV plc as a whole.

Crozier’s avowed intention is to make ITV much less dependent on traditional spot advertising revenue in the UK. He never wants his commercial chief to deliver news as devastating as Michael Grade’s did in early 2009, when the financial crisis sent

16

ITV transformation plan

ITV’s aim of reducing its reliance on UK ad revenue has seen it become the largest non-scripted producer in the US. Neil Midgley investigates ITV’s British advertising revenues tumbling off a cliff.

First-half results, published in July, showed that ITV Studios’ profits grew by 14% to £17m; half its revenues were generated overseas.

Pay-TV revenues in the UK – from launching new, pay-only channels such as ITV Encore – form part of the solution. Production revenues, particularly from overseas markets such as the US, insulate ITV further from the fickle UK ad market.

So ITV’s new chiefs set off on an American quest. It was, ironically, boosted by the UK TV advertising

ITV NOW HAS A SHARPER BARGAINING POSITION WITH THE MAJOR US NETWORKS

market, which bounced back quickly and strongly after the recession.

That generated a lot of cash for ITV’s channels business in Britain, which, in turn, provided Crozier and Lygo with a war chest for acquisitions.

Nonetheless, it took until December 2012 for ITV to make its first US acquisition, Gurney Productions – after a search so lengthy that it sparked rumours of growing frustration among executives at the broadcaster’s London Southbank HQ. “We looked at companies that were of a size that was right for us, and that were in an area that we felt knowledgeable and secure about,” says Lygo. He followed factual entertainment producer Gurney with two more acquisitions in 2013 – High Noon, which makes Cake Boss, and Thinkfactory Media, most famous for the History Channel drama Hatfields & McCoys.

“It got us scale quite quickly – and lots of ongoing, proper working relationships with most of the buyers in the cable world,” adds Lygo.

This year, the number of US acquisitions hit five, with DiGa Vision (producer of MTV’s returning drama series Teen Wolf) and – by far ITV’s biggest American buy yet – Leftfield Entertainment.

Lygo’s controlling stake in Gurney cost him an upfront payment of $40m, whereas 80% of Leftfield set him back a cool $360m. In return, though, Leftfield delivers a wide portfolio of shows, including Pawn Stars and The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The latter airs on more than 30 US channels.

As a result of the buying spree, ITV has become a serious player in US

ITV’S US BUYING SPREE [COULD] ONE DAY EXTEND TO BIDDING FOR CABLE CHANNELS

Leftfield/ITV

The Real Housewives of New Jersey

production. In 2013 it distributed 64 shows across 34 channels – ­compared with just 12 shows in 2010.

ITV’s international production revenue rose by 56%, or £95m, last year. Total international revenues – including both production and distribution – contributed £401m to ITV Studios’ £857m combined revenues last year.

In other words, the more Lygo has spent in the US, the better Crozier’s P&L has fared.

“I think it is a good strategy,” says Mathew Horsman, Director of Mediatique, a strategic consultancy. He points out that the initial screenings of ITV-made shows on US cable channels are only part of the revenue story – and that recent advances in technology make for richer pickings later on.

“If you’ve made content for which you have the secondary and tertiary rights, then you can ‘clip the coupon’ now more effectively than ever,” says Horsman. “You can sell not only into multichannel and foreign markets generally – other broadcasters – but, increasingly, you can now sell into emerging platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

“So I think the timing is right, and balancing geographically strikes me as the right thing.”

Although ITV’s American strategy is paying off so far, it still involves risk.

Just because revenue comes from across the Atlantic, it isn’t bulletproof

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

– the recession hit the US economy just as it hit the UK’s. Horsman points out that the “basic-cable” channels, to which ITV sells many of its shows in the US, depend on fickle ad revenue as well as subscription fees.

He also points out that, unlike the UK, the US has no tradition of “terms of trade” favouring independent producers. In the UK, indies typically retain 85% of “back-end” revenues after a limited number of initial transmissions on the commissioning channel.

“Traditionally, broadcasters in the US have bought the rights to programmes outright,” says Horsman. “So, in the US, indies don’t have those in-built protections.”

ITV’s US subsidiaries are, of course, free to negotiate with their commissioning broadcasters to achieve a mutually agreeable division of rights.

“It’s all about commercial terms,” says Horsman. “Now that ITV has got some critical mass, it probably has a pretty good sense of how to operate in that market.” And more negotiating clout than the individual companies would have had before they were taken over? “Quite.”

Horsman’s view was backed up by a Wall Street Journal report in April, which concluded that ITV now has a “sharper bargaining position with the major US networks”.

ITV may have become a much bigger player in the US market, but its business

is still dwarfed by the American studios. Unlike ABC or CBS – and, indeed, unlike its own domestic operation in the UK – ITV in the US has no broadcast presence, so it can’t commission shows from itself to fill its own airtime.

At least, not yet: there is no reason why ITV’s US buying spree should not one day extend to bidding for a cable channels operation, such as Starz or Scripps Networks (see page 18).

And ITV’s US output still predominantly consists of non-scripted shows.

Although his American colleagues are currently working on the production of three cable drama series – The Good Witch for Hallmark Channel, Aquarius for NBC and Texas Rising for History Channel – Lygo says that he is treading carefully.

He points out that network dramas, with annual runs of more than 20 episodes, require studios to shoulder a huge deficit-financing risk.

“Warner Brothers can afford to bankroll 15 series at a time – more, probably – because it has a lot of long-running shows making good profits,” Lygo explains. “That’s its business.”

For now, ITV’s business hasn’t quite reached that scale. But its strong performance as a plc has attracted the attention of some other Americans: Liberty Global, the cable operator, bought a 6.4% share in ITV earlier this summer. Perhaps ITV will be taken over by a big US conglomerate – or maybe one day it will grow to be one of them. Given the ambition of Crozier and Lygo, it would be unwise to bet against such an outcome.

17

Scripps’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives presenter Guy Fieri

T

he senior Scripps Networks Interactive executive does not deny recent reports that the American group, which specialises in lifestyle programming, is prepared to pay £500m for the half of UKTV it does not already own.

“We acquired the Travel Channel in the UK and we acquired the Asian Food Channel in Asia. To the extent that there are opportunities for us to increase our investment through acquisition, we will continue to do so,”

18

Multichannel

Scripps Networks Interactive, owner of half of UKTV, wants to be a bigger player in the UK, says Raymond Snoddy

says Jim Samples, Scripps’s International President. “I can’t speak specific opportunities, but I can say we are very pleased with our investment in UKTV.” He is talking from its headquarters in Knoxville, Tennessee, following interesting travel of his own – a two-week walking holiday in the French Basque country.

It took Scripps three years of patient negotiation to buy its 50% stake in UKTV from Virgin Media, for £339m, including debt.

The company will play a long game to try to get the rest, although it is

SNI/John Lee

Scripps flexes its muscles

unclear when – or even if – the current owner, BBC Worldwide, would sell.

Is it true that Scripps is also interested in buying Channel 5, sold to Viacom in May for more than £450m?

“Over the last several years we have been active at looking at most assets of scale that would make sense, particularly if they have an affinity with our content, our audience, our name. I am sure we will pop up when any major asset is being marketed,” Samples admits.

The company is seen as firmly grounded in Knoxville, devoid of LA glitz, and supported by long-term investors who do not over-pay.

“I think all of that is true. It is a company that has been very prudently managed, and financially it has a strong balance sheet,” the International President adds.

If Scripps is happy with its UKTV investment, then Darren Childs, Chief Executive of the multichannel group, is equally content with his Tennessee partner.

“They have been really supportive of our strategy of investing heavily in content, increasing our content spend massively, launching new digital services and linear channels. I could not ask for better shareholders. They are totally supportive of management, they are hands-off and let us get on with it,” says the UKTV Chief Executive.

At the time, £339m seemed a high price, but it has turned into a great deal for the US group. UKTV, with Scripps’s support, has boosted programme investment, taking its total spending from £70m to £120m a year. Audiences have responded.

As a result, UKTV, according to Childs, is the fastest growing UK broadcaster, whose 10 channels now collectively beat Channel 4 on some days of the week.

In the first half of 2014 UKTV had a 9.1% share of commercial impacts compared with 7.6% a year ago.

Scripps is hardly a household name in European media circles, although that has started to change through international acquisitions and a growing presence in households around the world with its trademark networks devoted to food, travel and living.

The company, with its 136-year history in Middle American newspapers, and later cable and local television, launched its first network channel in the US – HGTV (formerly Home and Garden Television) – as recently as 1994.

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

Scripps quickly moved to dominate its lucrative niche in North America with lifestyle media brands that include The Travel Channel, the DIY Network and GAC (Great American Country), as well as The Cooking Channel. It then decided to take a range of channels around the world.

From Knoxville, the third-largest city in Tennessee, with a population of 170,000, Scripps arrived in the UK with the Food Network in 2009. Two years later, it really got itself noticed with the UKTV stake.

In a new study of multichannel

I AM SURE WE WILL POP UP WHEN ANY MAJOR ASSET IS BEING MARKETED television in the UK, Enders Analysis found that audience shares have been relatively stable since 2010. The main exceptions are UKTV – up 0.6%, helped by the launch of the Drama channel – and Discovery, up 0.3% on the back of the launch of Quest.

As for Scripps, Enders CEO Claire Enders believes that the company is a good, old-fashioned, steady, American business: “They are a good gang of people. It is obviously a small player compared with Time Warner or Universal, but it has found a niche for itself and it is not run in a grand or flashy way.

“I wouldn’t want to say humble, but Knoxville is not LA, it’s not New York or anything remotely like it. It’s not even Atlanta,” says Enders.

Scripps remains family controlled but publicly listed. The original EW Scripps Company combined newspapers and local US television stations, although the cable networks were sold.

Scripps Networks Interactive, which reported revenues of $644m (£380m) and profits of $271m in the first quarter of this year, became a separate entity only in 2008.

But, surely, as a relatively small player, Scripps Networks has come very late into the game?

Jonathan Sichel, Managing Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa,

disagrees. “I say we are right on time, because we learn from some of the mistakes and challenges other media channels have faced,” says Sichel, who emphasises the importance of Scripps owning the vast majority of its content.

Aside from the search for possible acquisitions, the control of rights has enabled Scripps to create strong organic growth everywhere, from Poland and Russia to the Netherlands and the Balkans.

A big push is also under way in Latin America, where Scripps used to sell its programmes but is now planning to launch its own networks.

In Europe, Nick Thorogood, who launched the Food Network in the UK, is in charge of what appears on screen on three channel brands broadcast to a total of 130 countries from the UK. The Travel Channel has the widest distribution, with Food Network in around 100 countries and Fine Living in 70 territories.

The variety of programme sources, he believes, is an important strength.

Thorogood has access to around 3,000 hours of HD programmes a year from the US. The channels commission their own locally produced output and acquisitions include “Nigellas and Jamies that we got from Channel 4”.

Unlike Scripps’s management style, its programmes are full of glitz and gloss and fancy camera-work and cutting, and can cost up to $350,000 an hour. The company provides, safe, comfortable, family viewing that plays particularly well with up-scale women.

Apart from how-to cookery demonstrations and competitions, the subject matter can range from creating the most bizarre and amazing cakes, through “the million-dollar room”, to convincing viewers that they really could have a Mickey Mouse-shaped pool in their garden.

“It’s absolutely bonkers, but a lot of fun,” says the British executive.

Jim Samples accepts that Scripps is a new corporate name in the UK and Europe, although its programmes are already known.

“Much of our work has been introducing ourselves and building relationships, trust and confidence, and I think that the UKTV relationship has been instrumental in that,” says Samples. He insists that Scripps’s goal remains leadership in lifestyle, food and travel in as many major television markets as possible.

That is no small ambition.

19

Economists vs the diehards BBC licence fee

A dramatic clash over the future funding of the BBC has redrawn the battlelines over the corporation’s future, reports Maggie Brown

C

ity University in London is the pioneer of media “speed debates”, where big hitters can talk freely in front of a hand-picked band of relevant experts.

In July it struck gold, when it hosted “The Future of the Licence Fee”, the first of three half-day seminars being held in the run-up to the general election that will precede the BBC’s Charter review.

The debate caused waves in the broadcasting community thanks to forthright contributions from Tony Hall and Lord Burns, respectively BBC Director-General and Channel 4 Chairman.

But first came Hall’s announcement of outline plans to abandon the BBC’s inhouse programme production quota (see report on page 20) at City. “This is the argument I want to run with for the next two years,” he said.

20

His decision to make such an important policy announcement at City shielded him from a more forensic debate about the sustainability of the universal licence fee, the subject of Burns’s contribution, which Hall did not stay to hear.

“It’s a smart way of distracting us from talking about the licence fee – part of a strategy” observed former Chairman of Ofcom Colette Bowe.

What Hall did say about the licence fee was: “I have real confidence in the licence fee. Whatever reform people come up with, they need to answer this question: is there a better way [of funding the BBC] than that 40p a day [from the licence fee]? I don’t think there is.”

Burns called on the BBC to make long-term plans for replacing the licence fee. His proposal revolved around a simple system of conditional access, which would establish a direct

link between the BBC and each individual user.

This, he stressed, would not involve subscription in the short term. At the very least, the Channel 4 Chairman argued, the corporation should consider introducing iPlayer registration.

At its simplest, this could be a way of ensuring iPlayer users pay the BBC licence fee. “You can either say that viewers only watch the iPlayer if they pay a licence fee, or they can watch the iPlayer without a licence fee – if they pay some money,” he said.

“This is the first big opportunity to move towards conditional access – no pay, no play – but [BBC executives] won’t even think about it because they think this is the first step towards subscription. They will not think about it because they are so wedded to the licence fee.”

“Where is it that you are headed for?” Burns challenged the BBC.

BBC

This paved the way for two hours of intense, stimulating debate, which, as organiser Stewart Purvis noted, tended to divide into two camps, the economists and the BBC diehards.

Burns led a searching Charter review in 2006 for Labour’s Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, only to find his main recommendations for contestable funding and external regulation rejected.

He said: “Concerns about the political independence of the BBC have become more severe over the decade.”

Burns noted that the licence fee is increasingly seen as a tax, as evidenced by the 2010 deal, which froze the fee but added to the BBC’s burdens by forcing it to pay for the World Service, among other responsibilities.

Meanwhile, the National Audit Office (NAO) has won the freedom to investigate BBC finances.

“None of that gives me much

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

confidence in being able to rely on a compulsory licence system,” said Burns. He added: “Compare conditional access and earning your place in a free market with a… tax-based system constantly under pressure.

“One of the recommendations we made [in 2006] was that, before we got to the end of this Charter, there should be a review to move towards a system of conditional access.

“I am sorry to see the BBC is more concerned about the next licence fee... to stick with what it has. I just think we should take a much longer-term view, rather than patching it up.”

On the subject of whether viewers should pay for the iPlayer, he said: “There are two ways of dealing with that. Either the iPlayer is part of your television subscription, password protected, licensed. Or, the alternative is a two-tier system, like [having] a black-and-white licence or a colour licence.

“With the internet encroaching, it seems to me extraordinary not to take advantage of this development.”

The former Treasury Permanent Secretary added: “I know what it is like when it comes to the issue of what should happen to the BBC’s income.

Treasury pressure goes only one way.”

His implication was that the Treasury sees the licence fee as a form of tax and won’t want to increase it. In future, however, the licence fee might have to pay for more services on top of funding the BBC. Burns contrasted this with Channel 4, which he has chaired for nearly five years: “The freedom you get from owning your own income is just extraordinary…

“If I had the choice of earning my own income or being subject to the NAO, I know which I would choose.”

Burns added: “My ambition is not to reduce the BBC’s income, but retain it, grow it, to get it out from under the political debate.”

The BBC should have more confidence in its capabilities, he argued: “I don’t come at this wanting to reduce or neutralise the BBC. [Subscription] is the best way for the long-term success of the organisation. Plot the path to a different outcome. In 30 years’ time, do we really imagine [there will be] a licence fee?”

He added that the BBC already has additional income from BBC Worldwide, and could move towards “multiple sources of income”.

IS THERE A BETTER WAY [OF FUNDING THE BBC] THAN THAT 40P A DAY? I DON’T THINK THERE IS But he accepted that a way would have to be found to pay for BBC Radio.

Delegates, led by media commentator Steve Hewlett, former Today editor Phil Harding and Professor Sylvia Harvey, challenged Burns on how this policy could co-exist with the principle of universality.

Harding said: “Alter the relationship and you alter the nature of the organisation.”

Harvey added: “Freedom that includes exclusions is not universality; you are ducking the broader issue.”

Burns replied that some BBC services, such as the news channel, should be freely available: “In the world of conditional access you can have all sorts of packages, like Sky. It is not an issue.”

“I could see a transition period, [when we] might even reduce the licence fee, take some pressure off this issue, and you would move parts of it to conditional access.

“It seems to me inevitable, in any case, because of technological constraints.”

This did not convince Steve Morrison, Chairman of All3Media, who backed the status quo: “Why not face the fact that, for a relatively small sum of money, we get a fantastic service… if there is no licence fee, the BBC’s income will go down dramatically.”

Economist Vicky Pryce, a former visiting professor at City University’s Cass Business School, waded in to support Burns. She noted that, in a room full of BBC people, it was very dangerous to say what he had just said. �

THIS IS THE FIRST BIG OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE TOWARDS CONDITIONAL ACCESS – NO PAY, NO PLAY 21

Tony Hall

T

ony Hall is engaged in an energetic Charter renewal campaign, designed to win allies and disarm politicians.

He chose to unveil his most radical proposal to revolutionise the BBC’s programme supply at a small industry conference, just as Ofcom’s public service broadcasting review was getting under way.

As he put it, the aim is to bring “the spirit of the entrepreneur and pioneer to the BBC”. He also enlisted retail terminology, promising “great programmes at great prices” and “competition to improve what we give the public” – with the John Lewis qualifier that great prices do not always mean the cheapest.

In essence, Hall is offering the (rather fuzzy) outline of a deal to independent producers, which will lead to talks with Pact, Equity, and Bectu this autumn.

The BBC will remove its 50% inhouse production guarantee, in exchange for its 2,500 producers being able to compete with outside companies for business. His ambition is for a “true level playing field between independent producers and BBC Productions”.

For BBC producers, at best, it

22

A SYSTEM SET UP TO ENCOURAGE COMPETITION HAS BEGUN TO CORRAL PRODUCERS INTO THREE SEPARATE TRIBES offers an escape from having “only one buyer” and BBC Productions being “limited in the kind of commercial deals it can make. It can’t compete globally in the way big independent studios can.”

For independents, the plan offers the prospect of £400m more business.

Hall also said that the corporation had experienced 20 years of “managed competition” to foster independents; it was time to move on from the system of the 25% quota for qualifying independent producers and the further 25% of the WoCC (Window of Creative Competition).

This system has created today’s “mature market, so successfully that the UK is enjoying a golden moment”, noted Hall. “But now we

BBC

Hall lets the market loose

need change”. A “system set up to encourage competition… has begun to forcibly corral producers into three separate tribes.”

He claimed that a renewed spirit of competition would mean less intervention. There should be “regulation of the TV supply market only where it is needed... Is it right that independent producers [that are] part of global organisations bigger than the BBC need guarantees or special negotiating protections?”

On the other hand, “small independent producers may continue to need support”. However, “both big independent producers and BBC Productions should be able to stand on their own feet”.

Hall underscored the need for a deal with producers (which he expanded upon to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 15 July): “These are far from final proposals. We will be working with partners on future plans.”

Proposals will be put to the BBC Trust to form part of its own review of programme supply this autumn.

“It will take a new Charter to put into effect.”

Many industry experts foresee the beginning of the end for BBC Productions. Not Hall, who said: “I do not believe the BBC’s future is as a publisher broadcaster.”

The corporation’s global news gathering is excluded from Hall’s production revolution, due to the need “to control our own voice”.

The BBC would also need to retain its capacity to organise big live events, from sport to state funerals, and to protect regional production.

In addition, Hall proposed a rapid extension of “compete and compare” benchmarking, to ensure efficiency in back-office activities.

Pact Chief Executive John McVay’s enthusiastic welcome for these proposals all but guarantees Hall a valuable ally in his campaign for a new Charter and a healthy licencefee settlement following the next general election.

Professor Jean Seaton, however, pointed to the implied threat to independents from Hall’s policies.

Steve Morrison, Chairman of All3Media, picked up on this: he wanted to know what would happen to producers’ terms of trade.

The devil will be in the detail.

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

Lord Burns

IF I HAD THE CHOICE OF EARNING MY OWN INCOME OR BEING SUBJECT TO THE NAO, I KNOW WHICH I WOULD CHOOSE Gallagher asked: “Should steps be taken to promote conditional access [in future]?”

Louis Heinsman, Head of International Relations at the Dutch public service broadcaster, Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO), counselled caution in making changes.

His government abolished the licence fee in 2000. Since then, NPO has been funded out of general taxation. Five of the six successive governments had made cuts.

“For politicians it is all the same kind of money and that is a big danger…

Now they interfere,” said Heinsman.

“The simple lesson of the Netherlands is, if you get rid of the licence fee, it is impossible to reintroduce it. Be very careful.”

Professor Jean Seaton, the BBC’s

Paul Hampartsoumian

� “A mix in funding, a mix of tax and subscription, what is wrong with that?... The funding structure has to change, and very substantially,” said Pryce.

She added that the licence fee is regressive because rich and poor people pay the same: “Any tax system would be an improvement, and actually be more legitimate.”

James Purnell, the BBC’s Director of Strategy and Digital, stuck firmly to the BBC script: “Yes, we think a licence fee is the best way, not the least worst way.”

Subscription has three drawbacks, he argued – viewers would end up paying more; it would significantly decrease the amount of money going into UK production; and end the social benefit of universally available services.

“The key thing for us is, let’s not be techno determinist about this... in every licence-fee debate people always say this is the last one...

“We are confident the licence fee is a good and effective way to fund the BBC.” City University’s Director of Broadcasting, Lis Howell, interjected that this ignored the fact that people are being prosecuted for not paying the licence fee. Moreover, technology is changing the way that people consume TV. Purnell conceded: “We are interested in modernising the licence fee to cover catch up; that is a way of saying we think the licence fee can and should continue.

“It is easy to make the assumption... [that with] different behaviour, the model is fundamentally broken. We see no evidence of that. We think the system has worked really, really well.”

The BBC will consider the case for decriminalising non-payment, but Purnell pointed out that the famously law-abiding Japanese do not face criminal sanctions, and only 75% pay their licence fee.

The BBC has estimated that it would cost £500m to move to a conditional-­ access system, and it would be much more expensive to run than the current licence-fee collection methods.

Ray Gallagher, adviser to Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee, responded that, in 2004, Greg Dyke, then BBC Director-General, had deliberately promoted Freeview as a way to “flood the market with dumb Freeview boxes”. His strategy had ensured that there was no facility to turn users on or off, as with satellite and cable, and so introduce subscription.

official historian, expressed concern that what was “completely missing in the debate is the national interest”.

“The BBC is a unique institution that is uniquely British. This is not a trivial concern, but a major concern.”

The final word went to Bowe before the debate was opened to the floor.

She said: “It strikes me about people here, who work or have worked for the BBC, how quickly their defensive reaction comes in.

“What I would say to BBC friends here is: make sure you are open and listening to the alternatives of all sources of revenue.

“I have a lot of sympathy for the idea the BBC should use this opportunity to try out alternative models for funding itself.

“It is a no-brainer, the moment to look at conditional access for people using alternative devices. Why not do that?

“I haven’t heard a single argument that some form of conditional access around the iPlayer is not the thing to try.

“This is the moment the BBC needs to put itself ahead of the argument. If you are the BBC right now, you are surrounded by very serious challenges.

“There isn’t a choice... this isn’t going to be an easy ride for the BBC.”

23

TV’s musical challenge

E

ven though the internet has transformed and multiplied listeners’ opportunities to consume music, TV broadcasters’ appetite for music-based shows appears to be growing.

Today’s offerings range from the blatant populism of The X Factor, soon to return on ITV, to the BBC’s blanket coverage of Glastonbury, plus plentiful music documentaries and concerts on Sky Arts and BBC Four.

But that, perhaps, is only the tip of the iceberg in a digital era in which Radio 1 no longer regards itself as “just” a radio station.

Far from being yesterday’s medium, television is still important to music

24

Content

Television channels need to develop radically new music programming for the age of audio abundance, says Meg Carter companies, despite their shifting priorities.

The music and TV industries have long been close – if sometimes uneasy

– bedfellows. But digital changed the music industry beyond recognition and, with it, the relationship between music and TV. Music sales have declined as younger fans turn first to YouTube, Spotify or Vevo (the video hosting site backed by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Google).

Paid digital downloads now outstrip physical music sales, and traditional business models have been rewritten by music streaming. Meanwhile, revenue from live events has been growing fast.

“Thirty years ago music was scarce.

You’d queue in Woolworths to buy a record on a Saturday morning. Now it’s ubiquitous online and we must ensure that, in the light of this, our role is

BBC

refreshed and redefined,” says BBC Director of Music Bob Shennan.

So in June the BBC announced a new music strategy, with a range of programmes, partnerships and music initiatives on and off air.

These include: an expansion of the BBC Introducing... emerging talent showcase (a branded space for Radio 1 within BBC iPlayer); the inaugural BBC Music Awards, taking place in December; more concerts filmed for Radio 1 and Radio 2, accessible via the red button; and a commitment to more live performances in regular strands such as The One Show.

“We are seeing increased multi-­ platform [music] consumption and are evolving our offering as people demand more,” explains Shennan.

A big turning point was London 2012, thanks to the multi-platform approach that audiences now expect.

This shaped the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury 2014, for which it broadcast more than 250 hours of live performance on radio, TV, red button and online streaming.

Total TV reach for the three days exceeded 18 million, according to the BBC; Dolly Parton was the biggest single draw and attracted a TV audience of 2.6 million.

The technological expertise required to deliver broadcast-­quality output and in outside broadcasts and coverage of large-scale events are two of the many ways TV companies add value to music, says Malcolm Gerrie, broadcaster, producer and one-time Executive Producer of Channel 4’s The Tube. His company, Whizz Kid Entertainment, makes ...Talks Music for Sky Arts.

“Music on certain occasions can still draw substantial TV audiences and, in turn, have a big effect on next-day consumption and sales, whether by download or streaming,” he says. “The water-cooler ripple effect still exists with TV.” This explains why many in the music industry still lament the demise of popular performance showcases such as Top of the Pops.

“Although the BBC is a standard bearer for British music – as it should be – commercial broadcasters do very little by comparison,” claims Musicians’ Union General Secretary John Smith.

Paradoxically, during an age of media plenty, the big gap in music programming on TV is a regular, mass-appeal music show.

“Much is being done on BBC Four

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

and Sky Arts – great documentaries, good concerts. But lack of interest among mainstream schedulers on the big channels is a major frustration,” says Tony Wadsworth, Chairman of BPI, the body that represents the UK’s record labels and organises the Brit Awards.

“The talent and interest are there. Just look at Glastonbury to see the quality of coverage that can be achieved.

“But it shouldn’t be just for a few big events once a year,” he adds.

Not so long ago, record companies

PARADOXICALLY, DURING AN AGE OF MEDIA PLENTY, THE BIG GAP IN MUSIC PROGRAMMING ON TV IS A REGULAR, MASS-APPEAL MUSIC SHOW would wait for a TV producer to offer a slot on a show for a particular act.

But now, traditional definitions are blurring as record labels develop their own TV formats and content creator Syco Entertainment (Simon Cowell’s joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment) releases its own music.

Today, even the BPI has a YouTube channel with original content. It is designed, Wadsworth says, “to fill the gap left by mainstream broadcasters reluctant to cover the weekly ins and outs of British music”.

Online consumption of video-based music content is undoubtedly a challenge. But it’s an opportunity, too, believes Iain Funnell, General Manager of Globe Productions, the TV production division of Universal Music Group.

“It’s an exciting time,” he observes.

“We’re not far from the point when Netflix shows live concerts from major acts such as Lady Gaga, globally.

“But stars of her calibre and events of that scale will only happen every so often. The opportunity now is to punch in all directions – engaging audiences with as wide a variety of acts as we can, on TV and beyond, on and offline.”

What’s needed is a new generation of fresh, mainstream TV formats able to exploit TV’s ability to frame music

in an interesting, stimulating and accessible way, Gerrie believes.

“It’s not a question of: is the future more televised gigs as live performance grows more popular; or is it more music entertainment shows such as The X Factor and The Voice; or how to replace Top of the Pops?” he says. It’s all of the above and more: “New ideas are needed in every direction.”

With a lot of online content reliant on music videos, rather than editorial-­ driven programming, TV has a clear opportunity to develop new formats that capitalise on its “curatorial strengths” to aid discovery of new music, according to Jonny Rothery, Commissioning Editor for Music at Channel 4. Home to the iTunes Festival and the Barclaycard Mercury Prize, the broadcaster will shortly announce new initiatives to strengthen and deepen its music output.

“As audiences have grown more sophisticated, they no longer turn to TV in the numbers they once did for pure music performance,” he says.

“And as there are now so many live music events, we need a fresh approach to justify giving another music event a good slot.

“Online, you are the curator choosing what to search out on YouTube. On TV, the broadcaster curates – whether that’s guiding [viewers] through festival performances or showcasing new acts – and we must build on that.”

Far from diminishing the TV audience for music programmes, online accentuates television’s strengths and provides cross-platform opportunities for a new generation of music content, believes Jez Nelson, founder of production company Somethin’ Else, and digital and radio producer for the Brits.

“I’m excited by BBC Three going online and by plans for Radio 1, which already has its own YouTube channel, to have a branded space on BBC iPlayer,” he explains.

“Platforms such as these will create new opportunities and, increasingly, these online spaces will be where you find exciting and innovative, video-­ based music formats that may – in turn – eventually end up on broadcast TV.” Broadcasters have the opportunity to create a new generation of compelling music programme ideas, he adds: “And it would be a shame if they gave up simply because they believed the audience was watching YouTube and wouldn’t come back.”

25

The UK’s next mega-indie?

‘W

hy [should the BBC] be radical in an age when attacks from sections of the press are more vicious and more personal than ever before; when the BBC’s commercial competitors are more ruthless than they have ever been; and when some politicians and commentators seem more interested in quick headlines than in trying to understand the real issues?

“The answer, of course, is that we have no option. I believe the stark choice facing the BBC today is that we either change or we simply manage decline gracefully.”

So said former Director-General Greg Dyke in his MacTaggart Lecture in 2000.

But it could easily have been said today by the current Director-General, Tony Hall. His proposal for protecting the future of BBC Production is to allow it to pitch to, and make programmes for, its competitors.

26

BBC production

What would life be like for BBC Productions and its rivals if it was cut loose as a commercial studio?

Tara Conlan finds out In return, independents will be able to pitch for any BBC slots.

In effect, he wants to make BBC Production into a mega-indie that could end up as a commercial entity, perhaps sitting within BBC Worldwide.

In some ways Hall’s plan is a continuation of former boss John Birt’s “Producer Choice”– Birt formally separated production and commissioning in the BBC.

That was largely reversed by Dyke, but now the wheel has turned again.

As Hall puts it: “We are going to go further than we have ever done before in opening the BBC to more competition. A competition revolution.

‘Compete or Compare’ – that is our strategy.”

However, it is not a new idea.

According to former BBC Vision Chief Creative Officer and founder of WeCreate Associates Pat Younge, it has been floating round since Hall’s predecessors, George Entwistle and Mark Thompson, were at the BBC. That marries with the fact that in March 2012 executives were understood to be looking at how they might put shows such as EastEnders into some kind of commercial entity. The BBC denied the story at the time. Now it is publicly backing the plan. But why now?

There are a number of reasons. First, as Director of Television Danny Cohen said last December, the BBC is trying to solve the conundrum of how to attract talent to the corporation.

All pictures: BBC

At the moment it cannot award the kind of equity stakes or salaries that the commercial sector does – without being savaged by competitors and critics in the press.

Then there is the threat posed by the consolidation of the independent sector, as British producers are snapped up by US companies such as Discovery, Liberty and Viacom.

Add to this the millions being pumped into drama by internet television services such as Netflix – action that the BBC would not mind a piece of.

Finally, it is no coincidence that Hall’s announcement comes in the run-up to Charter renewal. Such a fundamental change in the BBC’s make-up would need to be written into the next Royal Charter.

Faced with the prospect of a declining licence fee and politicians wanting to trim the corporation’s funding – or even end the traditional way of paying for the BBC – it makes strategic sense to propose an alternative. A commercial production wing could generate additional revenue for the BBC. However, remuneration will be a key issue, notes Yahoo’s Senior Vice-President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Dawn Airey: “The best people will have a ball. And are they going to be remunerated for bringing in business?”

But she warns of “unintended consequences” such that “some people who’ve become good at pitching may think, ‘I’ll go and do it myself.’

“This is about the BBC getting more involved in the marketplace and hoping to bring in additional revenues.”

“I think it is a commercial and political decision... this is quite overt.”

She points out that in the US “the big commercial broadcasters there have production arms that compete for their own broadcasters’ slots and for everyone else’s as well,” but adds: “I hope it doesn’t backfire [on] the breadth and quality of people in the BBC and quality of programmes commissioned.”

BBC executives seem to accept that a “mega-indie” production studio would have to be separate from the publicly funded heart of the corporation, perhaps in the form of a wholly owned subsidiary.

But Bectu General Secretary Gerry Morrissey says the plan could hit a stumbling block: some staff are not keen on the idea of being transferred

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

to a commercial entity, because they joined the BBC to make public service programming.

When he told the BBC this, executives were taken aback, he recounts: “I think this was because they had been talking to people in drama, who are keener than people in, say, factual.”

Drama production staff might be more amenable thanks to the commercial success of dramas such as EastEnders and Doctor Who. Yet despite the corporation’s reputation for drama, some of its most acclaimed shows, such as Sherlock and Line of Duty, are made by independents.

A BBC Trust review last year revealed that indies won 99% of available drama commissioning hours in the year to the end of March 2012.

Morrissey says the BBC will have “a job convincing us this is not just a transition... [and] that the bits nobody wants will come back into the BBC and the bits that are valuable will be sold off.”

Younge counters: “The public just wants the best shows, that’s the fundamental issue. The fundamental reality is that the current system is broken.”

Currently, inhouse programme-­makers are guaranteed 50% of commissioning; 25% goes to “qualifying indies” (those not owned by rival broadcasters); and the rest is put into the Window of Creative Competition (WoCC), which is up for grabs by inhouse or independent producers.

Younge argues that “the WoCC is not about creative competition” any more.

Moreover, he thinks the new entity would “probably have to be a stand-alone company, but could be part of BBC Worldwide”.

Pact Chief Executive John McVay, unsurprisingly, welcomes Hall’s proposal, but says that opening up all slots to the independent sector should not be conditional on a stand-alone BBC Production outfit being allowed to pitch to everyone.

He says that Pact, which published its own report into Hall’s plans at the Edinburgh Television Festival, believes “this opening-up will liberate the BBC”.

CentreForum trustee Charles Brand is co-writing a report on the subject for the think tank. �

I HOPE IT DOESN’T BACKFIRE [ON] THE BREADTH AND QUALITY OF PEOPLE IN THE BBC AND QUALITY OF PROGRAMMES COMMISSIONED

BBC Productions hits: this page, EastEnders; opposite, The Musketeers

27

28

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT HALL’S ANNOUNCEMENT COMES IN THE RUN-UP TO CHARTER RENEWAL BBC Productions hit: Doctor Who Some production staff have complained about having to move out of Television Centre to New Broadcasting House; they say there is not enough room for them and it takes them away from the big TVC studios, which are being refurbished.

Meanwhile, BBC Worldwide is due to begin moving back into refurbished offices within the TVC complex in January.

If Hall’s plan comes off and production does get annexed by Worldwide, some of those producers

BBC

� Brand, who is also a former Managing Director of Tiger Aspect, thinks arts and religion could prosper in a commercial production wing just as much as drama. Hit show The Monastery, which he executive produced, demonstrates the potential, he believes.

Inhouse producers would also have the option to redevelop shows that had been rejected by BBC channels to sell them elsewhere.

“It might be the making of BBC Production and it becomes a more exciting place to work,” says Brand.

“It could also make it easier for bonuses to be paid and to avoid the Daily Mail outrage stories.”

He believes it could encourage BBC producers to make more original shows, rather than the “big, standard commissions” that get awarded to inhouse.

He recognises the new entity will set off with a big order book of existing commissions, but is likely to have to slim down its workforce.

One upside, argues Brand, is that it could clarify how much BBC inhouse production services cost. He has “been trying to get to the bottom” of this issue but “it’s almost all anecdotal... either the BBC is being secretive or it’s because it doesn’t know itself”.

Brand says that indies with BBC commissions wanting to hire corporation production staff have told him that this has cost them around 25% more than using freelancers for the same roles. It is not clear whether this is down to the BBC’s inhouse production department trying to make money from the commission.

Brand insists: “I genuinely would love to see BBC Production do well.

My instinctive view is that BBC Worldwide is the place for it. It has its own production arm internationally and has a 25% stake in lots of indies.”

Plus, if it were to lose money, Worldwide has “financial flex” to cope with that.

One area that Brand says nobody has really got their head around yet is that “the move to Salford, Cardiff and Glasgow has taken on a political role – the BBC has been told not to be so metropolitan. That comes at a cost.”

He reckons that, whatever form the new outfit takes, it will have to be situated away from BBC commissioners to prove it is genuinely separate.

may be granted their wish to return to TVC, after all. For Hall’s proposal to work it needs staff, the industry and politicians on side.

A “BBC Studios” mega-indie could entice the next generation of creative minds to join the BBC rather than Amazon.

And, in the meantime, it will focus the minds of those politicians wanting to cut the licence fee – it will force them to ponder how much they really want the BBC to become more commercial.

September 2014 www.rts.org.uk Television

RTS Early Evening Event

23 September 6:15pm for 6:30pm

The Hospital Club, 24 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ Please join us for a complimentary drink after the event

Tim Davie Chief Executive, BBC Worldwide

in conversation with Cathy Newman Channel 4 News

Tickets: RTS members free; non-RTS members ÂŁ12.50 Booking: events@rts.org.uk 020 7822 2820 Television www.rts.org.uk September 2013

www.rts.org.uk

29

IBC preview

Behind the hype about Ultra-HDTV and the Cloud, the real theme of IBC will be pressure on costs, predicts Adrian Pennington

Quantel’s Pablo Rio colour-correction and finishing system for HD and Ultra-HD output runs on off-the-shelf hardware

Do more for less

A

s the US and European economies begin to stabilise, technology budgets are returning to their pre-crash levels – but media companies’ investment habits have shifted significantly during the downturn.

One casualty has been broadcasters’ regular kit-replacement cycle.

“We see major technology decisions increasingly taken on the basis of return on investment and on a project-by-­ project basis,” says Blackmagic Design’s Channel Sales Director Tim Siddons.

Company finance chiefs and technical managers attending the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam this month will be focusing on the cost savings and revenue opportunities of any infrastructure deals.

The critical decision will frequently

30

be about the timing of their investment.

Three technology areas will be on most executives’ minds: Ultra-HDTV, the migration towards connectivity that uses IP (Internet Protocol) and the Cloud. All three are, to a degree, linked.

Pay-TV operators are under pressure to launch Ultra-HD services to combat the rising threat they perceive from Netflix, YouTube and other internet players that already offer such programming on-demand.

There are indications that some groups, such as Sky, will launch Ultra-HD sometime in 2015 – but all broadcasters have reservations about how excited viewers are by higher-resolution pictures.

“Technically, one could probably launch Ultra-HD services today, with more pixels and up to 50 or 60 frames per second, but it wouldn’t be a major step forward from HD,” says Stephan

Heimbecher, Head of Innovations & Standards for Sky Deutschland. “We want to make sure that consumers get a real benefit out of Ultra-HD.” The European Broadcasting Union agrees. It recently issued a policy statement that declared the current crop of Ultra-HD TVs “unsatisfactory” and said that, without enhancements, Ultra-HD “is not a sufficiently big step for the introduction of successful new broadcasting services”.

The debate boils down to whether consumers will buy into 4K – an Ultra-HDTV standard that has four times the resolution of HDTV – without two other enhancements.

These would be pictures with a higher dynamic range (HDR), for greater contrast and improved colours, and higher frame rates.

The current 25 frames a second in most of Europe is fine for movies and

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

IBC’s big themes Steve Owen, Marketing Director, Quantel: The challenge across the board is to be able to do more, do it better, and do it for less… What everyone wants to hear at IBC is how we can build open, modular, flexible solutions that enable them to do exactly what they want to do.

a great hook to get the technology out there and for people to buy into. The danger, if you go down a single channel or sports route, is that you actually switch off a lot of people because it becomes another gimmick. Ultra-HD has got to be something that becomes mainstream and appeals to everybody.

Bruce Devlin, Chief Media Scientist, Dalet: The biggest issue is the need to do more work for less cost than before. In the transcoding world, this corresponds to creating a more automated, more reliable back-end process that works equally well for domestic, international and internet delivery.

Ronen Artman, VP, Marketing, LiveU: Our customers want to be able to move quickly and provide exclusive live, or as-live, footage in as usable way as possible. In this respect, Cloud-based services – be that aggregation, production or distribution – will be very visible at IBC.

The BBC trialled SDI-free interfaces at the Commonwealth Games Tom Cordiner, VP, International Sales, Avid: Media organisations need to restructure to take advantage of a content-anywhere, anytime and onany-device world. They essentially need one interconnected process that fuses content creation with distribution and monetisation, that brings them much closer to the people who enjoy their content. Our response is the Avid MediaCentral Platform.

Charlie Vogt, CEO, Imagine Communications: Video will represent more than 70% of all internet traffic by 2018. Valuable bandwidth, more content, more users, more devices and incrementally higher consumer expectations equals the perfect storm – those who ‘crack the code’ with innovation and new business models will be the market leaders of tomorrow.

Mark Wilson-Dunn, VP, Sales and Marketing, BT Media & Broadcast: Until 4K Ultra-HD content is widely available, it will halt adoption. Sports is

Getty Images

Quantel

TV drama – which is why Netflix has a head start – but is inadequate for capturing motion in live sports with sufficient clarity.

“The logic is absolutely sound, but putting those enhancements into practice is a more complicated matter,” says John Ive, Business Development and Technology Director at the manufacturers’ trade body, the IABM. “It is far easier to market higher resolution and for consumers to understand the concept [of higher numbers]. The other enhancements are more difficult to promote. In addition, consumer TV manufacturers want to get products out immediately to refresh the sagging HDTV market.”

Technologies to transfer HDR and higher frame rates to the screen do exist (one such, Dolby Vision, offers HDR post-production tools). But they have a cost implication because they need more bandwidth to route signals around a studio or to the home.

New compression systems, such as HEVC, will help squeeze more data into that bandwidth. The biggest help, though, will be the phasing out of the SDI interface that connects much of the specialist hardware in the broadcast production and distribution chain.

It is now inevitable that the SDI-connected ecosystem will be displaced by off-the-shelf hardware communicating by IP (internet protocol). This shift promises cost savings and increased flexibility – but the technology needs further development to improve reliability in the most demanding broadcast environments, such as live events coverage. BBC trials during the Commonwealth Games confirmed the case for caution.

The industry’s move towards IP is part and parcel of the growing importance of software, the Cloud and mobility at the expense of bespoke hardware. Documentary productions already treat the storage, editing and export of rushes on remote servers as the norm.

IBC has addressed the trend head on by launching IBC Content Everywhere, a strand of events focused on the rise of video traffic over mobile devices.

The first in a planned series of such events (followed by others in supposed world hot spots of mobile media, Dubai and São Paulo) is co-located with IBC. It will include a mini exhibition, dubbed Cloud Solutions, featuring case studies from Imagine, Blinkbox and Maverick TV.

Stephen Baily, General Manager, New Systems, BBC R&D: New services and tools [will] enable the production of immersive content that can be easily personalised to meet the needs, preferences and context of the individual. We are researching these ourselves through our work on object-based content and IP-based architectures.

Pascal Portelli, SVP, Solutions Strategy & Portfolio Management, Connected Home, Technicolor: The next generation of image quality will be a major point of discussion at IBC. With HDR, the industry will have a standards-based route to truly astounding images delivered to every kind of device.

Philip Dalgoutte, Product Manager, Vinten: There’s been a slow take-up of Cloud services in broadcasting, but… it is likely to gain momentum. Customers’ questions centre on issues such as… video editing, transmission and file transfer, and ceding control of content to third parties, with security still playing a significant role.

THE CHALLENGE ACROSS THE BOARD IS TO BE ABLE TO DO MORE, DO IT BETTER, AND DO IT FOR LESS 31

RTS NEWS The Big 10 for Yorks creators

I

n celebration of Yorkshire Centre’s 10th Annual Programme Awards, the event moved to a new venue and welcomed two new presenters.

The Royal Armouries in Leeds, with its imposing displays of weaponry, proved to be a fitting place for the nominees to do battle.

Guests were played down the red carpet by the Yorkshire Brass Quintet and drank Champagne to the sounds of local trio Ukulele Bitchslap.

The real business of the

evening was presided over

by Mr Burton and Mr Steer, the charismatic teachers and stars of Channel 4 hit Educating Yorkshire – their ability to quell unruly behaviour proving very useful outside the classroom.

The ceremony, which was held at the end of June, began with a film that celebrated the myriad talent of the Yorkshire region, setting the tone for the evening; the winners were suitably varied, with no one production or company dominating.

There were two awards for

the BBC’s Peaky Blinders, which, although set in the Black Country, was predominantly filmed in Leeds. Steven Knight was Writer of the Year, while Grant Montgomery was recognised for his production design in the Professional Excellence – Production category.

The centre also recognised unsung and emerging production talent.

The Freelance Award went to Anna Hall for her staggering C4 documentary, The Hunt For Britain’s Sex Gangs.

And the One To Watch Award was won by Zane Whittingham from the up-and-coming animation company, Fettle.

This year, the centre also decided to go a little bit “Simon Cowell” with a prize voted for by text message on

On-Screen Performance winner and (right) the Royal Armouries venue

Nigel Ryan 1929-2014

32

Alastair Burnet and David Frost wiped the floor with the BBC creatively and in the ratings.

Ryan and Nicholas created Britain’s first proper lunchtime news, First Report, broke a glass ceiling with the recruitment of many women reporters, and hired a young radio reporter called Jon Snow.

In 1977 Ryan left ITN (leaving Nicholas to get the top job at last) and became Vice-President of NBC News in New York.

He returned to the UK as Director of Programmes at Thames and, later, as an active board director at TV-am during the 1988 dispute which, arguably, ended the dominant power of the unions in commercial TV. Ryan then proudly proclaimed himself to be a “gypsy”.’ He travelled with Sandy Gall and the Afghan Mujahideen, wrote about Turkey, translated Georges Simenon novels and lived in Versailles. He died in July, just a few months after remarrying.

Stewart Purvis

John Wilson

ITN

N

igel Ryan was a TV reporter who became ITN’s third Editor, steering it to a decade of on-screen success in the 1970s. He first made his name in journalism in 1960 as the Reuters correspondent in the Congo conflict.

Ryan was recruited by the then-­ Editor of ITN, Geoffrey Cox, as a news reporter, and then as a maker of short documentaries for Roving Report.

When Cox left for the newly created Yorkshire Television in 1968 the obvious successor seemed to be David Nicholas, who was leading the team that had created ITV’s News at Ten. Instead, ITN’s owners (possibly influenced by Cox, himself a war-­ reporter-turned-editor) chose Ryan.

Fortunately for ITN, Nicholas stayed on as Ryan’s deputy and they became a winning team: Ryan as the board diplomat and networker, Nicholas the hands-on producer.

An early success was the live coverage of the 1969 Moon landing, in which the ITV on-screen team of

All pictures: Paul Harness

the night. The OMG Moment of the Year was awarded to Educating Yorkshire for “Musharaf’s Speech”, a truly memorable water-cooler TV moment for all who saw it.

The final awards of the evening were the Centre Awards given to those who have made an outstanding contribution to TV production in Yorkshire.

In celebration of the 10th awards ceremony, two such awards were presented. The first went to the phenomenally successful Leeds-based indie, True North. The second was presented to Allen Jewhurst from Chameleon Television. A true TV hero, he was recognised for his pioneering independence and uncanny ability to uncover new talent.

Lisa Holdsworth

No room for science in Wales?

■ TV producer and Cardiff University journalism tutor Angela Graham claimed recently that “on network television, science is an established and popular part of the viewing menu – yet, in Wales, apart from ecology and nature programmes, science is seldom commissioned for the small screen”.

To find out why, Graham organised a discussion in June on science on TV in Wales, which drew together scientists, TV producers and commissioners, academics and students.

The event was arranged by RTS Wales, Cardiff University and the educational social enterprise, Science Made Simple, whose Director, Wendy Sadler, chaired the discussion.

This featured contributions from Professor Julie Williams, Chief Scientific Adviser for

From left: Wendy Saddler, Hywel Wiliam, Prof Julie Williams, Llion Iwan, Elin Rhys and Elis Owen Wales; Elin Rhys, Managing Director of independent producer Telesgôp; Llion Iwan, Commissioner for Factual Content, S4C; and Elis Owen, BBC Cymru Wales Commissioner.

Rhys recently produced Dibendraw for S4C, a Welshlanguage science series broadcast in peak time. It covered many remarkable stories, including the contri-

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

bution made by Welshspeaking engineers and scientists at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. A second series has been commissioned.

The BBC’s Owen argued that general arts or science magazine programmes are no longer viable.

“We have to achieve ratings comparable with network shows, and a dedicated

science slot would be a turnoff for viewers,” he said.

Owen suggested that the best way to tackle science stories is within news and current affairs – noting, from his past experience heading ITV in Wales, that “science was never a mandated strand within the ITC and Ofcom regional channel 3 licences”.

S4C’s Iwan admitted that he had “ditched science as soon as I could at school”, but that, 30 years later and now a commissioner, he sees the power television has to make the subject come alive, particularly if programmes have “strong narratives and engaging characters”.

Williams argued that great stories of scientific achievement in Wales must be covered by television to reflect the reality and potential of the sciences in the country.

Hywel Wiliam

33

RTS NEWS

Young Technologist of the Year

Bobby Moss Network, which involves workshops and mentoring the next generation of young talent.

He also volunteers for a number of community projects, including the Young Rewired State’s Festival of Code 2014 event.

“The RTS Young Technologist Award recognises the

BT

T

he annual RTS Young Technologist Award has been made to Bobby Moss, a Graduate Software Engineer at BT Group plc, for his contribution to innovation in television technology.

He was chosen to receive the award, which is presented in memory of AM Beresford-­ Cooke, by a panel of judges chaired by Digital Media Consultant Terry Marsh.

Moss joined the BT graduate scheme in September 2013 and is employed within BT’s TV division. There, he has worked on a number of web-based applications used to administer the company’s server infrastructure.

He is currently working on a pioneering project to support the diagnostic work of BT TV engineers. Moss is a STEM Ambassador with the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

potential future leaders in broadcasting and related technologies. This year the jury felt Bobby stood out as an impressive ideas person who quickly implemented innovative ways to support the business,” said Marsh.

Moss added: “I’m honoured to have won this award and feel very fortunate to be working every day with amazing people who are passionate about what they do and determined to make flagship products, such as BT Sport and YouView, a success.

“The pace of innovation is truly breathtaking and it’s a thrilling time to be working in the TV industry.”

The aim of the RTS Young Technologist Award is to advance education in the science, practice, technology and art of television and its allied fields. It gives the winner the opportunity to attend the International Broadcasting

Convention (IBC) in September, as well as free entry to the RTS London Conference 2014: “Power, Politics and the Media”.

The award was established with funds received from the family of AM Beresford-­ Cooke, a distinguished engineer who made a major contribution to the development of British broadcasting technology through his work on towers and masts for VHF and UHF transmission.

Moss said: “I intend to use my experience at IBC to work with colleagues to generate exciting new ideas, build on our existing successes and share our passion for TV with the next generation of young technologists.”

The runner-up prize, the Coffey Award for Excellence in Technology, has been presented to Christopher Butler, a Graduate Trainee Broadcast Engineer at the BBC.

Enigma deciphered (in time for a barbie) ■ Thames Valley Centre’s July event offered a fascinating insight into Germany’s Second World War Enigma cipher machine from Alan Watson, who also brought along some rare versions of the machines to show the audience.

Watson, a former broadcast engineer and Merchant Navy radio officer, explained the history of Enigma from the first versions – which date from the end of the First World War – to the more advanced versions used in the second global conflict.

His presentation also offered audience members a chance to exercise their brains by setting them code-breaking challenges.

34

He related the history of the Polish and British code breakers who developed methods to decode the wartime messages, and the efforts of the intelligence services to conceal from

German officers that their messages were being read and understood.

Some of the audience were familiar with modern cryptographic techniques used to protect television output

from piracy, many of which have their origins in Second World War innovations.

Following the lecture, the RTS hosted a barbecue in the gardens of Pincents Manor.

Penny Westlake

Sixty years before the mast ■ Despite the competing attraction of the opening evening of the Giro d’Italia in Belfast, a busload of RTS members and guests made their way to the Arqiva transmitter site at Divis in May. This is the main station serving the populous east of Northern Ireland, and its original mast has been a feature of the Belfast skyline for almost 60 years. A second mast was erected for the advent of DTT transmission.

Arqiva Team Leader John Lucas and his staff gave generously of their time to provide a detailed tour of the buildings and their technical treasures.

An exposed site, 478m high, is not for the faint-hearted in the depths of winter, and the group heard how the team works in all weathers to ensure the year-round continuity of service viewers and listeners take for granted.

John Rosborough

September 2014 www.rts.org.uk Television

RTS PATRONS RTS Principal Patrons

BBC

RTS International Patrons

Discovery Corporate Services Ltd Liberty Global The Walt Disney Company

Turner Broadcasting System Inc Viacom International Media Networks

RTS Major Patrons

Accenture Channel 5 Deloitte Enders Analysis

EY FremantleMedia IMG Studios ITN

KPMG McKinsey and Co S4C STV Group

UKTV Virgin Media YouView

RTS Patrons

Autocue Digital Television Group ITV Anglia ITV Granada

ITV London ITV Meridian ITV Tyne Tees ITV West

ITV Yorkshire ITV Wales Lumina Search PricewaterhouseCoopers

Quantel Raidió Teilifís Éireann UTV Television Vinten Broadcast

Patron HRH The Prince of Wales

Chair of RTS Trustees John Hardie

CENTRES COUNCIL

IBC Conference Liaison Terry Marsh

President Sir Peter Bazalgette

Honorary Secretary David Lowen

Vice-Presidents Dawn Airey Sir David Attenborough OM

Honorary Treasurer Mike Green

Who’s who at the RTS

CH CVO CBE FRS

Baroness Floella Benjamin OBE Dame Colette Bowe OBE John Cresswell Mike Darcey Greg Dyke Lorraine Heggessey Ashley Highfield Rt Hon Dame Tessa Jowell MP David Lynn Sir Trevor McDonald OBE Ken MacQuarrie Trevor Phillips OBE Stewart Purvis CBE John Smith Sir Howard Stringer Mark Thompson

BSkyB

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Tim Davie Mike Green John Hardie Huw Jones Jane Lighting Graham McWilliam David Lowen Simon Pitts Graeme Thompson

EXECUTIVES

Chief Executive Theresa Wise Deputy Chief Executive Claire Price

Channel 4

Andy Batten-Foster Mike Best Charles Byrne Isabel Clarke Alex Connock Gordon Cooper Tim Hartley Kristin Mason Graeme Thompson Penny Westlake James Wilson Michael Wilson

SPECIALIST GROUP CHAIRS

ITV

RTS Legends Paul Jackson

AWARDS COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Awards & Fellowship Policy David Lowen

Craft & Design Awards Cheryl Taylor

Archives Steve Bryant

Television Journalism Awards Stewart Purvis CBE

Diversity Marcus Ryder

Programme Awards David Liddiment

Early Evening Events Dan Brooke

Student Television Awards Patrick Younge

Education Graeme Thompson RTS Futures Camilla Lewis History Don McLean

Television www.rts.org.uk September 2014

35

RTS London Conference 2014 9 September 2014

Sponsored by

Kings Place, London N1

Power, Politics & The Media CONFERENCE CHAIR

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Rob Woodward

Chase Carey

Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP

JB Perrette

Chief Executive, STV

President and Chief Operating Officer, 21st Century Fox

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

President, Discovery Networks International

SPEAKERS

Sir Peter Bazalgette Matt Brittin, Google Ross Colquhoun, National Collective John Curtice, University of Strathclyde Jeremy Darroch, BSkyB Bryan Elsley Michael Foster Karla Geci, Facebook Alex Graham, Big Eck Consulting

Krishnan Guru-Murthy,

Gregor Poynton,

Channel 4 News

Portland Communications

Tony Hall, BBC John Hardie, ITN Lorraine Heggessey Steve Hewlett Laura Kuenssberg, Newsnight Kevin Lygo, ITV Studios Alex Mahon, Shine

James Purnell, BBC Stewart Purvis CBE Jim Ryan, Liberty Global John Ryley, BSkyB Kevin Sutcliffe, VICE News Fran Unsworth, BBC Kirsty Wark

FULL PROGRAMME AVAILABLE NEW SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED

REGISTRATION www.rts.org.uk events@rts.org.uk