Can the weatherman tell us which way the wind is blowing for Welsh media?
New Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has finally brought an end to plans for Independently Funded News Consortia pilots in Wales and elsewhere, which would have provided multi-media news delivery in place of ITV.
The issue was debated in the Senedd on March 17 this year, and this is what Bethan said during that debate:
At this time in Wales, no one – and I mean no one – knows what sort of media provision we can expect in the future.
The Government is pressing ahead with IFNC pilots, regardless of the Digital Economy Bill. The deadline for bids has passed and we are expecting pilots to be awarded by May (note: UTV was the successful bidder in Wales).
The Tories would scrap IFNCs and introduce up to 80 local media companies (LMCs), incorporating televised, online and printed content, based along the model of local US TV stations. Or – as Alun Cairns AM’s amendment suggests – they might prefer the status quo.
There are practical and economic reasons why LMCs won’t work. The first is available spectrum bandwidth for broadcasting. There simply isn’t enough of it to maintain a network of independent broadcasters in Wales.
Geographic interleaved spectrum is offered as the answer, but the fact is that there isn’t enough of it to cover anything other than a few parts in Wales. Even by the most optimistic estimates, perhaps one third of households won’t be able to receive it, and most of the rest who might be technically able to won’t in practice, because private investment in very local TV won’t happen on its own.
The best we could expect out of an unsubsidised route is one or two local stations featuring old, purchased content, because the cost of acquiring the spectrum is as nothing compared to the costs of creating content. Where will this money come from?
So without public funding – which the Tories are opposed to – this idea is unlikely to get off the ground. In addition, US broadcasters estimate that the minimum reachable audience required to make a local television network commercially viable is comparable to a city the size of Cardiff. Since our capital has the largest and densest population concentration in Wales, this idea becomes commercially unfeasible across the rest of Wales.
Local TV has been tested elsewhere in the UK, but the US affiliate model is considered unsuited to the UK, let alone Wales. When Guardian Media Group sold GMG Regional Media to Trinity Mirror last month, its loss-making Greater Manchester television station Channel M was excluded from the deal. Today it is being reported that 29 of 33 jobs there are being cut, effectively closing the station.
Why would the private sector rush to invest in this model? Alun (Cairns AM) suggests deregulation. Would this mean cross media ownership? Wales has suffered from almost a generation of under-investment in its non-publicly owned media, as news organisations have maximised profits to previously unimaginable levels by stripping resources to the point where their products have become less and less attractive to consumers, evidenced in falling circulation and viewing figures. This would only reinforce current issues with the Welsh media.
Innovative technology may reduce costs, but does anyone here believe it will be enough to allow this proposal to flourish and – more importantly, for the Tories – turn a profit?
This Tory amendment also suggests that maintaining the status quo might be preferable to IFNCs. This is not possible. The IFNC pilot isn’t a new subsidy for providing TV news in Wales. ITV’s service has always been subsidised, but up until now that subsidy has been in-kind, with access to spectrum in exchange for public service obligations. This spectrum subsidy in Wales will go completely on March 30th when the Wenvoe transmitter completes the switchover. What happens then? Does the programming it supported merely go away, or do we in effect replace the in-kind subsidy with real funding?
However, this is all just a discussion of process, not ambitions. What is important is that with these IFNCs, we have the opportunity to grow a strong, Wales-centric news organisation, delivering content in a modern way, which will serve Wales better as it moves towards autonomy.
With Trinity Mirror already closing bigger titles than the Western Mail, we cannot rely on media businesses to cover the devolved polity, nor should we feel comfortable leaving it all to the BBC.
This isn’t about us getting our mugs on telly – it’s about decisions that are made each and every week about public services, the economy and the environment, being reported so that people can properly hold their elected representatives to account.
Ofcom research shows that people in Wales are aware of this potential deficit – that’s why they support the retention of plural TV news and non-new programming far more than people in the English regions.
I have spoken with people involved in all three of the Welsh IFNC pilot bids. While what they are offering varies, one thing they share in common is enthusiasm for this project. They see the possibilities, and I think they should be given the chance to achieve them.
There is an appetite for this change – on both sides of the television screen.
After yesterday’s announcement, Bethan had this to say:
“Tory proposals for addressing the media deficit here in Wales have never been viable, and Jeremy Hunt’s announcement does nothing other kick the whole issue into the long grass. I appreciate the need to make savings as well as roll out broadband, but Tory proposals for City TV stations have never been workable, and you don’t need an expensive investment banker to tell you that.
“Just look at Channel M, in Manchester. Properly resourced via the Guardian Media Group and available to a metropolitan area of over one million people, it nevertheless failed to succeed. US models, which the Tories admire, are considered unviable if the audience is below 350,000 people. That means nowhere in Wales other than Cardiff.
“I met with Michael Wilson, head of the UTV bid, on a number of occasions, and was genuinely excited by the plans the station had for Wales. If anything, such a solution is all the more urgent in Wales, which has always suffered from topographical and demographic issues where news dissemination is concerned, and must now add an economic crisis and changing media tastes to years of chronic underfunding.
“To that end, it is more important than ever that the Assembly considers seriously the establishment of a media forum, first proposed by the NUJ and which I am currently pushing, to bring employers and staff together to look for innovative, home-grown solutions to issues facing the Welsh media.”
- Read more about this decision on Rob Williams’ new blog over at The Independent
