Lords call for urgent action to safeguard the future of public service broadcasters.
Public service broadcasting remains essential to the UK media and losing it would leave UK society and democracy worse off.
This is the view of a new report published by the House of Lords Communications and Digital Commuttee.
It warns that public service broadcasters need to be better supported to ensure that they can continue to produce high quality drama and documentaries which reflect and examine UK culture.
In return, the broadcasters need to adapt to ensure that they serve and reflect all audiences.
At a time when PSBs face unprecedented competition from Netflix, Amazon Prime and other subscription on demand services – with production budgets which often dwarf those of PSBs – the committee concluded that UK society and democracy would be worse off without public service broadcasting.
However, by contrast with SVODs, the report highlights that PSBs are failing to appeal to certain groups including 16-34 year olds. Younger generations are not growing up with PSBs as previous generations did, which risks undermining support for the licence fee.
The committee also heard concerning evidence the PSBs are failing to appeal to BAME viewers and that they were not as successful as SVODs in championing BAME representation behind the camera and in the creative process, especially at the BBC.
Recommendations made to ensure that PSBs can thrive in the face of competition from SVODs include: a modest increase in the number of listed sports events which must be shown free to air; changes to High-End TV tax relief and the Apprenticeship Levy, as well as a review of the Terms of Trade between PSBs and independent producers; and the Government supporting PSBs in the new technological environment.
The committee also did not support a levy on SVODs at this time.
“For many people, especially young people, watching TV in real-time is now the exception rather than the norm,” said Lord Gilbert of Panteg, chairman of the committee. “While the arrival of SVODs has created exciting opportunities for the creative sector and for audiences, particularly in drama, we are concerned by the unpredictability of future developments.
“PSBs provide a stable investment platform for a diverse range of content, made for UK audiences, and freely available on a reliable over the air platform.
“At a time of polarisation, public service broadcasters play a role in unifying the country through shared experiences. Our recommendations will ensure that public service broadcasters are able to continue to serve us and afford to make world-class programmes. If we fail to support our public service broadcasters, audiences would miss them when they’re gone.”
Want to read more news like this? Simply sign up to our daily digest by clicking here. You can also follow @LicensingSource on Twitter.
