Govt urged to ‘keep BBC licence fee’
The BBC should be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny ahead of the Charter renewal process, a leading media trade association has said.
Pact – which represents the commercial interests of UK independent media companies – has welcomed the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report on the public service broadcaster.
The report calls for the Terms of Trade to be reviewed during Charter renewal, a process which is already underway as part of an on-going Ofcom Review.
Pact has declared its support for the BBC licence fee and has said it would welcome an increase in line with inflation at the time of the next settlement.
The organisation will today submit its response to the Review making the case for light-touch legislation and outlining how it benefits UK public service broadcasters as well as producers.
Because of the Terms of Trade, it will argue, UK independent production companies co-invest in production and fund a huge amount of research and development into UK programmes (nearly £1bn over the past five years).
Pact will also contest that consolidation in the independent production market means a review of the Terms of Trade is needed.
There are around 400 suppliers and only 10 main UK buyers in the UK TV market, and despite ten years of consolidation, none of the large indie groups has more than a 15% share of annual output hours (BBC in-house has 21% and ITV Studios 18% respectively).
The Committee report also states that the BBC should continue to make programmes "where its output is distinctive from the market where it makes economical sense to do so".
Pact has stated that it agrees with the Committee that this is the case for BBC news because of the economy of scale needed for news provision.
However, in all other areas, the organisation suggests, BBC in-house should compete to win commissions with no in-house guarantees.
Chief Executive of Pact, John McVay, said: “This is a timely report to kick off the Charter renewal debate and it is important that Parliament as well as Government plays a role in this process.
“However, Pact believes that the existing Terms of Trade are fit for purpose and continue to benefit both independent producers and broadcasters”.
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