A Review of Public Service Television Broadcasting

The difficulty is that public service broadcasting is an artificial construct and has little or no meaning as such for many individual viewers of individual programmes. It is used to describe a cultural and political idea, but this idea, as the Act in its detailed requirements makes clear, is not a homogeneous whole and is not easily recognisable as a whole let alone in its individual parts. It is virtually impossible for people to answer either as individuals or through surveys what they consider it is and what they want from it. While some individual programme types are clearly recognisable, much of the strength of public service television broadcasting is likely to come from its quality, its diversity, its overall balance, its variety, its stimulation of minds and hearts and its courage in stretching boundaries. The approach taken by the Act in identifying a number of cross-cutting requirements against a more detailed list of programme types is helpful in making this heterogeneity clear.

The importance of high quality broadcasting, universally available and free at the point of use cannot be overestimated. It underpins an inclusive society, plays a key role in keeping people informed and in alerting people to change and new opportunities. With an aging population, declining transport facilities in rural areas and the decline in the local provision of traditional adult education opportunities, broadcasting becomes increasingly important as a cultural and educational provider.

Television can take people to places they could never visit, see performances they could never personally get to, share in services in churches and places of worship they could never attend, show them things they could never see with their own eyes. It allows them to eavesdrop, view works of art, engage with books, science, technology and architecture. It can show the life and culture of other countries and communities, present and past. To underline the point, it is this ability which offers one of the strongest reasons for including several of the categories listed in Section 264: drama, music, other performance, the visual arts, religion and other beliefs, history, science and technology and a wide array of other educational programming.

Educational programming for adults is a crucial component of public service broadcasting and has been ever since the founding of the BBC. Channel 4 at its inception was required to provide a given proportion of programming `of an educational nature’. This was set at 15% which then represented 7 hours a week, a quantity which has been maintained. The 2003 Act renews the public service remit directly for Channel 4 and requires it ‘to make a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value;’… section 265 3 (c)

It is important to remember that schools programming is separately dealt with through Tier 2 regulation in the Act. We are here concerned with the education of adults and the community as a whole: the most usual description nowadays is `lifelong learning’ and this includes both formal and informal learning. Indeed lifelong learning is a major government priority with widening participation a particularly important goal. The general educational requirement across channels represents an advance on the Draft Bill which only used the phrase `educational matters’. The Act maintains the phrase educational matters but adds to it, as follows: Section 264 6(e) `that those services (taken together) include what appears to OFCOM to be a suitable quantity and range of programmes on educational matters, of programmes of an educational nature and of other programmes of educative value.

`Educational programming’ will have underlying it a specific educational purpose, often with a cumulative sequential agenda and aiming at a specific target group. It can include major public education campaigns such as basic skills, education for citizenship, family literacy and home safety. Healthy eating would be a current priority! While the producers of educative programmes see their educational purpose as very important, it is likely to be secondary and incidental to their goals of information and entertainment. It is also understood that with the addition of well prepared support materials, in print or on-line, the educative effects of much general output broadcasting can be enhanced to the benefit of many potential learners. Channel 4 in its first decade provided c.5 hours of educational programming complemented by c.2 hours of educative programming per week.

There is, however, a real danger, that without clear positive regulation from OFCOM, the framework in the Communications Act will fail to give sufficient protection to such programming remaining on-screen and therefore widely available through analogue transmission until switchover. Equally important will be the implementation of the 1996 Act which requires that analogue public service requirements will be transferred to digital at switchover.

There is no question that once ITV’s educational broadcasting obligations were relaxed by legislation in 1990, pressure on broadcasters to achieve ratings and market share resulted in dedicated educational programming being marginalised within the schedules of the mass channels, migrating to minority channels or night time and being pushed off screen and onto web-sites. The BBC too reduced its on-screen educational output when it was moving much of its educational activity on line. While some of the new developments on-line are very innovatory and imaginative , such as the `learning journey’ model, they are not yet substitutes for universally available on-screen broadcasting. Such new forms of delivery may well be satisfactory for the needs of schools, professional groups and institutions such as FE colleges or the Open University, or for adults who are already kitted up, motivated and know what they want to learn, but they do not deliver the power of broadcasting to capture the imagination and curiosity of the community as a whole and to stimulate people who have not previously taken part in any learning.

We have been particularly concerned about apparent reductions in on-screen educational analogue programming on BBC1 and BBC2 in case the genre effectively vanishes before the transfer of obligations at the time of switchover. It is however difficult for an outside body to comment in detail as requested on the quantity and range of such programming transmitted across all channels. We understand that the ITC carried out an analysis across both the independent channels and the BBC in the run-up to the Bill, but this was not made publicly available. Perhaps it has now been handed over to OFCOM and could be put in the public domain.

In particular television has to play an important role in fostering an active and participative democracy. Most people learn about news and current affairs from television and, in practice, the agenda of public debate and political discussion is shaped by the media. But the key function in securing informed citizenship requires additional attention from OFCOM in order to ensure that, as well as day-to-day news reporting, the media offer a range of programmes for different audiences providing its context and a chance to learn about issues, to help citizens understand the world and to engage with it.

To conclude this section, it is important to note that educational programming is not just an issue for broadcasters. The Government has consistently identified the need to stimulate demand for education and training among adults as a key prerequisite of its lifelong learning policy. That policy has no hope of success without the reach of universally available broadcasting and the imaginative engagement of broadcasters. OFCOM needs to link the responsibilities of broadcasters to the wider needs of government.

Reaching adults and encouraging them to learn requires very different arrangements and strategies than those appropriate for children and young people. The so-called digital curriculum being developed for schools is not relevant for adults, neither is there any particular programme format which is more or less suitable for educational programming. Educational programming is led by its purpose, to encourage people to learn or to find out more. It may or may not be expensive to make. It may cover the same topics as a current affairs programme, but it is not driven by current news values. It is often distinguished by its run-up and follow-up and partnership arrangements and requires longer advance notice to enable external partners to plan to make best use of it. The easy assumption that factual programming is also likely to be automatically educational is a fallacy.

A more serious issue is the fact that educational programming tends to be a despised genre. At the same time other editors or programme-makers tend to be jealous of its protected slots and budgets and when, as has often happened, education develops an area of programming which becomes, as it were, `too’ successful, the tendency is for it to be taken out of the education departments and be given over to `factual’ or `features’ departments. An early example of this some decades ago was gardening. The current example is, of course, history. Both of these came under the education portfolio at Channel 4 for its first decade. Virtually all the education programming of Channel 4’s first decade is now described as `specialist features’ with Education demoted from its previous pole position along with Current Affairs and Drama to just being one of a number of individual commissioning areas.

The distinction between `educative’ and `educational’ programming has shaped much of the recent debate to the disadvantage of explicitly educational programmes some of which, as languages and numeracy, require carefully planned sequential content. It is relatively easy to wrap around documentary style or other factual programming to enhance its educative value. It has been suggested that it may be easier in the future to find a place for explicitly educational programmes in a multi-channel environment, but there is little sign of this as yet. With the exception of the proposed Teachers’ Channel, all previous attempts at setting up a specialist education and training channel in this country, have unlike the US, so far come to nothing. The programmes that are likely to suffer are the less popular, but often more needed ones: for older people, for the disabled, in areas like basic skills; and of course the more instructional and specific but less glamorous series. There has not, for example, been a regular informative series for older people for over a decade, though the Channel 4 series `Years Ahead’ ran for 8 years gaining an afternoon audience of touching two million at 3.45 p.m.

The phrase `taken together’ is significant. We would not be content for the bulk of educational obligations to continue to be placed only on the BBC and Channel 4, with none being placed on ITV, Channel 5 or on any of the digital channels. Some important areas such as health education, basic skills, parenting, campaigns to reach the unemployed and encourage access to and participation in adult learning need on-screen broadcasting on both mass channels. NIACE and NAGCELL , for example, have argued that appropriate obligations should be reintroduced for ITV and also placed on Channel 5. Presumably the public service obligations to be placed on the BBC will also be channel-specific and that additional transparency will be very welcome.

It is important to remember that the 1995 Act placed no public service obligations on the digital terrestrial channels. This was particularly disappointing for educators since digital’s interactivity had been described as potentially especially valuable for educational initiatives. The BBC had originally promised an educational channel on its digital terrestrial multiplex. The project moved on to satellite as the Learning Channel, was changed to the Knowledge Channel, showing mainly documentaries, and finally touched ground as BBC4, but as an evening only channel, described as a place to `think’, but not as a place to `learn’. We hope that appropriate public service obligations will also be placed on digital terrestrial channels as soon as this is possible.

We would argue that, at its best, `taken together’ might mean that each channel should be charged with channel-specific obligations, for example placing community or citizenship education or even media literacy on the mass-audience BBC 1 and ITV, with, as now, a focus on diversity and ethnic groups on Channel 4. It will be important to remember that for some years to come there will be divide between older people, far fewer of whom live in multi-channel households and are therefore more dependent for variety on analogue channels. (see Appendix 2) They are also more house-bound and less well kitted up with newer technologies, such as the internet. Educational opportunities for older people are also a national priority. They would benefit from higher quality daytime television with more choice. There are more people over sixty than children under 16, many of whom after all are out at school during the daytime.

We do not, however, approve of the proposal to top-slice the BBC licence-fee in order to make a tranche of funding available to be bid for by other public service broadcasters. It is difficult to see how it could be made to work across channels and indies equitably, let alone be integrated in a coherent way into programme plans and programme schedules. Who would do the selection? Would it be of programmes or series? While it would be fun to cherry-pick, it is unlikely to meet the criteria laid out in the Act. The assumption that such programming is necessarily for low audiences or for ghetto-scheduling is quite wrong. It is likely to be of high quality, usually produces high appreciation indices and high levels of long term effects.

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The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) works to encourage more and different adults to engage in learning of all kinds. NIACE has a long-standing interest in how communications technologies can contribute to learning - indeed the British Film Institute grew from an initiative of what was then the British Institute for Adult Education NIACE’s current functions include research, development and consultancy; advocacy to inform and influence public policy; information services and dissemination; campaigning for and to celebrate the achievements of adult learners and includes work on media literacy. Established in 1921, NIACE is an independent non-governmental organisation, a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. Its corporate and individual members come from all sectors concerned with adult learning: colleges, local authorities, universities, voluntary organisations, broadcasters, churches and trade unions.

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This paper has been prepared for the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education by Naomi E Sargant. (Board Member of NIACE, former Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor at the Open University and Founding Senior Commissioning Editor for Educational Programming, Channel 4.)

Addresses:
Naomi E Sargant 27 Hurst Avenue London N6 5TX naomi.sargant@lineone.net  Phone: 020 8340 1496

Alan Tuckett NIACE, Renaissance House, 20 Princess Road West, Leicester LE1 6TP
alan.tuckett@niace.org.uk  Phone: 0116 204 4200

The Communications Act 2003 offers a framework under which OFCOM implements and enforces a regulatory regime for each licensed service setting an appropriate public service remit for each service. The remit, taken together across the services, `involves the provision of a balanced diversity of high-quality programming, which meets the interests and needs of different audiences.’ Clause 264 (4) states`The purposes of public service television in the UK are-

…that programmes dealing with a wide range of subject-matters are made available…

OFCOM are also to have regard to the more detailed obligations listed in Clause 264 subsection (6) which is prefaced by a general requirement analogous to that of the BBC

1. that the relevant services (taken together) comprise a public service for the dissemination of information, and for the provision of education and entertainment.

Sub-clauses b to j spell these obligations out in more detail. They include the representation of drama, comedy and music, the inclusion of feature films and the treatment of other visual and performing arts (b); services…to facilitate civic understanding and fair and well-informed debate on news and current affairs, comprehensive and authoritative coverage of news and current affairs…(c); services to satisfy a wide range of sporting and other leisure interests (d); services to `include what appears to OFCOM to be a suitable quantity and range of programmes on educational matters, of programmes of an educational nature and of other programmes of educative value (e); what appears to OFCOM to be a suitable quantity and range of programmes dealing with each of the following: science, religion and other beliefs including news, other information, history and acts of worship/other practices, social issues, matters of international significance/interest or specialist interest (f). The services should include (taken together) what appears to OFCOM to be a suitable quantity and range of high quality and original programmes for children and young people (h); a sufficient quantity of programmes that reflect the lives and concerns of different communities and cultural interests and traditions within the UK and locally in different parts of the UK (i). Finally, clause (j) requires that an appropriate range and proportion of programmes should be made outside the M25 area.

Channel 4 has a specific educational remit under Section 265 3(c):

OFCOM is required to review and report at the end of 12 months and after subsequent agreed periods (of not more than 5 years) upon the extent to which the public service broadcasters have provided relevant television services which fulfil the purposes of public service television in the UK and report `with a view to maintaining and strengthening the quality of public service television in the UK. Clause 264 (1)(2)(3)

Appendix 2

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