I am giving evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee today about the 成人论坛's strategy review - . I've spent a lot of time preparing for the session and - as part of that - I've been reminding myself about one of our key considerations in making the 成人论坛 more mission-focused: the impact on the rest of the broadcasting
industry.
For decades the UK has enjoyed higher levels of domestic media production and content spending per head than almost any other country in the world. UK audiences have grown up expecting and receiving a constant diet of extremely high-quality domestic content, whether two-hour episodes of or seminal natural history like - all without a subscription and, on the 成人论坛, without advertising.
While extensive high quality output available to all has been considered normal in the UK, one glance at schedules abroad shows it to be anything but in other parts of the world. In the two longest-developed broadcasting markets, the United States and Europe, very different traditions dominate. Much of European broadcasting has gone down the 'cheap and cheerful' route, with content spend focused increasingly efficiently on what drives audiences to adverts, while in the US a higher level of programme investment is maintained only through highly selective subscriber packages.
Is it inevitable we will end up going down either the European or US route? There has after all been a great deal of attention focused on the troubles facing public service broadcasting in the UK because of structural change in the industry. And the recession has increased further the pressure on budgets for original UK content.
A fact often lost in the debate is that billions of pounds of new money are flowing into the sector - it's just that this extra money isn't flowing back into domestic content production as much as it did in the past. This is primarily because commercial funding for TV is increasingly coming from subscription. Pay operators do not invest in original content at anything like the levels that advertising-funded broadcasters do, because their business model is more weighted to sports rights and films.
The 成人论坛 of course has a very different funding model which, as is so often pointed out, insulates our income against the worst of the recession. But more importantly, the security of our funding reinforces why the 成人论坛 exists and must focus on its mission to provide quality British programmes that inform, educate and entertain. And in delivering our mission, we not only serve the public and help maintain the standards which are an essential part of British broadcasting, we support the creative industry as a whole.
And that's the very purpose of : to identify what more the 成人论坛 can do to enhance our commitment to high quality programming - because that's the centre of our mission and, in delivering it, we bring wider benefits to the UK's creative industry.
That's why we have pledged that in the next licence fee settlement period we will guarantee that at least 90p in every licence fee pound will be spent on the creation and delivery of content to audiences. We know this investment is essential to meet the expectations and demands of licence fee payers. That's why we have set out five editorial priorities so the public and the independent producers know what to expect from the 成人论坛 and we've capped our spending on sports rights and acquisitions from abroad. And that's why we aim to reduce spend on overheads to under 9p in every pound by the end of the Charter period in 2016 - costs reduced by a quarter from today's spend of 12p.
The 成人论坛 is committed to putting more money into content and making sure quality stays at the forefront of the 成人论坛's output. And through this commitment to quality content, we will be doing our part to ensure that high standards survive in the future UK broadcasting market - good news or the domestic media industry, for the economy as a whole, and most
importantly, for our audiences.
John Tate,
Director of Policy and Strategy, 成人论坛