Media Top Brass at Oxford - what about the consumers?
23 January 2009
UK consumers and citizens stand to gain an enormous amount - or lose an enormous amount - as a result of communications and media policy decisions that will be made in the coming months. If there was a point of agreement at the Oxford Media Convention, this was it.
The seventh annual convention came at a time - between the publication of Ofcom's Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) Review and the Digital Britain report - when push is coming to shove on two key issues: the sustainability of commercial PSBs such as Channel Four, and the issue of broadband policy. Whilst Ofcom delivered some solutions on the former, we will have to wait until the publication of Digital Britain's interim report next week for a steer on the latter. Unconfirmed rumour has it the report, expected Monday 26th, may not now be out until Thursday.
Whilst there is plenty of agreement that something needs to be done for ad-funded PSB, there is still no confirmation of exactly what will be done. According to Ed Richards, ‘public service broadcasting will be an anachronism. But public service content will not be'. In an attempt to protect the news, domestically produced entertainment and minority programming it provides, Channel Four is being prepared for a variety of partnerships and new funding streams, including some kind of venture with BBC worldwide which will help Four to distribute their content. ‘Top-slicing' the BBC license fee, whilst not being excluded, is looking a more remote possibility. Channel Four speakers such as Anne Bulford indicated that they are actively negotiating on the details for partnerships, and Secretary of State Andy Burnham was keen to encourage such partnerships- particularly with BBC Worldwide. His speech, and Ed Richards' are available on the Ofcom website.
Of course the policy timetable is dependent on the political cycle so it was enlightening to have Ed. Vaizey MP outlining the Conservative position. Shadow broadcasting minister Vaizey indicated that there would be no radical changes of direction in media policy if he was part of an incoming administration, and that the Conservatives remained committed to PSB, Channel Four and the license fee. Vaizey was probably not quite as gung ho about getting Channel Four into bed with the BBC, and couldn't resist scoring a few political points by criticizing the Government's handling of communications policy, with the PSB Review and the Convergence Think Tank in his view taking far too long to deliver decisions.
In a forum like Oxford, which is very much a stakeholder event and beyond the budgets of many consumer groups, academics and citizens, what are the consumer-citizen implications which arise from these policy discussions?
The issues are too many to mention: for example the session I chaired on how ISPs are working with the music industry to combat illegal file sharing raised a number of consumer protection issues. Any selection is always going to be subjective, but how about this for a starting point:
Consumer-Citizen issues:
Universal service in broadband. This phrase is no longer spoken only in hushed wonder by wild eyed wonks: people are starting to wonder what it might actually mean. Broadband for all is a familiar and appealing slogan, but as Anna Bradley pointed out, for consumers, broadband is really only a means to an end: the end of accessing services (including public services) and other people. A question: does ‘broadband' include the next generation of Freeview Boxes which could be enabled to receive on-demand services? Freeview is increasingly being seen as a platform for access to broadband for the hard-to-reach last 40% of consumers. This is all very well, but only if the functionality is there to reach all online public services, rather than a walled garden of content provided over IPTV. So we watch Project Canvas - which involves the BBC, BT, and ITV with interest. Interestingly, Ed Vaizey noted but didn't elaborate a Conservative Party commitment to ‘Near Universal Broadband' indicating that Digital Britain proposals on Universal Broadband might be carried over by an incoming Conservative government.
And another interesting proposal put by John Kingsbury from NESTA was that those on income support should be offered free broadband. The proposal, which NESTA have costed at £1.175billion was not much discussed at the Convention, but captures the mood of these recession-rocked times.
Next Generation Broadband. This is a separate issue which shouldn't be confused with the debate about current generation broadband. But as Anna Bradley pointed out we can learn a lot about the future rollout of super-fast broadband by looking at how a competition-driven rollout of current broadband has progressed. It is clear that the issue with NGB will be what Bradley called ‘the not-spots, and the not-a-lot spots'. We know from the experience of the rollout of current generation BB that there will be communities and sections of society that will not be served, or will not be served for some time, by the market. A review of the research and the Consumer Panel's consumer research tells us that these people - including those in isolated rural communities, and the elderly and housebound - are likely to be precisely those that stand to benefit most from broadband and - to a certain extent - also super fast services such as telemedicine. The obvious thing to do with such a new technology is wait and see- but given that there is likely to be a clear consumer detriment and a new digital divide, why not predict and prevent. As Roger Darlington's consumer panel research showed, the public sector is already investing a lot in NGA: why not work with Ofcom on a strategy for targeting that local investment on the areas where the need is greatest and the market is likely to fail for longest?
Public Service Broadcasting. As ever, Oxford provided a fascinating window on the thoughts of the top brass of the media industry, government and associated wonks and observers like myself.
As Ed Richard pointed out in his speech, the conference came at the precise moment when Ofcom passes the policy baton to Government. The regulator has conducted exhaustive research and come up with the options published Wednesday, but it is the Government that will chose between them. It now seems universally agreed that citizens and consumers' interests are served by public service competition to the BBC, but there is less consensus on how this is likely to be achieved and funded. The issues of real urgency, which has been underlined by Ofcom research in both its PSB reviews relate to news, and particularly local news. These are highly valued by citizens and consumers, and expensive to produce. Plenty of new ideas on news, such as Secretary of State Andy Burnham's idea to encourage local consortia of news providers, but little flesh on the bones of policy in this area yet. We need more research and a practical look at how local communities are being effected by the economic downturn, the downturn in local press advertising and ITVs restructure.
Finally Privacy and Security. Consumer Panel research found that trust and security concerns are a real barrier to take-up of broadband. But there is a wide body of opinion arguing that new models for content distribution will depend on content owners gathering more and smarter information about media users. Peter Bazalgette outlined his view on this again at Oxford, underlining the importance of this issue. Deployment of advertising services such as Phorm - which caused great controversy when it was used by BT last year, would arguably undermine rather than help secure that trust, and may deter users. We need more work and sensible debate on this issue. Is it really necessary to permit more invasive tracking technologies if we are to fund UK originated content and making it freely available to consumers? What advertising model is being contemplated for Project Canvas?