Local broadcasting – a public service approach

Adapted from the Community Media Association of U.K.

By Rajat Bhargava DDG(F) AIR

In this paper the views of the Community Media Association  are outlined on the development of UK policy for the regulation of local broadcasting especially radio and television. The proposals outlined are based on their analysis of the experience of the development of local and restricted service radio services since the 1990 Broadcasting Act, the emergence of new television restricted service licences following the 1996 Broadcasting Act, and the current level of development of local programme services and local sound programme services on cable.

 How far are these points relevant to us and how best can we utilize them for our  advantage  is for us to determine

Local public service broadcasting

At the heart of our position is the view that local broadcasting requires a fresh regulatory approach capable of genuinely delivering a range and diversity of local services responding to and involving local communities. We believe this approach should adopt the core principles of public service broadcasting – to educate, inform and entertain – with the addition of a fourth principle “to encourage participation”.

The framework for the regulation of local broadcasting should recognize that the BBC, in its current form, does not have a monopoly on public provision. Some local public broadcasting services are better delivered by independent broadcasters using a variety of forms of both public and private financing.

Local public service broadcasting is relatively under-developed in the UK, compared with out European neighbours, and despite the evident popularity of local content. Current plans for both digital terrestrial television and digital audio broadcasting offer little improvement. There is no guarantee of local channels for digital terrestrial television, and plans for local digital sound broadcasting are unlikely to lead to a significant increase in local radio services without additional frequency allocations.

Local television services:

The strong interest in the view in the new location based Restricted Service Licences (RSLs) to be issued by the ITC is evidence of the demand by political broadcasters to operate local television services. Local terrestrial television is a new medium which should be encouraged and supported by an appropriate long term regulatory framework.

The first TV RSLs provide an opportunity to assess audience demand and a variety of different approaches to programming and financing local television. However the initial limit of two year licences for RSLs is a major constraint which will affect the viability of these services, particularly with the uncertainty surrounding long term spectrum planning and demand for spectrum from new digital terrestrial services.

Future regulation should make specific provision in the licensing regime for the development of local television services throughout the UK. Licences should be awarded and regulated on the basis of quality measures using clear public service criteria such as the principles outlined in the Broadcasting Research Unit report, the Public Services Broadcasting Idea in British Broadcasting¹.

Within the framework for local television provision there should be measures to ensure that local services encourage participation and provide access to local producers. Licence applicants should be requires to outline their plans for local participation and would expect to have these included in their licence agreement.

Local television licences should be awarded for a renewable ten year period and should be offered guaranteed carriage on to future digital provision for local television. A part of the channel capacity allocated for digital terrestrial television should be reserved for local television services and the digital multiplex provider should be required to offer this capacity to the local television programme provider at a fair and affordable price.

^o.The Broadcasting Research Unit report identifies the following principles:

1. Universality: Geographic – broadcast programmes should be available to the whole population
2. Universality of Appeal – broadcast programmes should cater to all tastes and interests
3. Minorities, especially disadvantages minorities should receive particular provision
4. Broadcasters should recognise their special relationship to the sense of national identity and community
5. Broadcasting should be distanced from all vested interests, and in particular those of the government of the day
6. Universality of the payment – one main instrument of broadcast should be funded by the corpus of its users
7. Broadcasting should be structured so as to encourage competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers
8. The public guidelines for broadcasting should be designed to liberate rather than restrict programme makers.

Local cable programming services:

In 1984 Information Technology Minister Kenneth Baker expected that cable would be flourishing across the UK by 1990 and that it would be local in character. Cable operators have benefited from relaxations on telecommunications and continuing restrictions on BT entering cable delivery. Yet in spite of these favourable conditions, there are only 15 local cable television channels nearly all of which are run by and under the editorial control of the cable operations themselves.

Cable operators have performed no better in the area of sound programming services. There are only 9 local sound programming services carried by cable operators despite the substantial demand for local and community radio demonstrated by over 300 RSLs per annum in the last five years. Many aspirant sound programme service providers have been frustrated by lengthy and ultimately unproductive negotiations with cable operators

to achieve access to cable.

The failure in the 1990 Act to strengthen Section 7 of the 1984 Act to allow community participation in cable and to oblige the cable company to carry services from programme providers other than their own associates has led to no increase in the range and diversity of local television or sound programming services. On the contrary, the 1990 Act has strengthened local cable operator monopolies while the companies show no serious interest in carrying independent local programming.

In order that the listeners and viewers can benefit from the local potential of cable delivered services it is essential that local programme providers and local sound programme providers should be guaranteed access to local cable channels on term that are no more onerous than those agreed with other suppliers of programming services for cable.

In addition, in every area, channel capacity should be allocated, at no charge by the operator, to provide for at least one “open television channel” and one “open radio channel”. Open television and radio channels should be managed in the public interest by locally accountable trusts to provide access to local production groups.

Community radio services:

Since the 1990 Broadcasting Act to the end of 1997 the Radio Authority advertised and awarded 80 new local radio licensees, much less than the 200 to 300 additional services promised by the previous Government, whose Secretary of State in 1990, David Mellor, stated that “community radio is the new service that would broaden the range of programmes available” (Hansard Standing Committee Report).

The range and diversity of services promised by the 1990 Act has failed to deliver a significant community radio sector. Although community radio groups have gained local licenses in a few remote rural areas of marginal viability, the selection criteria in the 1990 Act have weighed against this type of service when faced with inappropriate competition from commercial providers of predominantly music radio.

There are over 100 community radio in the UK but most are limited to operating under Restricted Service Licenses (RSLs) of up to four weeks duration. The demand and interest for these services is high, demonstrated by the number of RSLs awarded, but the 28 day constraint has a crippling effect on the ability of these groups to establish their long term viability and provide a year round service.

We believe a separate licensing category should be established for community radio services, based on the successful models which exist in countries as diverse as Netherlands, France, Ireland, Canada, Australia, the USA and South Africa. A separate licensing category would recognise the special category of community radio services as a form of local public service broadcasting outside the current framework of the BBC and operated by locally accountable social enterprises.

The 1990 Broadcasting Act removed the public services requirements from all local radio licensees other than BBC services. We believe that effective regulation for a genuine diversity in local radio urgently requires licence differentiation so that local community radio services operating for public service are not licensed and regulated according to the same criteria as purely commercial services.

We propose this approach be tested immediately by an Order under Schedule 2 Part III.16 (2)(a) to establish a separate sub-category of local radio service which would enable the Radio Authority to issue a limited number of community radio pilot licenses over a two year period in advance of new legislation. A similar experimental approach was taken successfully in the Republic of Ireland in 1994, and has informed the development of the community radio policies of the Irish Government and the Irish Radio and Television Commission.

In order to assist the development of community radio services in the long term the Government should relax the public funding restrictions in Schedule 2 Part II of the 1990 Act. These unfair restrictions applied to radio (although not to television) have the direct effect of preventing access by local radio licensees to public funding programmes for social and economic development despite the fact that these funds are widely used to support other radio training and short term broadcasting projects.

Current plans for digital sound broadcasting provide insufficient frequencies for any significant expansion in the number of local radio services, and existing local radio services are not guaranteed access to digital local radio multiplex capacity. The Government should speed up the release of frequencies in the L-band or identify other frequencies suitable for local digital sound broadcasting.

The Green Paper should also re-examine the regulation of the digital radio multiplex operators. At the national level, the current framework has created a commercial radio monopoly lacking effective safeguards on cross media ownership and concentration. At the local level, the current legislation provides a similarly weak and a reduction in competition, with the multiplex operator acting as the gatekeeper and arbiter as to what services are available to listeners.

The future digital radio regulatory regime should introduce public service measures to be complied with by multiplex operators including a requirement to reserve sufficient capacity for at least one community radio service on every local radio multiplex, in addition to the existing reserved capacity for BBC local radio services.

Regulating local broadcasting:

Although there are significant differences between radio and television in terms of listening patterns, levels of development and underlying economics, we are not at all convinced that a future regulatory framework should retain a sectoral distinction at the level of the regulator. We believe it would be more productive for regulation of local broadcasting to have a distinct approach from national services.

The national and regional offices of the Independent Television Commission have demonstrated the value of having regulatory staff at a local level, particularly in the oversight of local channels on cable and the new TV RSLs. In contrast, the lack of a regional presence has been one of the weaknesses of the Radio Authority, whose decisions are sometimes difficult to comprehend by those most affected.

The Radio Authority has been a vigorous defender of a sectoral approach to regulation however the evidence they have offered in support of this position is weak. The growth in the independent radio industry has largely been a consequence of the introduction of national commercial radio services by the 1990 Act. The pace marginally greater than its predecessor, the IBA, and, despite the competition and diversity requirements of the 1990 Act, the Authority has taken a protectionist approaches to licensing favouring the dominant market players.

Technology and market convergence is a reality which needs to be addressed at the regulatory level. A dynamic and diverse media environment requires a regulator capable of thinking outside existing sectoral media interests, and of balancing the Objective of economic growth with the public interest in a genuine range and diversity of media services including public service approaches to broadcasting.

It is worth revisiting the Annan Report of 1977. This report strongly endorsed the formation of a “Local Broadcasting Authority” as “one means of breaking the rigidity of the present duopoly (the BBC and IBA) and of giving local services the chance to develop in a variety of ways”, and to encourage the growth of co-operative and other joint forms of financing to stimulate a direct involvement by the community in its own broadcasting services”(Annan Committee Report paras 14.58 and 14.16).

While the broadcasting environment has changed a good deal since Annan’s Report under the last Labour Government, the recognition that localness requires a separate approach remains as valid today if not more so in the current context of devolution and regional development. Local broadcasting will remain different from national and international services even after the convergence of forms of delivery.

Instead of maintaining the existing sectoral approach, a single communications regulartor at the UK wide level could be better complimented by a more pro-active national and regional approach to the regulation of local broadcasting. A tier of national ad regional offices for the regulation of local media and communication services could be expected to be more responsive to be more responsive to local needs and interests and could give a higher profile to the development of local broadcasting services.