Call for ITV cash to boost programmes

BECTU has urged ITV to invest a £135 million windfall in original programming to lure viewers back to the channel.

The cash comes from a reduction in ITV's licence payments to the UK government for use of the frequencies which carry its broadcasts.

Industry regulator Ofcom this week cut the annual cost of ITV's 14 licences from £215 million to £80 million after a review prompted by by the 2003 Communications Act.

BECTU has called for the windfall to be spent on high-quality programming which could halt the continuing slump in ITV's audience.

In June the channel's share of viewing fell to just 19%, less than half the proportion of viewers who tuned in to ITV in the days before multi-channel TV arrived in Britain's living rooms.

As audiences have dropped, jobs have gone across a network that once comprised 15 separate companies. BECTU estimates that since ITV licences were auctioned to the highest bidders in 1991 more than 10,000 jobs have been lost.

Despite a protective merger last year between Carlton and Granada, putting most of ITV's regional licences in the hands of one company, pressure on jobs has continued, and the union has accused the channel of cutting corners on programme-making.

Ofcom justified the dramatic cut in ITV's annual licence payments by restating the public-service obligations that it expected the channel to fulfill, despite falling audiences.

According to the regulator these were primarily the provision of news, regionally and nationally, and high levels of original UK-originated programming.

BECTU believes that audiences can be won back by replacing unpopular cheap reality shows with the high-quality dramas that characterised the channel's output until a few years ago.

ITV has until July 25 to tell Ofcom whether the revised licence payments are acceptable, in which case the refund will be backdated to January 1 2005. Payments to the government will continue to reduce until they fall to £4 million in 2012.