BBC Trust Public Value Test consultation on BBC Local video proposal - BECTU submission

25 July 2008

BECTU is the trade union for workers in the audiovisual and live entertainment sectors. It is the biggest union representing workers in the BBC, and a significant number of our members work in the Nations and English Regions.

BBC staff have been hit hard over recent years by waves of redundancies through first Value for Money and now Creative Futures. The promise of hundreds more jobs being created in Nations & Regions through the video expansion of BBC Local is therefore a massive boost for our membership, and for the BBC outside London.

We therefore welcome the BBC Trust Public Value Test [on BBC Local video], and are delighted to submit our considerations.

Question 1. How important is it that the BBC improves its depth and breadth of local news coverage?

BECTU believes that the future success of the BBC's regional television and local radio stations depends on the development of the service into local news video on the Where I Live websites; already only the BBC provides local radio which is speech-based and with specialised, localised news teams gathering and disseminating news; as ITV moves ever further from its regional roots, only the BBC remains committed to regional news, features and political coverage; and it is a natural extension of this commitment to the whole of the UK that the BBC Local project should be viewed. Not an easy add-on, but a whole-hearted bid to provide a new, exciting and current local video service alongside the impressive online coverage already available.

Question 2. Are the proposals outlined here an effective way for the BBC to improve its coverage of local news and events?

We think that the BBC is attempting to provide a quality service but is doing so in the light of a poor license fee settlement, and a general battening down of the financial hatches. The Value for Money cuts took thousands of jobs out of service, Creative Futures is taking another 2500; the promise of the extra jobs required for BBC Local is naturally therefore a major incentive for the trade unions.

However our support is not unconditional. Negotiations have not yet begun on what type or grade of jobs they would be, although ER Controller Andy Griffee signalled in Ariel recently that he expects them to be graded below those which were used to staff the West Midlands pilot project. BECTU is concerned on two fronts about the staffing issues: firstly that they will be employed at low grades and salaries and therefore not be the adequate redeployment opportunities we were promised they would be by Mark Thompson at the launch of Creative Futures; and secondly that they will be too heavily reliant on multi-skilling across all three platforms. We simply believe it is unrealistic to expect one person, however highly motivated, to become competent in skills as diverse as shooting and editing, journalism, and online production. We will be asking for opportunities amongst the new jobs for people from all backgrounds - technical, journalistic and online - and expecting the BBC to train them adequately into further skills to enable a properly skilled and resourced staff to be created for each of the named 65 sites (i.e. 60 sites with an additional 5 Welsh language services in Wales) for BBC Local. Only by creating such a team can the BBC's intention of improving its local coverage be achieved; only in this way can opportunities for redeployment for more experienced staff threatened with redundancy be created.

Question 3. The BBC's role is defined in the Royal Charter by six 'public purposes'. BBC local video proposals aim to support the following two public purposes:

Representing the UK's nations regions and communities Portray and celebrate local communities, cater to their needs, stimulate debate on local issues and bring people together for a shared experience.

The increasingly narrow news-driven agenda of the BBC has been felt especially strongly in regional programming. The breadth of coverage provided until the 1990s - when the stated intention of regional tv was to represent to itself and the nation the full life of a region, its people and culture - has been lost, and we are left with an entirely news and current affairs agenda - both the news programmes themselves, and the Inside Out and Politics Show strands. To rectify this situation, it is unrealistic to expect a return to the depth of documentary making of the past, for both staff and cost reasons, but increasing the coverage of the range of people, life and cultural activity through BBC Local is an achievable target, and would we believe deliver the greater depth of coverage demanded by our viewers.

The service will also help close the BBC's performance gap regarding its community role - 20% of local video will focus on local politics and public policy issues - the pilot found that the majority of users agreed that it had raised their awareness of the key political issues in their communities.

Sustaining citizenship and civil society Provide independent journalism of a high quality, engage a wide audience in news and current affairs and encourage debate on these subjects.

The BBC is famously committed in all its statements to "independent journalism of a high quality"; however we believe that many of its recent actions make this harder and harder to achieve. Sustained and vicious job cuts in news teams and resources, amongst skilled editors, camera people, crews, journalists and support staff, with no commensurate loss of broadcasting time, have put increasing pressures on the staff remaining. Eventually those pressures tell and are seen in onscreen quality and veracity, through lack of preparation time, lack of research, dependence on outside news sources (press releases and newspapers) and inadequate skills training amongst new staff. We would re-emphasise our opening points, that only if the teams are staffed with skilled and trained people from across the skills spectrum and from a wide background, and properly remunerated to recruit good people, can those aims be achieved.

Engagement with audiences in the direct manner the BBC wants from BBC Local is far from easy; it is beyond anything attempted on the tv news programmes, and even beyond the "phone-in" experience of local radio. Specific training will be essential, good lead-in times and high quality motivated staff needed. Encouraging debate cannot mean just the parroting of emails we see on so many daytime programmes - debate must be formed and guided unless its to be no more than another uncontrolled blog, and to do that will require broadcasters and technicians with very high skills, both technically and in dealing with people. This is why we will be arguing for the recruitment of a range of staff, to include experienced broadcasters, to deliver a very ambitious prospectus. It will need energetic and ambitious young recruits - but they will need some older heads alongside too.

Question 4: To what extent do you believe the service, as outlined, will contribute to these public purposes?

With the provisos stated above, we have no doubt that the BBC will deliver its intentions, and that BBC Local will be an invaluable addition to the BBC's services for its public. Similar doubts were widely expressed when the BBC launched so energetically into the online world; and while the BBC sites have become the most accessed in the world, there is no evidence that is has harmed the commercial online offerings of either other broadcasters or news agencies; rather, it stimulates a wider interest amongst the public and increased necessity for others organisations to provide a competitive quality on their sites. We believe that the same would happen with local video news.

Question 5. What role should the BBC take in the development of local video news?

The BBC should lead the way in the development of local video news. It is the only organisation with the background, staff, experience and quality to do so effectively; it is also the only one funded publicly and should be using the License Fee to add considerably to its online offerings, and those for its viewers across the Nations & Regions. Links with the existing tv news and local radio news programmes will provide synergy, opportunities for wider dissemination of gathered material, and excellent developmental opportunities for members of staff to move across the BBC's television, radio and online services. It is this fluidity, and the resultant range of experiences of BBC staff, which helps the BBC develop some of the best broadcasters and skilled workers in the industry.

Question 6. What effect, if any, would the proposal have on your interest in, and consumption of, local news?

We believe that there should be as wide a dissemination of news amongst the nation as can be provided by technology; some people will chose to access it through television and radio on analogue or digital transmissions; some through internet and broadband access. Individuals will continue to choose their favourite means of access, and while the provision of BBC Local would be an extra dimension to this, many people will continue to get their news from newspapers - which they may choose to fetch from their local shop, have delivered to their door, or even read on PCs or mobile phones. We must not make the error of mistaking delivery for content - people will always look for the content which best suits their needs, beliefs and cultural aspirations; how they access it is an entirely different matter and we should not be in the business of telling them which means they can and cannot use.

Question 7. In which ways, if any, would the proposal benefit (1) you and your family, (2) your local community, (3) your local area?

BECTU firmly believes that any extra coverage of regional and local culture, news and events would be valuable. Local communities have shown through their engagement with local radio - and more recently with debates run online alongside Politics Show issues - that they are extremely keen on accessing broadcasting for their views and news, and this can only increase through additional opportunities. We have reservations about how this increased access would be monitored for both litigious and quality reasons, but those are issues which should be debated separately and not be used to undermine the essential nature of the proposal. There are concerns that by its very nature, only the most vocal and determined (not necessarily the most representative voices) would be heard, but preventing that is another reason for the recruitment of experienced staff with sound judgement in content and delivery.

The possibility of streaming key local events live on these sites - and through the newly developed iCav vehicles now being developed by the BBC - is a vital new ingredient for increasing involvement, access and interest.

Question 8. The service as outlined would be available only to those with a broadband internet connection. Is this the best way for local news to reach you and your community?

The BBC clearly has a duty to provide services to and for the whole country; for technical reasons this may be a duty which can only be delivered over time and not in one fell swoop. We believe the BBC should commit to doing everything in its power to increase access to BBC Local to as near 100% as it can; but the inability to do so at outset should not kill the whole project. Set alongside the BBC regional and local services currently available through a variety of media - analogue, digital, satellite, cable, online, mobile phones etc - it is an impressive catalogue of offerings for the British License Fee-payers, who will unerringly choose to use whichever means suits them best - and complain loudly until anything they can't receive is made available!

The projections are for a reach of 11% of households (17% of those with broadband); that is 1 million more people than the entire current BBC local multimedia offer, and more than the projected nations/regions tv bulletins in 5 years. This is by no means an insignificant number!

Question 9. The service, if approved, will cost approximately £23 million per year at maturity. As a very approximate guide, BBC News Channel (formerly News 24) costs £42.9 million a year whilst BBC Radio Scotland costs £22.6 million [these are not services directly comparable with the proposal (of 65 Local Video services across the UK) and are not calculated on a like-for-like basis]. To what extent do you think local video represents a good use of the licence fee, both generally and compared with other possible areas for investment?

The cost of a service is always a thorny topic - the value of it even more so. The BBC News channel was viciously attacked on its formation, but has become an essential part of the BBC's newsgathering operation, a valuable way of showing extended coverage of films and reports which are truncated by the very nature of the limited bulletin durations, and the prime way in which breaking stories can be covered instantaneously and constantly without shattering the schedules of other channels. BBC Radio Scotland provides an exemplary and highly praised community service. BBC Local will undoubtedly have teething troubles; there will undoubtedly be difficult negotiations about staffing levels, grades of pay, skill training and many other things - but we will make those negotiations succeed because the unions and the management of ER share the knowledge that without this way forward, there is only retrenchment and ultimately erosion of our vital national/regional and local services.

It is entirely possible that £23million is too low a figure, a figure trimmed to make it more acceptable for the BBC to say "yes". But we believe it would be a huge error to try and achieve this project on the cheap. It will be too difficult a mission to get it right while cutting financial corners. The Trust should not be asking "Why so much?" but rather "Are you saying it's enough to do it properly?"

There is public support too - people saw benefits as consumers (89%) but even more as citizens concerning local democracy, when 96% were in favour, and it was valued more highly than the News Channel (formerly News 24), BBC local and national radio.

Question 10. Are there any other issues regarding the public value assessment of local video proposals you would like the Trust to consider?

Other issues BECTU believe are pertinent:

• The service will be free at the point of use, and carry no advertising so there is no threat of stealing advertising revenue from commercial stations; the BBC is also committed to not carrying travel and traffic news in video, and where appropriate will link to external sites including commercial news providers
• The extra service will encourage more user participation through better navigation, cross-trailing and being more map-based; there are currently around 100 user generated content (ugc) pieces on the sites, which should increase to 300.
• The provision will bring services for Scotland and Northern Ireland into line with England and Wales, which is absolutely necessary
• Content syndication will mean that commercial and not-for-profit sites can supplement their coverage - any loss of traffic to competitor sites will be mitigated by some increased traffic via BBC; and a budget of £800k a year will be available for purchasing local video news from local providers which will stimulate provision in a difficult area/market
• There will be excellent partnership opportunities with other providers and organisations like The Community Channel and the Community Media Association.

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