The Stage

Coalition launched to help protect public service broadcasting

Published Tuesday 14 July 2009 at 17:10 by Matthew Hemley

The Federation of Entertainment Unions, which includes Equity, Bectu and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, is backing a new campaigning body being formed to safeguard the future of public service broadcasting in the UK.

Lobby group Voice of the Listener and Viewer has initiated the organisation, which is called the Citizens’ Coalition for Public Service Broadcasting and which aims to make sure “that plurality in public service broadcasting remains the cornerstone of UK media policy and practice”.

In particular, the coalition is looking to fight a recommendation made in the government’s Digital Britain report to ‘top-slice’ the BBC licence fee and use a proportion of the money to support other broadcasters, in a bid to aid public service content that has come under funding pressure.

The campaigning body believes this could threaten the BBC’s output and is instead pushing the government to consider industry levies on satellite TV channels. The VLV is currently approaching unions, charities, arts bodies and other campaigning organisations to encourage them to sign up to the cause.

Ivor Gaber, who is behind the coalition and a director of the VLV, told The Stage: “We felt this was a very big issue - the future of public service broadcasting plurality - and we thought it was important to draw in that community that would be most affected by it, such as civil society groups and unions, to make it a much more broad-based campaign”.

Gaber said the coalition will launch in the autumn, if it receives enough support.

He said plans to top-slice the licence fee was the most urgent task facing the coalition, and added that the body would seek to ensure that any future commitment to plurality in public service broadcasting does not threaten the future of the BBC.

The coalition’s launch statement reads: “Members of the coalition believe that the integrity, editorial independence and current funding base of the BBC must all be protected and maintained, as they are paramount to the success of public service broadcasting in the UK.”

Gaber said the coalition’s other concerns would be based around protecting public service programming on ITV and Five, as well as safeguarding the future of Channel 4.

The launch statement says the body would aim to “halt the rapid decline in UK-produced public service content”, including children’s television, and provide support to all broadcasters and programme suppliers who are “committed to providing public service content”.

Although the coalition has the support of the FEU, Equity as an individual body has yet to decide whether to add its name to the group, with a decision expected to be made in the next few weeks.