The Stage

ITV’s regional output post-analogue is ‘unsustainable’, warns Ofcom

Published Tuesday 14 June 2005 at 12:35 by Liz Thomas

ITV’s commitment to producing regional programme production will be slashed drastically to just 30 minutes a week by 2008, according to a report by media regulator Ofcom on the future of broadcasting in the home nations.

The recommendations follow an earlier decision made by the watchdog to halve the network’s non-news programming such as drama, religion and current affairs in England from three hours a week during the next few years. These plans have already been lambasted by broadcasting unions and local production companies as a “death-knell for regional broadcasting”.

However Ofcom’s latest pronouncement includes a warning that even the new reduction to one and a half hours weekly will be unsustainable once the process of analogue switch-off begins in three years’ time.

A spokesperson for Bectu said: “The earlier announcement that production was to be cut to one and a half hours has already begun to decimate production in the English regions. We’ve seen the cutbacks made by ITV come into effect across the country. There is a sense at the moment that regional programme production is something that has to be suffered until the commercial licences expire in 2014. We know ITV is not overly committed it but it is something that needs to be invested in to make it vibrant and reflect that talent in the area.”

The network had argued that regional programming will become more and more uneconomic as the number of digital channels grows and competition for audiences increase. Around 60% of households in the UK now have digital television and the number is growing by some 50,000 a week.

The regulator said that while it was necessary to protect regional news, it acknowledged that other genres, such as drama, would become more expensive to safeguard. Ofcom chief executive Stephen Carter said: “These changes protect the interests of viewers and set out a sustainable path towards digital switchover.”

It has also recommended dedicated digital channels to be set up for Wales, Scotland and Ireland in order to safeguard indigenous languages in the nations. In Scotland the watchdog has called for a Gaelic language channel to be set up, with the BBC acting as the key broadcast partner, while SMG, which runs ITV Scotland franchise Grampian and Scottish TV, could support the channel by offering an analogue window for some shows. Ofcom also suggested that the Corporation and S4C form stronger links for programme provision in Wales but added that a specific service for Wales should be given more thought.

For Northern Ireland, Ofcom said: “The goal for Irish language broadcasting should be a dedicated digital service broadcasting to all viewers, building on the main Irish language public service channel in the Republic of Ireland, TG4.”

The report follows the publication of the watchdog’s response to the government’s Green Paper on charter renewal. It argued that the licence fee should be increased so that commercial broadcasters - such as Channel 4 - would be able to take a share in order to avoid the BBC becoming the UK’s only public service broadcaster. If this were to happen regulator warned “audience tastes would be conditioned by the commercial majority, rather than the public service minority”.