[comtv-l] Ofcom: 'Sustaining Local & Regional News after Analogue', November 10, Glasgow - report

[CMA-L]

The Only Game in Town: IFNCs

Posted by Brian McNair, November 12 2009 07:51

The mood, at the start, was gloomy. ITV faces a deficit of £38-64
million on regional news by 2012. STV’s service simply can’t be
financed on the old analogue subsidy model; Scotland Today will soon
be yesterday. But soon enough, there were some encouraging signs. Over
a hundred people had gathered in Glasgow, at an event about regional
news, being hosted by broadcasting regulators, Ofcom. There was to be
some good news.

First, there is clear survey evidence of widespread demand in Scotland
(as elsewhere in the UK) for local TV news. Not only that, but people
want more than one source of local TV news, and are prepared to pay
for it. People understand why it matters that there should be
plurality.

Reflecting this evidence, the Government has stated its view that
“maintaining varied and independent journalism to provide high quality
news content that reflects the Scottish identity is a high priority”.
But the provision of news content “needs to reflect changing consumer
patterns, and people must be able to access news in a variety of ways
such as on the web and by mobile phone, as well as in print”.

Meeting both demands is the aim of the Independently Funded News
Consortium (IFNC), a phrase of which we shall be hearing more in the
months to come. IFNCs, if they survive an increasingly likely change
of government in Westminster, will replace the decades-old analogue
model of local TV news with a service which will be multi-platform,
interactive, participatory.

Public service journalism, Jim, but not as we know it.

The Government will pilot IFNCs in Scotland, Wales and one English
region. Surplus from the digital switch-over fund will pay for the
scheme, and long term, finance will come from a contained contestable
element of the licence fee - a ring-fenced slice of what is, after
all, a pretty substantial cake.

Consortia of media organisations will be invited to bid for the
pilots, and to demonstrate their commitment to journalistic quality,
editorial independence and financial sustainability. Weight will be
attached to the reach and impact of the proposed service, and its
potential for localisation. Consortium-produced content will be used
by local news providers on all platforms, including community radio
and TV and ultra-local online sites.

Which potential provider (or providers) is best placed to deliver on
these complex requirements?

Details of likely bids are lacking, but we do have some idea of the
options emerging. In September, STV proposed a version of the
‘Scottish Six’ proposal, integrating STV and ITN content in an
hour-long programme.

This proposal has the virtue of capitalising on half a century of
experience and track record in the delivery of commercial public
service broadcast journalism. It promises the world as seen from
Scotland, with the well-resourced input of one of the world’s leading
news makers, in a format produced by a company which knows and
understands the Scottish TV audience. If it works the model could be
applied elsewhere in the UK - the English regions in particular.

Former ITV chief executive, Stuart Prebble suggested such a model for
regional news on ITV back in the early 1990s, before the resurgence of
Scottish nationalism made it a potent and divisive political issue.
Though Prebble intended it to be applied in English regions, the late
1990s version of the proposal came to be seen as the thin end of a
nationalist cultural wedge. The BBC rejected it for that reason. But
on ITV, as an alternative to the BBC’s national Six O’Clock News, it
can be more readily viewed on its merits.

Political sensitivities aside, the STV proposal raises competition
concerns for other Scottish media organisations.

The future of TV news is bound up with the development of the
internet, and thus of newspapers, which are themselves rapidly moving
online. The future provider of news on STV will also be a leading
presence on the internet. A solution to the future of commercial
public service news on local TV must somehow reconcile the competing
demands of other platforms with a commercial interest in the web.

Put simply, could STV use its iconic public service brand to colonise
the online local news market in ways that might unfairly disadvantage
other private sector news organisations? If there is public subsidy
for an STV-ITN-led IFNC which includes a web operation, what of the
private companies struggling to monetise their web businesses without
such subsidy?

Enter the Herald-Times/Johnston Press/DC Thomson consortium. Fearing
an STV moving further onto the web with licence fee money, three of
Scotland’s biggest newspaper companies say they can deliver a service
of equivalent quality using their combined local resources and reach
throughout Scotland, and the input of a video partner.

Other print-based companies are also considering bids.

The potential benefits of the IFNC for organisations rooted in print
are not just the £5 million of tax payers’ money available for the
pilot, and longer-term funding thereafter; it is that they gain access
to the skills and practices of audio-visual journalism and can
integrate these fully into their businesses - a commercial necessity
for the online future.

At present, the video elements of most newspaper sites lag far behind
the quality of established broadcast journalism. The trend in local
news, however, is for the lines traditionally separating print from
broadcast journalism to dissolve. A-V production techniques thus
become as central to the former as to the latter. Running an IFNC
would facilitate the learning process for print-based media.

Existing legal constraints on cross-ownership of media will have to be
liberalised to permit what would be a dramatic increase in the
concentration of Scottish media power, but the government and Ofcom
are ready for this, if it is needed to sustain local news. Their
research shows that audiences don’t mind cross-ownership if there is
also CHOICE.

Even if the legal constraints can be resolved, however, there remain
organisational and cultural constraints on IFNCs led by print-based
companies.

Ofcom wants an IFNC which will exploit the local media ecology, and
maximise the new possibilities for citizens and consumers offered by
the web. Local media organisations rooted in print will almost
certainly be involved, therefore. But can they do the job of producing
public service TV news content as specified by the Government and the
regulator, and as appears to be desired by the public?

That is, impartially, independently, in the public interest, and to
the required level of editorial quality?

Can organisations raised in a highly ideologised print culture ‘do’
public service broadcast journalism?

What safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the private
interests of these companies don’t override the public interests of
the Scottish audience?

Can consortia work effectively as management structures, given the
historic rivalries between, say, the Scotsman and Herald publications?
This is about more than just management efficiency. It’s about
consortia of competing media companies showing how they can work
together to provide local news with a coherent identity, rooted in an
unified and functional management structure which puts public interest
above private.

I’m not suggesting these challenges can’t be resolved. But there needs
to be some acknowledgement that they exist, and then some
consideration as to how they will be addressed.

Over and above all of this hangs the shadow of the Scottish
Broadcasting Commission, and the proposal for a Digital Network. The
SNP government and the Scottish Parliament have endorsed the idea, and
in a world of trillion-pound budget deficits and £45 billion bailouts
for Scottish banks, £90 million to sustain a key resource for the
future of Scottish democracy and society might look like a bargain,
even to the hard-pressed tax payer.

For now, however, IFNCs are the main game in town, and there is
everything to play for.

Brian McNair is Professor of Journalism & Communication at the
University of Strathclyde.

* This is an edited version of a presentation made by Brian McNair at
an event held by Ofcom, 'Sustaining Local and Regional News after
Analogue', on November 10, in Glasgow.

Source: http://www.allmediascotland.com/blog/0/39/The%20Only%20Game%20in%20Town:%20IFNCs

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