Television October 2015

October 2015

Global TV:

How Britain measures up RTS Cambridge Convention 2015

From the CEO There are so many people who ­contributed to delivering what was a remarkable RTS Cambridge Convention that, unfortunately, there is simply not space to mention everyone.

Tony Hall, this year’s convention chair, did an exemplary job in ­overseeing a hugely memorable three days. Massive thanks to Tony and his extraordinary team, led by the wonderful Andrew Scadding and Cassian Harrison, and to the BBC as our principal sponsor.

And a big thank you to all our

Contents RTS/IET JOINT PUBLIC LECTURE

Artificial intelligence and the future

Demis Hassabis Founder of Deep Mind, artificial intelligence researcher, neuroscientist and computer game designer

Wednesday 4 November 6:30pm for 7:00pm

Venue: British Museum, London WC1B 3DG Booking: www.rts.org.uk

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Our Friend in the North

7

Cassian Harrison’s TV diary

Andrew Sheldon identifies genuine change as diversity initiatives take effect, but warns that significant problems remain

Cambridge first-timer Cassian Harrison gets stage fright and mixes with multimillionaires. Plus there’s a freebie for the family

RTS Cambridge Convention 2015:

Happy Valley or House of Cards? Television in 2020 Reports by Matthew Bell, Maggie Brown, Steve Clarke and Tara Conlan

8 12 14 18

One: The future belongs to…

A stellar panel discusses what today’s trends tell us about the state of the TV industry in five years’ time.

Two: Why Viacom is beefing up Channel 5 Viacom chief Philippe Dauman outlines why the US media giant needs to be big in Britain

Three: Tough love from John Whittingdale The culture minister confesses he could not live without the BBC but tells the corporation to raise its game

Four: Friend or foe?

Is US ownership of UK producers good for the British TV sector or will it undermine risk-taking?

Editor Steve Clarke smclarke_333@hotmail.com

Production, design and advertising Gordon Jamieson gordon.jamieson.01@gmail.com

Writer Matthew Bell bell127@btinternet.com

Journal of The Royal Television Society October 2015 l Volume 52/9

s­ ponsors: Accenture, All3Media, Fujitsu, ITV and Virgin Media.

Not even the odd East Anglian downpour could detract from the energy and enthusiasm of everyone who committed to making Cambridge such a success.

The calibre and range of speakers was fantastic. The quality of the sessions said a lot about the individuals who planned and delivered them.

Sincere thanks to all.

And who can forget the ITN karaoke at King’s? Take a bow, John Hardie.

Post-Cambridge, the Society is well into the swing of a packed autumn programme. Earlier this month, we held a sold-out RTS Futures event, “Speed-date the content creators”, and “No laughing matter: how does comedy fight back?”.

Later this month, our popular “Anatomy of a hit” strand returns. A highpowered panel will discuss Humans, the innovative Channel 4 drama.

Humans got the nation talking in the summer and has already been recommissioned. Book now to secure a place.

Full details of all our events, including the RTS/IET Joint Public Lecture with Demis Hassabis, the RTS Student Programme Masterclasses and RTS Craft Skills Masterclasses, are on our website.

Theresa Wise

22

Five: The real deal

43

Twelve: Smart apps for mobiles

24

Six: The write way to make drama

28 30

Seven: All the world is our stage

44 46

Thirteen: Single digital market woes

Eight: How to run a hit factory

49

Fifteen: All roads lead to content

33

Nine: Ofcom’s new TV champion

53

IBC 1: Media’s Glasto – minus the mud

36

Ten: The risk to Britain’s creative culture

40

Eleven: Polls apart: did TV let down voters?

54 56

IBC 2: London looks back at Amsterdam

Josh Sapan, head of AMC Networks, explains how the BBC inspired him to make shows such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead

Drama is more important than ever before in global markets. Is the UK or the US writing model the best way to succeed?

David Zaslav explains to the RTS how he turned Discovery Communications into a truly international giant

Four very different studio bosses are challenged by Pat Younge, former head of BBC Production, to explain their working methods

The regulator’s Chief Executive, Sharon White, describes herself as a child of television in an entertaining encounter with Stewart Purvis

Tony Hall warns that the UK’s worldwide reputation for creating great TV shows will be compromised unless the long-term decline in investment is reversed

Nick Clegg locks swords with two senior TV journalists over the broadcasters’ coverage of the general election

Sub-editor Sarah Bancroft smbancroft@me.com

Photographer Paul Hampartsoumian paul@hiphop.com

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Royal Television Society 3 Dorset Rise, London EC4Y 8EN T: 020 7822 2810 E: info@rts.org.uk W: wwwrts.org.uk

Click presenter Spencer Kelly gives RTS delegates a taste of how broadcasters might use mobiles to enhance the TV experience

Independent producers argue that plans to end national markets within the EU will damage their businesses

Fourteen: The trouble with talent

Top presenters, such as Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Evans, are TV’s lifeblood. But do they have too much power and are they overpaid?

Four television heavyweights predict how the future might unfold for them

First-time IBC visitor Haydn Jones is wowed by the sheer scale of the event, but next time vows to bring sandwiches

An RTS expert panel explored the major themes to emerge from IBC this year, reports Matthew Bell

RTS news

Reports from around the nations and regions

Subscription rates UK £115 Overseas (surface) £146.11 Overseas (airmail) £172.22 Enquiries: publication@rts.org.uk

Printing ISSN 0308-454X Printer: FE Burman, 20 Crimscott St, London, SE1 STP

Legal notice © Royal Television Society 2015.

The views expressed in Television are not necessarily those of the RTS Registered Charity 313 728)

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RTS NEWS National events RTS EARLY EVENING EVENT Tuesday 27 October

Humans – anatomy of a hit Speakers: Jonathan Brackley, Writer; Gemma Chan, Actor; Chris Fry, Executive Producer, Kudos; Simon Maxwell, Head of International Drama, Channel 4; Sam Vincent, Writer; Derek Wax, Executive Producer, Kudos; Beth Willis, Deputy Head of Drama, Channel 4. Chair: Stephen Armstrong. 7:00pm for 7:30pm Venue: 90 York Way, London N1 9AG ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk JOINT PUBLIC LECTURE Wednesday 4 November

Joint RTS/IET public lecture with Demis Hassabis: Artificial intelligence and the future Demis Hassabis is founder of Deep Mind and an artificial intelligence researcher, neuroscientist and computer game designer. 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS FUTURES Wednesday 4 November

Deconstruction of a production: Long Lost Family Venue: Hallam Conference Centre, 44 Hallam St, London W1W 6JJ ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS MASTERCLASSES Tuesday 10 November

RTS Student Programme Masterclasses Drama, entertainment and factual sessions. 10:30am-5:00pm Venue: BFI Southbank, London SE1 8XT ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk RTS MASTERCLASSES Wednesday 11 November

RTS Craft Skills Masterclasses 10:30am-5:00pm Venue: BFI Southbank, London SE1 8XT ■ Book online at www.rts.org.uk

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RTS AWARDS Monday 30 November

RTS Craft & Design Awards 2014-2015 Venue: The London Hilton, Park Lane, London W1K 1BE ■ Callum Stott 020 7822 2822 ■ callum@rts.org.uk JOINT PUBLIC LECTURE Wednesday 11 May 2016

Joint RTS/IET public lecture with Sir Paul Nurse 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: British Museum, London WC1B 3DG RTS AWARDS Friday 3 June 2016

RTS Student Television Awards 2015 Venue: BFI Southbank, London SE1 8XT

Local events BRISTOL Thursday 22 October

Breaking into TV

Student event, preceded by a facilities tour. 2:00pm-4:00pm Venue: Bath Spa University, Newton St Loe, Bath BA2 9BN ■ Belinda Biggam ■ belindabiggam@hotmail.com DEVON & CORNWALL ■ Kingsley Marshall ■ Kingsley.Marshall@falmouth. co.uk EAST ANGLIA ■ Contact TBC LONDON Wednesday 4 November

It started with a book Speakers: Anne Brogan, Director, Kindle Entertainment, and Helen McAleer, Chief Global Development Officer and MD, Walker Books and Walker Productions.

Does an epic book automatically make for multi-series, unmissable TV? 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: Riverside Bar, ITV Studios, Upper Ground, London SE1 9LT

Wednesday 9 December

Your guide to upcoming national and regional events

Venue: Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, St Peter’s Campus, University of Sunderland SR6 0DD Friday 11 December

Christmas Lecture: Lorraine Heggessey

6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: Cavendish Conference Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, London W1G 9DT ■ Daniel Cherowbrier ■ daniel@cherowbrier.co.uk

Review of the Year

7:00pm Venue: Live Theatre, Broad Chare, Quayside, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 3DQ ■ Jill Graham ■ jill.graham@blueyonder.co.uk

MIDLANDS Wednesday 21 October

Phil Ford in conversation with Joanne Malin

NORTH WEST Saturday 14 November

Annual Awards

Organised jointly with The Writers’ Guild and BBC Birmingham.

6:30pm for 7:15pm; Q&A at 8:15pm followed by networking.

Booking for this event is essential: please email Jayne Greene at jayne@ijmmedia.co.uk.

Venue: BBC, Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1RF Thursday 12 November

Venue: Hilton Deansgate, 303 Deansgate, Manchester M3 4LQ ■ Rachel Pinkney 07966 230639 ■ rachelpinkney@yahoo.co.uk NORTHERN IRELAND Thursday 5 November

Inaugural Northern Ireland Programme Awards

Awards/Student Awards

Tickets: £65 (£45, RTS Members) Venue: Motorcycle Museum, Coventry Rd, Solihull, West Midlands B92 0EJ Wednesday 9 December

New directions in immersive entertainment

The centrepiece of the Belfast Media Festival Venue: The MAC, 10 Exchange Street West, Belfast BT1 2NJ ■ John Mitchell ■ mitch.mvbroadcast@btinternet.com

Presentation by Dr Nicholas Lodge. 6:30pm for 7:00pm Venue: IET, Kingston theatre, 80 Cambridge Street, Birmingham B1 2NP ■ Jayne Greene 07792 776585 ■ jayne@ijmmedia.co.uk

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND ■ Charles Byrne (353) 87251 3092 ■ byrnecd@iol.ie

NORTH EAST & THE BORDER Wednesday 28 October

Given by Claire Enders, CEO, Enders Analysis. 6:00pm for 6:30pm Venue: BBC Scotland, 40 Pacific Quay, Glasgow G51 1DA ■ James Wilson 07899 761167 ■ james.wilson@cityofglasgowcollege.ac.uk

SCOTLAND Monday 16 November

The RTS Campbell Swinton Lecture 2015

Networking evenings

The last Wednesday of the month, for anyone working in TV, film, computer games or digital ­production. 6:00pm onwards.

Next event: ■ 25 November Venue: Tyneside Bar Café, Tyneside Cinema, 10 Pilgrim St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6QG Tuesday 3 November

Rebel without a pause: ­Stephen Whitelaw

Google special advisor Stephen Whitelaw on the future of online content. Hosted by John Myers.

6:30pm

SOUTHERN Wednesday 11 November

Working in journalism

For journalism students across the South. 2:00pm-5:30pm Venue: Highbury College, Tudor Crescent, Portsmouth PO6 2SA

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

Wednesday 18 November

BBC Digital Media Services David Conway and Keith Nicholson on film and video restoration and remastering. 7:30pm Venue: Queen Mary College, Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke RG21 3HF ■ Gordon Cooper ■ gordonjcooper@gmail.com

2015 RTS Masterclasses

THAMES VALLEY Wednesday 11 November

Visit to BBC studios and postproduction Tour of the facilities and presen­ tation on recent projects by Keith Nicholas. 4:00pm-7:00pm Venue: Anteros Building, Odyssey Business Park, West End Road, South Ruislip HA4 6QQ Friday 27 November

25th Anniversary Dinner Dance Venue: Beaumont House Hotel, Burfield Rd, Old Windsor SL4 2JJ ■ Penny Westlake ■ info@rtstvc.org.uk WALES Thursday 22 October

IWA and RTS Wales ‘Coffee Shop Debate’: Is there a future for Welsh broadcasting?

Specially recorded video introduction from Ken Skates AM, Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism Venue: Glyndŵr University, Mold Road, Wrexham LL11 2AW Friday 20 November

10 November

RTS Student Programme Masterclasses 11 November

RTS Craft Skills Masterclasses

ITV Wales through the decades A look through the archives with David Lloyd Venue: Aberystwyth Screen and Sound Archive, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3BU ■ Hywel Wiliam 07980 007841 ■ hywel@aim.uk.com YORKSHIRE Thursday 10 December

Christmas quiz

7:30pm Venue: Trinity Arts Centre, Boar Lane, Leeds LS1 6HW ■ Lisa Holdsworth 07790 145280 ■ lisa@allonewordproductions. co.uk

Both RTS Masterclasses are held at BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XT Registration: 10:30am Sessions: 11:00am-5:00pm Booking: www.rts.org.uk

OUR FRIEND IN THE

NORTH

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True North

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ight months on from the broadcasters announcing new initiatives on diversity, across the industry there’s a sense of a nettle being grasped. On screen, in production offices and in commissioning teams, there are signs of real change.

And that’s long before the data is published that will measure it.

The need to deliver on diversity at the point of commissioning programmes has focused minds and brought an awareness about diversity that simply didn’t exist before. It should add up to rapid and tangible progress.

However, it’s also brought an added challenge for producers from outside of the M25. Away from London, the workforce is far less fluid than in the capital and the industry’s infrastructure is often far more fragile.

At True North, we decided we would embrace the spirit of what was proposed and not tick boxes simply so that we would comply.

We’re doing sessions at relevant events, such as the BBC’s Move On Up day, offering more support and encouragement internally, both onand off-screen. Our company has also taken on two BAME trainees.

To find them, we went to Creative Access, who drew up a shortlist of applicants. Following two days of interviews, we took on Fiona Udahemuka, who came from radio to work in production.

Our second recruit was Mohsin Ahmad. He was producing corporate films after graduating and is now a camera and post-production assistant.

They’ll now kick on, but getting

Andrew Sheldon identifies genuine change as diversity initiatives take effect, but warns that significant problems remain

people into the industry is only part of the story. For the tight-knit production community in the North, retaining good people is vital.

And that’s an area where the diversity push has actually had a negative effect, particularly at a senior level.

To really tackle diversity and maintain a thriving indie community in the nations and regions, there needs to be a more holistic view from the broadcasters – and probably greater investment.

Take the appointment of people from a BAME background to commissioning roles at the BBC.

It’s a really positive step, and one that is already strengthening the commissioning process in W1A. But several of the successful candidates came from senior levels of the industry outside the M25.

The upshot was that the positive effect in London diminished the talent available in the nations and regions. That, in turn, fuels the perception that, outside of London, there simply aren’t good people… and so the wheel turns.

One final thought is that diversity isn’t just about ethnicity, sexuality and disability. It’s also about celebrating the cultural and social differences that exist throughout Britain.

And nowhere does that apply more than in Bradford, which is one of the largest cities in the land, Unesco City of Film and home of the National Media Museum.

After London and Birmingham, it has the biggest Muslim community in the UK, and also some of the poorest working-class neighbourhoods. In other words, it is a touchstone for many of the biggest issues facing our country.

Yet the BBC has recently closed its office in Bradford as part of a costcutting exercise. Now, I know the argument is that Bradford is well served from Leeds for its news and that it’s frequently the location for drama. There’s even an occasional visit from a documentary team.

But if you can make the argument for a lot of production being based in Belfast, which is of a similar scale, then surely multicultural Bradford deserves a small and permanent BBC office, if only in the name of diversity?

Andrew Sheldon is Creative Director and founder of Leeds-based True North.

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

TV diary Cambridge first-timer Cassian Harrison gets stage fright and mixes with multimillionaires.

Plus there’s a freebie for the family

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nd so to my firstever RTS Cambridge Convention: nine months of meetings, a few too many summer weekends spent writing presentations and chatting to panellists around the world, all to prepare for (what I hope will be) an extravaganza of an opening session.

I am to discover a very enjoyable, if also slightly surreal, three days: a heady cocktail of retro student living (a single college bed for the first time in 30 years?), shoulder-rubbing with a shoal of multimillionaires (don’t often do that in public service broadcasting), along with a judicious leavening of fine wines and even better conversation.

■ I had been informed by everyone from the DG’s office down that the opening session of Cambridge makes or breaks the convention, so I wasn’t feeling the pressure – much.

I (and many valiant collaborators, including Jean-Paul Petranca of the Boston Consulting Group and David Bunker of BBC Audiences) had prepared what we hoped would be an effervescent amuse-bouche of big data on the future of TV, a first-rate panel of global thinkers and a rather unique set of videos.

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

■ At the appointed moment, I stand up, stagger my way through an autocue baptism (believe me, Jeremy Corbyn did well), and leave the stage to James Purnell and panel to set the Convention running.

The whole thing still feels in the balance until we play the first of our videos. Stephen Lambert and his brilliant team had secretly made three films with the Gogglebox families, showing their reactions to a future where smartphones rule and traditional TV has all but vanished.

The families’ responses are brilliant: funny, trenchant and full of wisdom.

As the Convention audience dissolves into laughter, I know we’ve broken the ice and are up and running.

■ For me, the most fascinating part of the debate that follows is between Emily Bell (ex of The Guardian and now of Columbia University) and Ben Evans (a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz).

Emily gives a passionate warning about the dangers of so much journalism now being delivered through global social-media platforms, such as Facebook, which are entirely unregulated. Ben simply doesn’t see the problem.

It’s a powerful clash between two liberal visions – East Coast and West Coast – but also feels strangely

irrelevant to us in the UK. I realise just how protected we feel by the guaranteed balance of, not just the BBC, but all television news in the UK. ■ The big moment of day two of the Convention is Tony Hall’s speech. I’d been pulled into helping to craft the argument over the previous couple of weeks.

It was impressive to see how he and his team worked, marshalling their arguments with wisdom and good humour at what is a critical time for the BBC. Tony gave over his weekends to bring a genuinely personal perspective and passion to the words.

I’m glad the speech goes down well, both in the room and in the wider world. And I’m secretly pleased that a good few of my thoughts made it to the final draft.

■ Back to London on Friday evening, brandishing my Convention goinghome presents – two Google Cardboards. These are fold-out cardboard boxes that turn any smartphone into a VR headset.

Amazingly, they are more popular with the family than the BBC Four mug I brought home last year.

Cassian Harrison is Channel Editor, BBC Four.

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session One

The future belongs to…

Television’s coverage of the 2015 RTS Cambridge Convention, ‘Happy Valley or House of Cards? Television in 2020’, starts here. Our team brings you full reports of all 15 sessions.

W

ho will own the future – the broadcasters, the content owners or the global tech behemoths, such as Google, Facebook and Apple? The question is not new, but it is becoming ever more pressing for people in television.

James Purnell, the BBC’s Director, Strategy and Digital, led this comprehensive opening debate, “Happy Valley or House of Cards? Television in 2020”.

To say that Cambridge 2015 hit the ground running would be something of an understatement. The audience was treated to a wide range of perspectives as they waited to discover who would be the Masters of the Universe in five years’ time.

There were encouraging words for the established TV players, as Cassian Harrison, Editor, BBC Four, provided an erudite preamble to the panel discussion. “We all still love traditional TV,” he said. “For all the proliferation of new devices, we still watch TV by far the most.”

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Report by Steve Clarke

A stellar panel discusses what today’s trends tell us about the state of the TV industry in five years’ time This, however, was only part of a story with more plot twists than an episode of Sherlock and more data than a Barb spreadsheet. Everybody knows that the TV screen now competes for our time alongside mobiles, tablets and games consoles.

The box may be the most popular screen in people’s homes, but it is no longer used solely to watch television or even TV shows.

The long-term future of TV perhaps belongs to apps, as Apple recently suggested. Yet, for the foreseeable future, time-honoured TV channels look like a safe bet.

“Running BBC Four, I know that

channels are an incredibly efficient way to reach passionate parts of your audience,” stressed Harrison.

He added: “The big tech players can see the appeal of a curated channel, too.

Apple Music launched off the back of a traditional, curated music station. Vice has its own linear broadcast channel.

Twitter’s Project Lightning is bringing manual curation to social media.”

Nevertheless, future growth is expected to come largely from mobile viewing and on-demand platforms funded by advertising. YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat are all predicted to grow fivefold by 2020, noted the BBC executive (see box, lower right).

“Who would have thought that a messaging app would become a major VoD platform?” pondered Harrison.

Who, indeed? Snapchat is worth a cool $10bn or more, despite having launched a mere four years ago. Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter is one of the biggest funders of documentaries, globally.

In other words, there is no shortage of US online success stories. Alongside this phenomenon exists an equally intriguing, if hardly new, development

How we use our screens

From left: Benedict Evans, Susanna Dinnage, Stephen Lambert, Emily Bell, Stephen Nuttall and James Purnell

n Smartphones outnumber TV sets two to one n The amount of mobile viewing is doubling every year n By 2017, we might all be watching three hours of mobile video daily n More than half of children prefer to watch video on a phone or tablet than on a TV n Forty-one per cent of parents say their children would choose their tablet over eating dessert

Paul Hampartsoumian

n More than half of us watch videos on our phones while watching TV

– US media giants’ enthusiasm for buying British producers.

The ownership of valuable intellectual property is, arguably, more important than ever in this crowded and confusing multi-screen world, suggested production boss Stephen Lambert, as the panel debate commenced.

Lambert’s company, Studio Lambert, is part of All3Media, bought jointly last year by Discovery and Liberty Global for a reported £500m.

Rather prosaically, Purnell asked Lambert if programming-making had altered in the light of technological change. Essentially, it hadn’t – although hit shows were more elusive than ever, suggested Lambert. “The biggest challenge is coming up with an idea that works,” opined the veteran producer and reality-show specialist. “It is harder than ever to have a hit.”

He added: “In US TV, particularly in non-scripted, there hasn’t been a hit for ages. This summer, 12 new non-scripted shows launched on US broadcasters.

They all failed, with the possible exception of Celebrity Family Feud.

“Britain is still the place where we

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

think it is easier to come up with a new idea and get it away,” he claimed.

“The growth of the new services and viewing over broadband changes things so much… I don’t know whether that means the UK will end up on a similar trajectory to America.”

One thing is becoming clear – in a connected world, many of the audience, particularly younger viewers, are increasingly promiscuous in their ­content consumption. Discovery’s Susanna Dinnage highlighted what she regarded as the “polarisation” of viewing behaviour.

At one end of the spectrum was the “slightly exaggerated importance of live sport”, where watching via catch-up was not an option, and, by contrast, “snap judgements” on new shows. As a result, there were few opportunities for new ideas to find a following.

“If you’re breaking new talent, you need time,” she said. “We find, particularly with younger audiences, that you’ve got to get them in the first three minutes.

“Somebody said to me the other day: ‘Technology isn’t the be-all and �

n Among adults, 12% of TV use is for games, VoD and PVR recordings; it is 25% for young people n On an average Saturday night, 3.3 million people in the UK are watching something other than TV on their TV sets

Why the outlook is bright for TV... n The top 20 shows in the UK and US last year were all local shows. In the UK, the list is strikingly diverse, embracing drama, talent shows and The Great British Bake Off n It is predicted that 10,000-plus new broadcast channels will launch in the next 10 years

And why it isn’t n YouTube’s global audience averages 47 million every hour of the day or night n Usage of VoD, S-VoD (Netflix, Amazon Prime et al) and ad-funded VoD (YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat) are all predicted to grow five-fold by 2020

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session One

� end-all, but it makes it very easy to break up with you’.”

Dinnage warned: “There are millions of other places the audience can go to…

As broadcasters, we need to be very thoughtful about how committed we are to just sitting with things, keeping investing in series we believe in and talent that we want to grow, and hope that the audience will come back and trust us.”

The broadcasters’ loss looks like a gain for on-demand platforms. YouTube’s Stephen Nuttall claimed the Google-owned service was experiencing “the fastest growth we’ve had for several years” – an astonishing 70%, or so, year on year. Viewership on mobile was up by more than 100%.

“We welcome competition,” he stressed. “Around 40% of video watched on YouTube is long-form content. So there is a big shift in the type of content people are consuming.”

Purnell asked if YouTube’s market was the same as the broadcasters’. “We are very focused on what users want to watch,” replied Nuttall. “We are trying to create platforms for storytellers, who can reach a global audience.”

Lambert, perhaps fearing extinction, inquired if many people gathered together on the sofa to watch YouTube?

Perhaps he had an idea for a future edition of Gogglebox.

“No, but the fastest-growing screen for us is the TV screen,” said the YouTube executive. “It could be someone watching via a games console, their Virgin Media box or via Chromecast.”

Delegates sensed that the panel was getting to the heart of the debate. It was time to canvas the view of an independent observer. Purnell wanted to know if Emily Bell, the ex-Guardian high-flyer reinvented as a professor at the prestigious Columbia University Journalism School, thought TV was experiencing the same challenges as newspapers confronted around 2005.

“Yes and no,” was Bell’s verdict. “You have more money, journalism never really made money. It has always relied on cross-subsidy. People don’t like to advertise against things that are ugly and true.

“But there are very strong parallels…

From my perspective, some of the conversations that are being had in

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Susanna Dinnage television now are very similar to the conversations newspapers had about a decade ago.

“It is great to have someone here from YouTube, saying that he welcomes competition, because, in terms of distribution platforms, the world is moving towards a very small number of extremely powerful players,” Bell added passionately (see box, lower right).

“If you look at the market capitalisation of Goggle, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, it is already clear who has won.

“Access to capital is going to be very tough.… Broadcasters need to get rid of their legacy costs. That’s one lesson from the news industry. The other is to stick to your storytelling skills.”

But even if you’ve got brilliant storytelling skills in TV, it is still hard to make money out of it, Purnell suggested.

Kickstarter may be raising millions, but that is a very different model. Would storytelling skills offer protection against the global ecosystems, asked Tony Hall’s right-hand man?

Silicon Valley investor Benedict Evans pointed out that, with so many choices of what and how to watch, the creative process itself would be transformed.

The sheer volume of choices raised new problems around distribution.

“There is now vastly more TV than there is time to watch it. You used to have a schedule and an EPG that was regulated…

“It’s not that you change how you make programmes… but how you get people to watch them. That, in turn, shapes what kind of shows get made and who might be making them.”

Gamely, Purnell inquired if the answer to that problem was, er, channels? “Yes, but there are new aggregation models as well.… Look at the success of Snapchat. It could be an app.”

For YouTube, search and recommendation were more important than channels, noted Nuttall. “The fact is that most channels [on YouTube] probably generate only 5% to 10% of viewership for that content creator,” he said.

Purnell stressed that 85% of television viewing was still of live, linear TV. Dinnage, however, sensed that, for broadcasters, their brand was becoming more important than their channels per se.

Strong brands “take a heck of a long time to build, but you can break them overnight”, she reckoned. “Most broadcasters have been around for 25-plus years. We don’t take lightly the relation­ ship we have with our viewers. It will be interesting to see how quickly the

Paul Hampartsoumian

new arrivals can build that relationship and how long that trust can last.”

This, perhaps, was missing the point of how users access content online, countered Evans. “It comes back to the unbundling question,” he said. “You may go to the aggregator to see the story, or you may just search for the story or the show, or the show may be recommended to you by a friend.”

In this world, the kind of content that dropped off a cliff was “middling stuff”, scheduled, perhaps, at 5:00pm on a Sunday afternoon. “All that stuff that doesn’t quite work on its own, but works because of the channel, that’s the thing that falls away,” emphasised Evans.

Dinnage said that the power of storytelling remained paramount, regardless of the platform. And in any case, broadcasters needed to challenge the amount of viewing claimed by new entrants and their definitions of viewing.

Seeing a video for a few seconds as you scroll down a Facebook page is not the same as watching an entire TV programme. “TV viewing is measured in a very transparent way. We take pride in that,” said the Discovery executive. “If we are all going to play in the same park, let’s have agreed definitions of what constitutes viewing.”

If everything was measured in a common currency, would broadcasters then have nothing to worry about, asked Purnell.

Lambert said that no one on the panel was arguing that TV was facing the firing squad. The questions were around financing it and distribution models. “If you can just get a broadband connection and see all those apps, why bother paying for Virgin or Sky. It’s people like that who face the biggest challenge.”

TV is, arguably, uniquely placed to move people, suggested Dinnage, although broadcasters must avoid complacency: “We are very good at making people feel and making people laugh.…

We need to think how to take that to the next level. We are experimenting with virtual reality… smell and touch…

“If we’re really about enhanced experience, then we’ve got to take good storytelling on, never forgetting that our core excellence is good storytelling.”

Delegates had listened hard to the arguments. It was time to vote. So who

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Daimler

Would a subscription-VoD car show pay its way?

Could a hypothetical, high-budget car show make money for a subscription video service such as Amazon Prime?

If a fictional Top Car series was commissioned by an S-VoD player for $250m over three years, it would need to return $83m annually, minus, say, $24m or 25m a year from DVD sales and merchandising rights.

How many new UK subscribers, paying $124 each, would the service need to attract? After deducting overhead costs of $65 each, the company would need to sign up 1 million new subscribers, each contributing $59 to the show.

Top Car needs to attract 15% of UK S-VoD households – but only 0.3% of households worldwide – to break even.

Do the tech behemoths block entry to potential rivals?

Yes, they do, said Emily Bell. It was now almost impossible to compete against Google because it was so big and had such easy access to capital.

This was a problem that could not be solved without some kind of regulatory intervention.

Not true, said Benedict Evans. The thing that had fundamentally changed with the rise of the internet over the past 20 years was that new entrants didn’t need any capital.… It was now incredibly easy to build something very big.... Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp and then Snapchat came along.

The idea that the door was now shut was just wrong. There was no a winner-takes-all dynamic at play.

would own the future – broadcasters, content owners or the global technology giants? The verdict was not good news for the likes of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

In first place were Google and its peers, on 30%; content creators nailed the second spot, on 28% – and a long way behind came the broadcasters, on just 10%.

It is worth remembering, however, that pundits have been writing traditional TV’s obituary for at least 20 years.

Snapchat

The panellists were: Emily Bell, Professor of Professional Practice and Director of Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University Journalism School; Susanna Dinnage, EVP and MD, Discovery Networks UK & Ireland; Benedict Evans, Partner, Andreessen Horowitz; Stephen Lambert, CEO, Studio Lambert; and Stephen Nuttall, Senior Director, YouTube EMEA. The session was chaired by James Purnell, Director, Strategy and Digital, BBC. It was introduced and produced by Cassian Harrison, with Jean-Paul Petranca and David Bunker.

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Two Report by Matthew Bell

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he digital revolution will be televised,” argued ­Viacom chief Philippe Dauman in an upbeat address to the RTS Convention. Twelve months after the US media giant bought Channel 5 for £450m, Dauman offered a positive “end-of-term report on our first year as a British public service broadcaster”.

“Today, I am pleased to reaffirm our commitment to upholding the rights and responsibilities that entails. We pledged that we would increase investment and original creative content – we have, and will continue to do so.”

During the negotiations to buy the Richard Desmond-owned broadcaster, Viacom had promised to boost Channel 5’s £200m annual programme budget.

Delivering his International Keynote address to the Convention, Dauman claimed that the “programming budget for Channel 5 should see a double-­digit percentage gain in 2015-16”.

“As for our public-service commitments on news and UK-­originated content,” he continued, “we have not only met but far exceeded [them]. In fact, we’ve agreed with Ofcom to increase Channel 5’s annual peak news quota by 20% and our UK-originated content quota to 45% from 40%.

“We have also renewed our guarantee to broadcast at least 600 hours of UK-originated children’s programmes every year for the duration of Channel 5’s 2015-24 licence.”

Dauman is both President and CEO of the US media giant, owner of global brands such as MTV and Nickelodeon, as well as Paramount Pictures.

Viacom has had a presence in the UK since the launch of MTV Europe in 1987. “The UK creative industries have always been a font of creativity for us, and our most important source of original content outside the US,” said Dauman. “We employ more than 1,000 people here – 10% of our global workforce – and many more people in production.

“Viacom finds its full voice with young audiences: Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, even Spike, connect with the kid in all of us, which places

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Viacom chief Philippe Dauman outlines why the US media giant needs to be big in Britain

Why Viacom is beefing up Channel 5 us at the leading edge of changing viewer preferences, not only for what is watched, but how it is watched in markets around the world.”

Dauman, who has run Viacom since 2006, was chipper about the future of TV: “Unlike the stark choice presented by our organisers – ‘Happy Valley or House of Cards?’ – what we see is a

very solid house in a healthy, if not always happy, valley. What makes television television is the content, which is here to stay. Let’s not confuse medium with message. Whatever the source, people are watching more video content, a lot more than ever before.”

He admitted, however, that the global media industry is in a period of tran-

Paul Hampartsoumian

International Keynote speaker Philippe Dauman, President and Chief Executive ­ Officer, Viacom, was interviewed by ­Kamal Ahmed, Business Editor, BBC News.

The session was produced by Amber Cobb and Laura Gosling.

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Getty Images

sition. “While some of the specific implications may be less relevant here in the UK, with its strong public service broadcasting culture, the trend is clear: revenue models that are being challenged in the US will also come under increasing pressure here, as the digital revolution continues to transform viewing habits,” he said.

“It is also clear that the way forward is inevitably up,” continued Dauman.

“Audiences the world over are hungry for the high-quality content we all produce. Digital technologies provide us and our advertisers with a way of connecting more immersively and directly with our audiences.

“Far from usurping our world, these new digital platforms extend our reach, increase our exposure and place a premium on our production curation.”

To prosper in the digital world, ­Dauman argued, broadcasters would have to “craft new and more accurate methods to measure and monetise that audience engagement with our content across all platforms”.

Viacom, revealed Dauman, has adopted a three-pronged approach to boost business. “[We will] increase our investment in outstanding creative content and deliver it to consumers when they want it, wherever they want it,” he said. “Our audiences are the pioneers of the digital frontier and, as they venture on to new distribution platforms, the content that fuels their exploration will become even more valuable.

“It’s not the journey, it’s the destination that matters – and our programme is the destination.”

Dauman added that Viacom’s original programmes will extend “from fulllength movies to original series of 10-second episodes on [video messaging app] Snapchat and everything in between”.

The second part of the company’s approach was to “continue to build international-scale capabilities”. He said: “The UK is a production and commissioning hub for Viacom globally.”

Third, Dauman pledged to “apply technology-driven innovation to both expand distribution and pioneer new advertising platforms”.

Could a content glut crash prices?

Viacom, described by BBC Business Editor Kamal Ahmed as a ‘behemoth of the media’, had seemed an unlikely bidder for Channel 5.

‘Some people might have thought, “What is Viacom doing buying a freeto-air, public service broadcaster in linear television at a time when, surely, the future is digital and on-demand?’’ suggested Ahmed.

‘We started by looking at the content opportunity – that’s the lens through which we look at everything,’ said Philippe Dauman. He added that it was Channel 5’s Milkshake! children’s programmes that initially caught the eye: ‘Milkshake! penetrates the entire UK. We saw the potential cross-promotion, cross-marketing and cross-programming opportunities on the kids’ side.’

‘We [then] looked at the [overall] programming budget,’ Dauman continued, ‘and we saw the opportunity to take it to the next level. It also gave us scale in the UK.’ ‘Was it an opportunistic buy,’ asked Ahmed, or simply the opening salvo of a campaign to acquire companies in the UK and worldwide?

‘We’re very careful with acquisitions; we prefer to grow organically,’ insisted Dauman. ‘But in the international arena, in particular, we look at opportunities where it fits our portfolio to get scale.

[Channel 5] was an opportunity that presented itself.’

Recalling the comments of FX Networks CEO John Landgraf at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in August, Ahmed said: ‘Landgraf has spoken of a tsunami of content, a content glut and [he predicts] a collapse similar to that of the oil price.

‘Do you agree that there is a possible crisis ahead?’

‘There’s never enough good original content,’ Dauman responded. ‘Content is king – there’s always a new use for it.’

He continued: ‘You have to be smart in where you allocate your money, but there’s never enough good television or great movies because you can combine them or disaggregate them and find different ways to make money.’

Referring to the sharp drop in Viacom’s stock price in August, Ahmed asked: ‘How tough is it… [as] CEO to maintain this positive outlook when your share price is going down and down and down?’

‘There’s been a lot of volatility – over the summer there was a big drop and we went to a low,’ admitted Dauman.

‘As of now, we’re up 25% from where we were in the third week of August.

‘We’re still quite down for the year, but you look through that and the important thing for us is to focus on what we do best – which is make great content and figure out how to distribute it. The stockmarket doesn’t always see how you’re going to end up in the long term.’

Turning to local matters, Ahmed asked: ‘Is the BBC a help or a hindrance to your broadcasting ambitions and to the broadcasting ecology of Britain?’

Prefacing his remarks with the ‘respect’ he has for the BBC, Dauman said: ‘The only issue I have – because it is publicly subsidised – is when it ventures into areas where commercial media companies have invested a lot.

‘It’s not that [the BBC] should be prevented from doing [this] but it should be scrutinised.’

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Three

Tough love from John Whittingdale NO ONE COULD DENY THAT THE BBC HAS MADE SOME BAD MISTAKES IN THE PAST FEW YEARS

Rt Hon John Whittingdale MP

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ohn Whittingdale was introduced by Convention Chair Tony Hall as “a rare beast, a politician who watches television”, and he began his speech by reminding delegates that, for him, this convention was no baptism of fire.

His first appearance at Cambridge came 12 years ago as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture; he had set up his own panel to review the future funding of the BBC. Then, as now, the corporation’s Charter and licence fee were the key issues on the agenda.

“It is right that debate should take place, because television is of huge importance to the nation – and the BBC lies at the heart of British TV,” he said.

“I have always loved TV. My PVR is

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Report by Maggie Brown

The culture minister confesses he could not live without the BBC but tells the corporation to raise its game full of shows such as Strike Back (Sky), Humans (Channel 4), Partners in Crime (BBC One), Gotham (Channel Five) and The X Factor (ITV).”

“I am acutely conscious that it is something that this country is extraordinarily good at,” he emphasised. He highlighted the economic benefits of

tax credits in attracting film and highend TV production, the 1.8 million employed in creative industries in the UK, and television industry estimates that the sector generated £13.3bn in 2014, up 3.1%, year on year.

“Given the huge change that has taken place in the past 10 years, it is surely sensible that we should take this opportunity to consider the BBC’s role in this changing environment – to look at its funding, its governance, its mission and purpose, its scale and scope,” said Whittingdale.

It was why the select committee he chaired spent more than a year considering the BBC’s future. The questions it posed were very similar, he added, to those in the green paper on the BBC published on 16 July.

QUESTION & ANSWER Q

Toby Syfret, Head of TV, Enders Analysis: The question absolutely not mentioned in the BBC green paper is the future of the digital terrestrial television spectrum. What are your thoughts long term?

A

A

John Whittingdale: That’s not quite how I read the Ofcom report. It did say there were concerns being expressed about the changes within the independent sector.

We decided that we would ask it to conduct a further examination.

I go in with no preconceived view.

It is at least worth asking that question.

John Whittingdale: It will affect every broadcaster and channel if we reach a point of making changes.

There are competing demands for limited spectrum and mobile operators are increasingly greedy.

This is an international issue.

[But] we are not nearly at that point of universal IPTV. We are quite a long way off that.

Steve Hewlett, writer, broadcaster and media consultant: On the review of BBC governance, are the BBC’s editorial lapses so serious that they, of themselves, warrant a governance review?

Q

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David Abraham, CEO, Channel 4: What is the timing for the terms of trade and balance of payments review?

All pictures: Paul Hampartsoumian

be another review of the terms of trade, the fifth review in 10 years.

Every review has a chilling effect on growth and investment in the companies I represent. I seek assurances that you have a very open mind. Ofcom did not find any major problems.

A

John Whittingdale: I’ve only just written to Sharon [White] asking Ofcom to do more work. I imagine it will take a few months.

I don’t want to give a specific deadline.

Q

John McVay, CEO, Pact: I am a bit surprised that there’s to

“I was therefore somewhat surprised that the green paper was greeted as somehow heralding the demise of the BBC, or as evidence of a Murdoch-­ inspired agenda to dismantle it – a charge I found particularly surprising since my last meeting with Rupert Murdoch took place over four years ago, after I had served a warrant on him, requiring his presence in Parliament in relation to the phone-hacking inquiry [much laughter from the audience].

“So there is absolutely no prospect of the BBC being abolished.”

He conceded that the reaction was conditioned by the “difficult decision” over transferring the cost of free licences for the over-75s to the BBC. Referring to the BBC’s recent experiment in which people had to live

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Q

John Whittingdale: The governance review needs to look at the whole structure and the way the BBC is governed.

I see that both in terms of external regulation and internal management structure.

If you did have a strong unitary board, it would have an ability to act as a check on editorial judgements, which the Trust cannot do because it is acting as an arbiter of complaints. Those are the kind of questions it is sensible to ask.

without BBC services for nine days, he said: “Had I been asked if I could I live without the BBC, I would certainly have said no.

“But Charter review is an entirely separate exercise and it raises more fundamental questions,” Whittingdale stated. “Let me be clear: there is no threat to the BBC’s status as a worldclass broadcaster, let alone an existential threat.

“What we are exploring… is how the BBC fits into the contemporary broadcasting landscape and how it might become even better.

“It is not my job to run the BBC….

However, it is right to ask questions, such as whether the BBC is sufficiently focused on providing distinctive programmes and services.

“To give one example, its highest spending service, BBC One, regularly scores lowest on the BBC’s metrics for ‘fresh and new’ content and has been identified in consecutive BBC Trust reports as needing to make its offering more distinct….

“It is also important to look at the impact the BBC has on its commercial rivals and, again, to give just one example, whether it is sensible for its main evening news bulletin to go out at the same time as ITV’s.

“So I can confirm my department is commissioning independent research into some of the BBC’s impact in the market on its commercial competitors.

This report will feed into the evidence base for Charter review.

“No one could deny that the BBC has made some bad mistakes in the past few years. Savile, McAlpine, Ross-Brand, severance payments and excessive salaries have all contributed to a widespread view that the governance and management structure needs reform.”

The minister announced that he had asked former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England Sir David Clementi to conduct an independent review of BBC governance and regulation.

On the licence fee, he noted: “Public support is not unqualified. The BBC’s annual report shows that it no longer enjoys majority support among the public. The BBC benefits from subscription and advertising in foreign markets.”

He continued: “It is also very important that objective research about public preferences and willingness to pay forms part of Charter review.

“The green paper outlines three overarching options for future funding models: a modernised licence fee, an alternative household levy and elements of subscription. All deserve careful consideration.”

Whittingdale said that he welcomed a number of the proposals in the BBC document published on 7 September.

He singled out increased investment in drama and comedy, greater emphasis on more distinctive programming and the development of an open platform to host the best content from museums, galleries and scientific and cultural bodies.

The BBC’s plan to invest more in local news, and to make its coverage freely available, was “an excellent idea” but “it is important that it should help local media rather than further undermine them”. The BBC “should... �

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Three

� commission content from qualifying local media organisations and news agencies”, rather than employ journalists directly.

He also warmly welcomed BBC proposals to invest in new services for North Korea, Russia, India and Eritrea. “At a time of greater global instability and a rising volume of propaganda from countries with little regard for objectivity and truth, the role of the BBC World Service is even more important,” Whittingdale noted.

“Having spent five years as Chairman of Parliament’s Ukraine group, I am very much aware of the need for an impartial and honest source of news in contrast to that which comes from Russia.”

The minister turned to the independent production sector, announcing that he was asking Ofcom to “undertake a health check of the terms of trade regulations”.

The original objectives of the 2003 regulations included promoting cultural diversity, opening up the production system to new voices and stimulating the growth of small and medium enterprises.

“I think those objectives still hold good,” he said. “But it is also sensible to consider whether the regulations are still the most appropriate for UK businesses and the viewing public.”

He noted that seven of the 12 biggest UK independents were now part of major international broadcasting companies.

Ofcom’s recent public broadcasting service review had expressed concerns. He noted that it “had gone on to suggest that the area should be kept under review. As a result, the time seems right to check whether the regulations remain the most effective means of supporting small independent producers in their negotiations with broadcasters in light of significant… changes in the relative size and strength of the different parties.”

Whittingdale encouraged all interested parties to feed into Ofcom’s new review and said that he was “open-minded about whether any change is needed”.

Despite another completed industry consultation, on the “balance of payments” between public service

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broadcasters and cable platforms that retransmit the PSB channels, he said that there was more work to do “to understand the consequences of possible change”.

This would also cover the wider, associated question of awarding public service broadcasters prominent slots on EPGs. He confirmed that the Government’s response would be published before the end of the year.

On the European Union’s proposals for a Digital Single Market, he said that the Government supported the overall ambition because “it offers huge potential for increasing jobs and economic growth, as well as safeguarding Europe’s competitiveness”.

The proposals were first published in May and aim to tear down regulatory walls and move to a single market, instead of 28 national markets.

Whittingdale said: “Consumers want to enjoy continued access to their favourite programmes when they travel abroad. It is only right for someone who has paid for access to a subscription service – or even just the licence fee – to be able to access that content when on holiday overseas.

“I urge broadcasters to make their content more widely available and to come forward with their own proposals for portability, and how this can best be made to work for your industry… so we can avoid the threat of overly zealous regulation in Brussels.”

But he cautioned: “The issue of cross-border access for those based abroad is harder.” It was an issue of concern. The Government was pressing for more details on how it would work and about protecting copyright and content creators, so that “strong incentives for investment are not undermined”.

Whittingdale conceded, however, that the current blocks to legal access were a driver for piracy. “The more that the industry can find new and easier ways for consumers to access content legally, the less attractive piracy will become.”

He concluded by stressing that he regarded it as “a huge privilege to be the Government’s television champion at this time”.

But his supportive stance was laced with some tough messages.

[IS IT] SENSIBLE FOR THE BBC’S MAIN EVENING NEWS BULLETIN TO GO OUT AT THE SAME TIME AS ITV’S?

The Keynote Speech was given by the Rt Hon John Whittingdale OBE MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The session was chaired by Tony Hall, RTS Convention Chair and BBC Director-General, and produced by Andrew Scadding and Martin Stott.

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

30 November London Hilton, Park Lane

RTS Craft & Design Awards 2014-2015 Book your place now Call 020 7822 2822 or callum@rts.org.uk

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Four

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WE’RE IN DENIAL IF WE PRETEND THAT, CREATIVELY, NOTHING WILL CHANGE Report by Matthew Bell

Is US ownership of UK producers good for the British TV sector or will it undermine risk-taking?

Friend or foe?

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Paul Hampartsoumian

David Abraham

here is little agreement about whether increasing US ownership of Britain’s independent sector threatens or sustains home-grown production and the UK’s unique creative culture.

A feisty session at the Convention, “Working for the yankee dollar? Consolidation and creativity”, offered conflicting views, not only on foreign ownership but also on the surprise review into the terms of trade announced by minister John Whittingdale the day before.

A year earlier, Channel 4 CEO David Abraham had warned in his MacTaggart lecture that UK indies were being “snapped up almost wholesale and acquired by global networks and sold by private equity investors at a faster rate than tickets to a public flogging of Jeremy Clarkson”.

In his controversial speech, Abraham had called on regulators to “update and strengthen” the UK’s public service broadcasting system, which he argued had “created the best conditions for creative programme-making on the planet”.

Chair Lorraine Heggessey kicked off the Cambridge session by asking Abraham whether his concerns over US ownership of UK production companies had “grown or decreased” since he spoke in Edinburgh. She claimed that “65% of the top, most profitable indies” were now foreign-owned. “[My concerns] have not decreased,” replied the C4 chief. “We have continuing acquisition and vertical integration of companies.”

He continued: “We have a different culture. We have all worked in America and we all know that there is outstanding creativity there, but we do things differently here. The risk-taking ­appetite that’s built into the not-for-profit public-­service system is fuelled by our creative economy.”

Abraham argued that many of the US media giants, which had been hoovering up UK indies, were “saddled with a lot of debt. They have seen their share price come under a lot of pressure”. He added: “I know that, at the top of these companies, financial realities will come to bear. We’re in denial if we pretend that, creatively, nothing will change.”

“We are, through and through, a British company,” responded Tim

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Tim Hincks

IT’S ABOUT HOW YOU MANAGE YOUR OWNERS, NOT WHETHER YOU’VE A GOOD OR A BAD ONE same argument about an entirely UK-owned company,” responded Hincks. “It’s about good management of a creative business – I don’t think it’s a matter of foreign or domestic ownership. I have been owned by many different people and there are good owners and bad owners.”

Wayne Garvie, Chief Creative Officer for International Production at Sony Pictures Television, which owns, among others, British indie Left Bank Pictures, rejected the notion that US giants “want to buy British companies and transform them into American companies” as “nonsense”.

“In the real world that we live in,” added Garvie, “you’ve got to work with people who can take your IP around the world – you need to be part of a big, strong, muscular distribution company.”

Hincks agreed with Abraham that �

Paul Hampartsoumian

Hincks, President of Endemol Shine Group, which was formed by the merger last year of the two production companies, 21st Century Fox-owned Shine and Endemol, owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management since 2012. “We create content for our local broadcasters. It’s a fantastic ecosystem that has been so helpful in encouraging creativity.”

Hincks added that the claim that “being owned by major American corporations is crushing creativity simply doesn’t seem to stack up. We’ve been owned by many foreign owners over the years and it’s made no difference to our ability to create original British content.

“It’s a success story and people are going to invest in British success stories.” Other past owners of Endemol have included the Spanish telecom giant, Telefónica.

Another member of the panel, Nick Southgate, had run Shed Media Group when the indie sold a controlling interest to Warner Bros in 2010.

He remained as CEO of the group until last year when Warners acquired 100% control of Shed and rebranded it Warner Bros Television Productions UK. Recalling the sale, Southgate told the Convention: “It was the right thing to do. We were a listed company following an ITV share price down the toilet and so we needed a home.”

He added: “We had a [clause] in the deal that we would operate autonomously for three years, and Warner Bros was incredibly supportive throughout that three-year period. I think the danger comes after that period, when the inevitable integration starts to happen.

“My warning [to US owners] is: leave the UK creative people to do what they do brilliantly. Don’t lose sight of why you bought us in the first place – because we operate in this brilliant ecosystem where quirky shows get commissioned, risk is taken, these funny little shows flourish and eventually find an international audience.”

Low-margin UK production in such a US group, Southgate said, could be dwarfed by very profitable American production and IP-generating businesses. “The danger is that some accountant somewhere is going to look at that UK business and ask why it is not making any money.”

“I think you could have exactly the

A transatlantic misunderstanding Nick Southgate: ‘Before I left [Shed], I was a part of a regular development conference call where you pitched your latest shows. We had a BBC Three show and a new Channel 4 format, which we were very excited about.

‘We made the call to the new executive on the other end in Burbank… There was deathly silence and then, from across the Atlantic, came the words: “Nick, I don’t want anything with a four, a three or a two after it – I just want a one.”

‘That’s an absolutely true story and I think it goes right to the heart of what we’re talking about.’

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Four

QUESTION & ANSWER Q

John McVay, CEO, Pact: David… I’m a bit disappointed that… yet again, the two publicly owned broadcasters [the BBC and Channel 4] seem to be lobbying against the interests of small private businesses.… Would you give us an undertaking that… if Ofcom comes to a recommendation that the current [terms of trade] arrangements remain [appropriate], you won’t be lobbying for the next 10 years for any subsequent reviews or changes?

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David Abraham: It’s unhelpful to portray this debate as if we are secretly seeking to repeal the system and undermine the position of the small companies – it’s a misrepresentation of anything I or anyone has said.

I’m passionately committed, if anything, to improving the position of the smaller companies and the IP recognition that is at the heart of the terms of trade. It doesn’t mean that we should not look at reforming the system.

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Bal Samra, Commercial Director, BBC: It’s right that we think about the changing landscape… it ought not to be considered to be a loaded thought process to look at a particular part of the ecosystem. We should all be open-minded. It’s really important that the ecosystem of the UK does support new talent and companies.

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Nick Southgate: The BBC has already taken back everything that we gained from the terms of trade because you were under-­ funding our shows by at least 10%.

Q

Steve Hewlett, writer and broadcaster: Given that nobody is able to dictate to the broadcasters who they buy from, [the system] is self-correcting. If the process of consolidation leads

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to creative ruin, then creativity emerges somewhere else.

The broadcasters have the whip hand, don’t they?… On the terms of trade, can someone scale the problem? At the bottom, everyone seems to accept that small indies deserve and need protection… Big indies at the top do not get protection under terms of trade…

How big is the problem in the middle?… What proportion of C4 shows, for example, are supplied by big, powerful indies that still benefit from the terms of trade?

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David Abraham: [You need] to look at this over time. [C4 and the BBC] are helping some of the companies to go from small to medium and then from medium to large, so you can’t take a snapshot.

But there was a bulge of companies in the middle who became quite big but were still qualifying [under the terms of trade], so there is a challenge in adjusting definitions of what is and is not qualifying…

As to the “whip hand” issue… [broadcasters] are not in such a powerful position as we were and therefore there should be a revisitable framework.

Q A

How does US ownership change indies?

Ed Shedd, Partner, Deloitte: To say it’s about finance people from Burbank versus UK creativity is probably taking it a bit too far. I agree with Tim [Hincks] that it’s about how you manage your owners, not whether you have a good or a bad one.

Q

Lorraine Heggessey, session chair: Tim, you have had lots of owners – have any of them made any difference?

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Tim Hincks: They have made a difference… There have been different flavours and colours but, the truth is, if you’re working for Endemol Shine in Holland, your world is Endemol Shine Holland… If you’re creating and making shows, your world is largely that domestic world unless your show travels.

� the UK broadcasting ecosystem strongly supports risk-taking: “I passionately believe that this system needs defending but, at the same time, we know that it is under pressure.”

However, he continued, “the scale of the consolidated [companies helps] to foster the risk-taking of British creatives”. He went on: “Being protected can, in the right hands, allow you to take more creative risks.”

Channel 5, the smallest UK public service broadcaster, was snapped up

by US media giant Viacom for £450m in 2014. Heggessey asked Abraham if he was worried that more US acquisitions would follow.

“The Secretary of State has made it very clear that there are no plans to privatise Channel 4 and, equally importantly, he said that he values the remit of Channel 4,” replied Abraham.

A week after the Convention session, however, photographic evidence of a Government document setting out options for just such a sell-off surfaced.

Admitting that he was moving into a world of “hypothesis”, Abraham asked: “What does the world look like if ITV [is sold], if there’s a different settlement for the BBC and Channel 4 [is privatised]? Then, you’re in a different country and we really do need to wake

up to the consequences of all of those cards falling in that way.

“It’s pretty much what I said a year ago [in Edinburgh] and I still believe it.

I’m incredibly proud of what this country is capable of doing and we should really work to preserve what it is that makes us special.

“But there’s an omertà around being really honest about how different we are to the culture of American corporations.”

Garvie, however, was nonplussed about a raid on UK broadcasters. “You might find that there isn’t any change for the viewers, which is the most important thing,” he said.

“Isn’t the most important thing the way that it’s regulated – the fact that we have a protected public-service sector?” asked Hincks.

“What I do share is your passionate belief in this ecosystem that we have and I’m not sure that’s necessarily at odds with ownership and, even if it is, I’m not sure what you do about that.

We are now [part of] a global marketplace and these are the realities.”

The panellists were: David Abraham, CEO, Channel 4; Wayne Garvie, Chief Creative Officer, Sony Pictures Television; Tim Hincks, President, Endemol Shine Group; and Nick Southgate. The session was chaired by Lorraine Heggessey, Chair, Grier­son Trust and Advisor, Channel 4 Growth Fund; it was produced by Alan Clements.

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

John Whittingdale’s announcement of a review of the terms of trade under which indies and public service broadcasters conduct their business surprised the TV execs gathered at Cambridge.

Session chair Lorraine Heggessey spoke for many when she said: ‘We all thought that the terms of trade, for the time being, had been put to bed.’

According to producers’ body Pact, this would be the fifth such review in a decade.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced that he was asking Ofcom to ‘undertake a health check’ of the 2003 regulations, which are underpinned by three principles: promoting cultural diversity; opening up production to new voices; and stimulating the growth of small and medium enterprises.

Whittingdale noted that seven of the 12 biggest UK indies were now part of major global businesses, adding: ‘The time seems right to check whether the regulations remain the most effective means of supporting small independent producers in their negotiations with broadcasters in light of significant… changes in the relative size and strength of the different parties.’

Channel 4 CEO David Abraham welcomed the review. ‘We have called attention to the level of change that’s occurred in the industry and my fear is that, if we don’t have this debate now, then it might be that further changes

Lorraine Heggessey

Paul Hampartsoumian

Nick Southgate

Paul Hampartsoumian

What is at stake in Ofcom’s review of the terms of trade?

in the industry over the next 10 years [mean] the implementation of the [2003] principles will become more and more problematic.’

‘The terms of trade allow creative people and organisations to have a fair share of what they create,’ argued Tim Hincks, President of Endemol Shine Group, who backed the current system. ‘We have a number of small and medium-sized indies, which are covered by the terms of trade, and bigger, non-qualifying indies, which are not covered. It’s a simple mechanism that seems to work very well.’

Hincks questioned whether there had been any change since the last review that justified yet another look at the terms of trade. He added: ‘What would be a real tragedy would be for this debate to be used as a smokescreen to hammer the [smaller and medium indies].’

Addressing Abraham, the Chief Creative Officer for International Production at Sony Pictures Television, Wayne Garvie, said: ‘I don’t understand why you want to disturb, yet again, something that is working so brilliantly well.’

‘It’s the difference between reform and repeal,’ replied Abraham. ‘The debate up until now has been as if we’re saying, “Let’s just scrap the whole thing”, and we’ve never said that.’

‘If you break something that’s worked so well, you do it at your peril,’ warned Nick Southgate, formerly CEO of Shed Media Group.

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Five Report by Maggie Brown

Josh Sapan, head of AMC Networks, explains how the BBC inspired him to make shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead

J

osh Sapan was welcomed as “the real deal, one of the greats of American cable and the television industry” by his interviewer, Tim Davie. Not only that, the audience learned that Sapan was cut from a different cloth to most US TV executives because he understood British humour.

That’s germane because Sapan, President and CEO of AMC Networks, landed a 49.9% stake in BBC America (for $200m) in October 2014.

“We are cousins of the BBC, married into the family, a delight for me,” said the donnish-looking, New York-based cable veteran.

After a stirring opening showreel, spanning his acclaimed hits, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and the BBC co-production The Honourable Woman, Sapan added: “We now have the opportunity to do more and more.”

The Honourable Woman was “the sort of material we revere. It is a spectacular piece of television.” Creator Hugo Blick was sitting opposite him in the front row, drinking it up.

The session was chaired by Sapan’s British business partner, Davie, who is Chief Executive of BBC Worldwide.

Sapan lived up to his billing, if one judges by decibels of laughter. He also packed two (amusing and justified) comedy clips into the half-hour session.

First came a clip that confirmed that his Mad Men gamble had succeeded: a spoof Don Draper guide to picking up women. “You know things are going well if they are parodied by the mothership of parody, Saturday Night Live,” said Sapan with a smile.

This was followed by characters from the sketch series Portlandia bingeing on Battlestar Galactica to the point where one is sacked for watching the show when she should have been at

22

The real deal work. “That’s how we want to see all people behave,” quipped Sapan.

Davie claimed that, these days, “everyone is having to partner. Selling 49% of BBC America was not something we would have contemplated a few years ago”, but AMC was seen as an ideal partner for just such a deal.

That was because Sapan had led the transformation of AMC from a classic movie channel to its present incarnation. Davie hailed this as “one of the great, or greatest, transformations probably in television history”.

Davie went on to ask how Mad Men and then Breaking Bad had come about.

Sapan deadpanned: “Simple... you just choose a handsome guy who won’t stop, and a guy into crystal meth!

“I don’t think we have any magic sauce at all. We were probably a little bit

early into doing things that, frankly, the BBC had always done: pay attention and revere crafted, quality stories. It was zig if they are all zagging. The BBC does material for the wonder of the material.”

American television, however, “is a business of numbers. For the most part, the life expectancy for a show… is determined in two to three weeks.

“So we have a structural opportunity (because of cable’s dual revenue stream) to not necessarily have to get the audience – bang! – in the first minute of the first episode or first two episodes. What those shows have a bit in common is they really do build.”

Sapan added: “Matthew Weiner famously walked around with the Mad Men script in his briefcase for seven years and nobody would touch it because, if you read it, it reads quiet.

“I brought it to three people I trusted before we made it. They all went: ‘Way too quiet, Teflon people, no one will stay.’

“That’s a little bit true about Breaking Bad, also famously rejected by multiple networks. Walking Dead was passed on, too. So we went for things that were different.

“I put the credit for shows clearly in the hands and laps of the people I work with. And if I have a contribution to all this, it is in creating an organisation where people feel… comfortable enough to take risks,” explained the self-deprecating Sapan. “People love what they do, so they are working way overtime in their heads.”

Davie moved on to 5 August, when Disney’s ESPN pay-TV network reported a drop in subscriptions. This led to a

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

sharp fall in US media stocks, including AMC, as fears of cord cutting spread.

Sapan said: “It was probably a bit of an overreaction. It did, however, reflect some of the things in the current system in the US. There is more consumption of streamed content away from linear networks, which is not insubstantial.

And people have the means to defeat advertisers: they can bypass them on their DVRs. “We take all that stuff very seriously.

It is an evolution, in technology patterns and consumption, and explains our interest in owning content, as opposed to leasing content. That allows us to operate, effectively, as a studio.”

However, he qualified this by adding: “Because we are driven by the creative, if it’s a great show, then we will lease it.

But we prefer to own it if we can. We

AMC

Paul Hampartsoumian

AMC hit Mad Men

can then export it. Priorities one, two and three are creative, creative, creative. They really are.

“Frankly, what brought us to the BBC is the reservoir of what you own and… what we know is going to happen in the future. Our personal favourites are what inspired us.

“We talk about Luther, Broadchurch, Doctor Who, Top Gear. You guys were, for us, the godfathers. You’ve had the playbook for much longer than us and have shown that it works.

“So that is what we are doing: owning, adding channels around the globe, diversifying our business model.”

Sapan was then pressed for his view on Netflix, a client for AMC-produced programming.

His conclusion: “Friend and foe, and I don’t think the final diagnosis is yet in. Mad Men, Breaking Bad – one could theorise that the availability of past seasons [on Netflix] helped people sample [the shows], bringing them to the new season.

“There is also an argument that they could be the companion that eats you and you no longer become necessary.”

AMC plans to sell some shows to Hulu, as well as to Netflix.

In a consolidating media, asked Davie, was mid-ranking AMC too small?

“It is less critical by a long shot on the content side because – we’re a bit of a test case – we have had a great run.

And the why is because we have great stuff and the stuff has risen up without us being bigger,” replied Sapan.

He added: “You can’t dictate to people what to like, you have to have the show they really, really want.

“You had better be the people’s candidate. There is a truly democratising trend caused by social media.

“Therefore, you can be a small player and can strike magnificently and have everybody following you.”

Sapan pointed out that audience data worked extremely well on the marketing side. But “on the decision about what to make… others have tried to use data to say, ‘Good show, bad show…’ It’s been a goddamn disaster.

“You can’t number your way to greenlighting a show, and you can’t get the data that tells you how to fix a story.

It just doesn’t seem to work. Numbers are not knowledge.”

Josh Sapan, President and CEO of AMC Networks, was interviewed by Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Worldwide. The session was produced by Charlotte Elston.

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The Honourable Woman

I

The write way to make drama

t is the question that British writers and commissioners perennially ask: which system works best – the UK’s single voice or the US’s showrunner model?

Former head of BBC Worldwide Productions turned independent producer Jane Tranter tried to answer this key question with a panel of writers, who outlined their experiences to see how they compared.

She pointed out that, during her seven years in the US, it was not a subject the industry there generally debated openly.

First of all, Tranter wanted to address the curveball question that culture secretary John Whittingdale had raised in his keynote speech, about whether BBC One should schedule its Ten O’Clock News opposite ITV News at Ten. “Why British drama has got so strong since 2000 is because Greg Dyke, Alan Yentob and Mark Thompson worked

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BBC

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Six

Report by Tara Conlan

Drama is more important than ever before in global markets. Is the UK or the US writing model the best way to succeed? together to move the news on the BBC to 10:00pm so that drama could play in a proper slot where the audience wanted it,” said Tranter.

“The only thing I would say to John Whittingdale is that he must think the BBC is in such great shape that he can start commenting on something that very clearly works. There can’t be

anything about the BBC that is not working, if he can pick on that,” concluded Tranter to applause from the audience.

From there, it was on to hearing from Skins and Nature Boy writer Bryan Elsley, who runs Balloon Entertainment with Harry Enfield.

Having worked on the US version of E4 hit Skins for MTV (cancelled after one season), Elsley was able to outline the key differences between the UK and American writing systems.

He said that “a high level of organisation is a very big feature of the US model”. Elsley added that the “first time I worked in an American writers’ room, they gave me a Ford Mustang and a parking place with my name on it.

“It is a very corporate model, and writers are expected to be there with their pads at the gate at 9:00am every morning and they will leave at 6:00.”

He said that the main difference

between the US and British systems was the structure: the US version had evolved around the annual advertising market. An overarching showrunner sat at the top of a hierarchy.

There is more flexibility in the US than there used to be. Elsley said writers’ rooms still had: “a showrunner; someone probably called a co-executive producer, a number two; then, maybe, someone called a consulting producer – all these people are writers; then story editors, maybe”; and staff writers hoping for promotion. The showrunner would report to executives at the network.

He explained: “What we would call a script editor does not exist because the writers are skilled and empowered [to] take care of those writing needs, so the role of script editor is held by these descending roles in the hierarchy.

“The important thing to say is that the showrunner in the US model is effectively the producer of the show

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

– for all aspects of production and post-production and delivery.”

When Elsley was asked to run the US version of Skins within the traditional American writers’ framework he tried to practise for the role on the UK series. It was still a steep learning curve when “I got to the States and was handed my $16m budget”.

He added: “I was given a room and… told when they wanted the show. At that moment I did realise I was a little bit lacking in basic skills. Skins in the US was a very chastening experience.”

The show ran into problems with right-wing lobby groups unhappy about its depiction of young people.

Elsley “struggled with phone calls” where a myriad of executives would be on a conference call, some on their phones while driving.

“But I did think, as I walked away – and Armando Iannucci has proved this – that it must be possible for

Paul Hampartsoumian

From left: Gina Moriarty and Hugo Blick

British writers to exist in that [system] and not sink. In an environment where big production companies are coming to our country and hiring in, we need to be skilled for them to have confidence that we can be in some of the primary positions on those shows.”

The Honourable Woman writer, producer and director Hugo Blick is, arguably, akin to a showrunner, suggested Tranter. He is the first person to be Emmy-nominated for all three of these disciplines.

Blick said he became a producer and director out of necessity, because no one wanted to make his breakthrough show, the poignant BBC Two comedy Marion and Geoff.

“I continued to write, produce and direct, anyway. Because nobody else would do it in the first place, I did it,” he explained.

Blick admitted that this approach was not for everybody, and that he has a “compartmentalised personality”.

Therefore, he is able to juggle the different elements and take account of the knock-on effect on the production if there is an issue with the script.

“It helps with the whole efficiency of what I hope is a distinct, bespoke, authored Tiffany jewel for BBC Two.” But it comes at a cost. Blick said that before he starts work on a show, “I have to get into marathon training – literally, physically. It’s a huge mental demand for the period; it’s a six-month shoot… it’s a very heavy draw on your engine.…

Preparation is everything.”

Talking to the rest of the 300 or so people and 13 or more heads of production working on the show and sharing his vision with them was vital.

“Once I’ve given them the vision, what design does to this vision is entirely up to them,” said Blick. “In fact, during the shoot for The Honourable Woman I only saw the designer on the last day of a 100-day shoot. He was entrusted to do what he thought supported that vision. I’m not there to micromanage him.”

Tranter asked writer Tahsin Guner, whose credits include Casualty, Holby City and the GK Chesterton series Father Brown, how his experiences ­differed from the US writing model.

Guner said that shows that are self-­ contained do not necessarily need showrunners. Casualty and Holby City did, however, have a lead writer. “The closest we got to a writers’ room was story conferences, where, every few months, we’d meet. All the writers �

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Holby City

BBC

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Six

The joy of soaps Continuing dramas such as EastEnders are ‘huge machines and you are a cog’, explained writer Tahsin Guner, who has worked on both the BBC One soap and Holby City and Casualty.

He said that they are ‘constantly churning out’ [scripts], but working on them is ‘great training’.

‘You get to see something you’ve written on TV a few months after you’ve written it’, but ‘you have to pull the rabbit out of the hat really quickly – deadlines are ridiculous.

I’ve never worked so hard on any job I’ve ever done.’

He added: ‘Going through that process and writing to such tight deadlines… you can see what works and doesn’t work very quickly. You develop tools and tricks, you really do improve your writing. And the other thing is that doing those shows, doing someone else’s show, you still need to put your stamp on it.’

He explained: ‘Some stories are more difficult than others and you don’t have much time to do it. You have to do lots of drafts. The frustrating thing is when you feel like each draft is a first draft because things are getting changed… and you have to unravel everything you’ve already done.’

The key, he reckoned, was ‘choosing your battles’ when it came to challenging the notes that came back. You had to ask ‘which do I let go, because you don’t want to be difficult – but you do want to be a bit difficult – you want to be able to defend your script.’

26

From left: Tahsin Guner and Gina Moriarty � would be pitching ideas for the show’s continuing stories… which were then taken away by the lead writer.”

Guner identified a flaw in the UK system. He thought it was “absurd” that writers and the director do not meet before filming.

He said that if the writer and director met a week or two before a shoot it would help “clarify your thoughts on particular scenes.… They could point out things in the script that they don’t think are coming across, and you might need to revise that scene.

“It would save a lot of heartache.

Instead, you may end up doing rewrite after rewrite. You get notes filtered through from the director.”

In the UK, he said: “You’re kept as far away from production as possible.”

Guner added: “It can be frustrating sometimes not being in the meetings.

You’ll get a note sometimes saying that this is what this person said in this meeting, and you hope that your script editor defends you… and shields you from the more outrageous notes or the notes that just aren’t going to work.

“You’re relying on your script editor

to do that for you. You’re not in the meeting yourself to defend your script.

Also, because you don’t have that meeting with the director to clarify things – and make sure that you’re on the same page – you don’t know what they’re going to do with it until you see it in three months’ time [on the screen].”

Guner said that he had had both good and bad experiences working on continuing drama. This was something that Murdered by My Boyfriend writer Regina Moriarty said she had heard from other writers.

Her route as a scriptwriter, via film school and single dramas, had been “more nurturing”, she thought. “My experience was a bit unusual for a new writer because I went to film school, which was a great help to begin with.

During that process… I’d made a few first contacts at the BBC and so, later on, when Murdered by My Boyfriend was commissioned, I was one of the people they thought of.

“To have two single dramas [she also wrote Sammy’s War for Channel 4’s Coming Up strand] to start off is pretty unusual. But for a lot of people I know,

Paul Hampartsoumian

Bryan Elsley

Paul Hampartsoumian

Is BBC drama living in the past?

their first jobs are in continuing drama.

I know that [while] it’s quite a tough way in, it’s also a fantastic learning experience – though perhaps not quite as nurturing as the experience I had.”

Moriarty was on Channel 4’s screenwriters’ programme, which she said was a “great way of meeting people” and gaining an “introduction to the industry”.

However, she said that more writers’ schemes for “points of entry”, such as BBC iPlayer shorts, were needed to help new writers to get started.

Both Elsley and Blick wanted to give their final word to the topic of the BBC, and to defend it for its role in developing drama that could hold its own internationally.

“Everyone needs to get behind the BBC,” said Elsley. “Everyone needs to fight for the BBC, [for it] to become the driving force in an international market.

The benefits it will bring back to this country are beyond any form of measure, economically, culturally.

“If drama is to succeed on the big stage, up against Amazon and all these people with $500m in their back pocket on any given day of the week,

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

someone has to support our British industry so that we can stay competitive in international markets.”

Blick added: “In the cable environment, they look towards the UK… they are incredibly envious of the ecology we have, which allows me to bang a drum for BBC Two. Every time I’m in the States, they go: ‘BBC Two is the most remarkable platform for drama, it has an international reach’.”

He said that, although The Honourable Woman was a co-production with AMC, it would not have got off the ground without BBC Two. “We now sell that show to 52 countries – it would never have occurred without that platform,” stressed Blick.

“At this perilous time” BBC Two had to be protected.

The panellists were: Hugo Blick, Writer, Director and Executive Producer, Eight Rooks; Bryan Elsley, Writer and Executive Producer, Balloon Entertainment; Tahsin Guner, Writer; and Gina Moriarty, Writer of Murdered by My Boyfriend. The session was chaired by Jane Tranter, Founder, Bad Wolf, and produced by Hilary Salmon.

Although there is ‘a lot’ that is ‘great about the British way of making drama’, it does need to adapt, argued Bryan Elsley.

He said that one of the main issues was that ‘British television drama has an echo of the colonial service – it speaks to a time when fellows at the BBC… [would] basically, in another age, have been running a region of India. That’s what we need to step away from.

‘We need to step towards properly focused, budgeted, processed drama production, which can happen on a tiny scale and which, I would argue, has got to happen on a massive scale, too.’

He added: ‘I think we shouldn’t get hung up too much on processes’, but have a ‘palette of options’ and operate productions on a case-by-case basis.

‘We should have a needs-based approach: look at the writers, look at the directors and ask how are we going to organise ourselves here – what is the best way to get the best results? Allow flexibility.

‘It’s a kind of unspoken secret that many long-running drama series in this country are, essentially, dysfunctional. What happens is a kind of chaos of executives and badly conducted script processes, with writers getting fired and the constant first-draft scenario – where everything is a first draft.’

He concluded: ‘I think you need to look at what your show is, how many episodes there are, who are the central artistic, creative forces behind that. They may be writers, they may not be. You have to properly organise around that.’

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Seven

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ince taking command at Discovery Communications in 2007, David Zaslav has conquered the world.

The US giant now operates in 230 countries – and is still expanding.

Eurosport was added to its roster of channels in 2014 and the rights to the Olympics Games nabbed this summer.

“We are a global company and more global than any other media company in the world. We have more employees outside the US than we do in the US. We make more money outside the US,” said Zaslav.

At Cambridge, he was interviewed

by Sir Howard Stringer, the former Sony chief and current BBC Executive Board member. Tellingly, he described Zaslav as “enlightening and fearsome all at the same time”.

Zaslav said that Discovery’s European campaign, which he indicated was an attempt to “take Europe by storm”, was backed by an investment of $5bn.

This had led to growth of 15% a year for the past five years. “As [Europe] went into recession, most companies were taking dollars out, and local content companies and broadcasters were spending less,” he said.

Discovery’s Latin American and US markets, he added, have also enjoyed sustained growth over the same period.

Stringer informed Zaslav about the “murmuring, polite as always, about [increasing] American ownership” of UK TV companies at the Convention.

Zaslav replied: “We view ourselves as a UK company [in the UK]. We have true local infrastructure, with local people running the businesses. We’ve been here for 25 years.”

In August, recalled Stringer, media companies, including Disney and Viacom, saw their share prices plunge.

What message, he asked, did Zaslav take from this financial turbulence?

The Discovery Communications President and CEO argued that the market was unconvinced that old media companies were adapting sufficiently quickly to embrace digital innovation.

“The world is changing, [albeit] very slowly,” said Zaslav. “People are consuming content on different devices and they’re consuming different types of content – in the old world, we only

28

All the world is our stage cared about content and how it fitted on our free-to-air cable channels.”

Discovery became the majority shareholder of Eurosport in 2014 and the sole owner this summer. In June, it paid £920m for exclusive European rights to the Olympics from 2018 (2022 in the UK and France, where deals had already been signed for the 2018 winter games in PyeongChang and the 2020 summer games in Tokyo).

Both deals, said Zaslav, were, in part, responses to the evolving media landscape. “Sport opens up opportunities to put content, not just on free-to-air and cable screens, but to super fans of sports on every device, everywhere,” he explained.

Zaslav argued that Eurosport and the Olympics were a good fit: “For us, the Olympics aren’t every other year for

three weeks – 40% to 50% of what’s on Eurosport is Olympic sports, so you can follow the sports throughout the year; we can build the personalities and take [the viewer] right through to the gold medal.”

In the UK, the BBC has covered every Olympics since the early days of TV. “You’re going to have to find ways to satisfy a British audience,” pointed out Stringer. “Are you going to brand it Discovery? Are you going to license chunks of it? Are you going to give us the 50km walk and hope we’re happy?”

“We intend not only to fully comply but to over-deliver on the free-to-air commitment [for] each country,” responded Zaslav.

“In some markets, we will sell the Olympics in order to meet the free-toair requirements, but, in those cases,

QUESTION & ANSWER

Report by Matthew Bell

David Zaslav explained to the RTS how he turned Discovery Communications into a truly international giant

Q

Toby Syfret, Head of TV research at Enders Analysis: Is your vision of the way that sport will work for Discovery one that… doesn’t get into the extremes of premium content?

A

David Zaslav: At least for now, our view is that we can have a hell of a business with Eurosport and not play that extreme bidding game for… football here in the UK or throughout Europe.

Now, that does not mean that – selectively – we might not opportunistically pick it up but…. in a lot of markets, where all the dollars have gone to football, the cost of the other sports… [has] only gone up very modestly.… Our mission is everything but football.

Q

Paul Hampartsoumian

Kate Bulkley, journalist: You came in to bid for Channel 5 – do you regret that you didn’t get it? Would you be interested in looking at another UK broadcaster, perhaps ITV?

we’ll probably partner up. In some cases, we’ll take it all ourselves and put it on our free-to-air or cable channel.”

Zaslav identified the Murdochs – Rupert, James and Lachlan – as his main media rivals: “I think we see the world the same [and take] a fully global approach. I spend more than half my time outside the US,” he said, “and when I look to my right I often see 21st Century Fox. It has a lot of ambition internationally and it is patient, like we are.

“There is a group of media companies saying, ‘I’ll make short-term numbers, I’ll cut where I need to, and I’ll make it work and we’ll get through this storm.’ Our strategy is: let’s invest more; we’ll make less but [we] will be a stronger, more compelling company, with better IP, that people are watching

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

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David Zaslav: We don’t comment on what we bid on, but if media assets become available – and our number-one priority is international expansion, Latin

WE SEE THE WORLD THE SAME [AS 21ST CENTURY FOX]… IT HAS A LOT OF AMBITION INTERNATIONALLY AND IT IS PATIENT, LIKE WE ARE on more platforms three to five years from now.”

Stringer asked Zaslav whether he was “anxious or excited” about the new kids on the block – Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV. “All these things are

America and Europe being front and centre – then we [will] look at them….

For us, right now, we think we can have double-digit, sustainable growth internationally with the hand we have.

The question[s] for us [would be]: does this help us strategically; is this important content for the future; and can we grow faster?…

We expect to be deploying more capital for acquisitions in the years ahead and if there was a channel available here in the UK… we would probably look.

Q

Lorraine Heggessey, Chair, Grierson Trust: You recently started acquiring content companies, having always primarily been a platform operator. What’s the strategic significance of that and are you intending to acquire more content production?

A

David Zaslav: The one area that we haven’t had a lot of experience with… is scripted… So the idea of buying All3Media was quite appealing – we did it with Liberty Global, so we own it 50:50… and we bought Sam Mendes’s company [Neal Street Productions] recently.

So the idea [is to] own some additional content… [and have] access to what I would call an “IP farm” and an ability to have scripted grow under some experienced leadership that really understands [how] to develop it.

great,” replied Zaslav, “but the thing we’ve got to remember, and I don’t mean to be pejorative, but, to overstate the case: [they’re] just devices. It’s our content that makes [them] come alive.

“Content needs to be curated,” said Zaslav, who dismissed the fashion for offering customers thousands of titles as, in effect, “zero” choice. “We, as an industry, have to brand the content and the shows, and have our viewers tell us what’s the best content – and I think the best platform for that is still basically free-to-air television because that [ensures] the survival of the fittest content.”

David Zaslav, President and CEO of Discovery Communications, was interviewed by Sir Howard Stringer. The session was produced by Nicholas Jacobs and Clare Sillery.

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Eight

y From left: Pat Younge and Kevin Lygo

How to run a hit factory

T

his debate directed a timely spotlight on the different models of running television studios in the UK and the US – the pros and cons of growing by acquisition or organically, and the issue of how to ensure studios are successful, both financially and as creative hubs.

The panel had an added piquancy, thanks to the inclusion of Peter Salmon, recently appointed Director of the newly formed BBC Studios, an apparently opaque entity, the sheer size of which could make it an industry game changer.

All3Media’s Jane Turton outlined the “highly federal business model of run­ ning the 20 independent companies” that comprise her company. Although it is now owned by Discovery Commu­ nications (whose CEO, David Zaslav, had described All3 as an “IP farm” in the preceding session) and Liberty Media, creative autonomy remained crucial to its success, she said.

“I’d love to pretend that I had some­ thing to do with the development of Gogglebox. I didn’t, but Stephen Lambert and his business did. We employ people

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Report by Maggie Brown

Four very different studio bosses are challenged

by Pat Younge, former head of BBC Production, to explain their working methods who are entrepreneurial. We make no apology for the fact that we are running a business. We don’t slavishly follow profit – far from it – but profit is an important part of our world.”

Quizzed on the benefits of federalism, she explained: “They are left to get on with their jobs. That’s what they want to do. To our mind, there is absolutely no point in someone in the centre sec­ ond guessing the creative development production process. The [producers] are brilliantly good at doing it.”

But she bridled at the suggestion from chair Pat Younge that the central team she runs might be seen as just an

overhead. “Support, strategy, we do some unexciting things, such as IT and HR, but we do far more than that,” coun­ tered Turton. “We are creative, helping to acquire and start up the new entities.”

Salmon said that, in his task of creat­ ing BBC Studios, it was important to preserve core BBC values, high stand­ ards and traditions across the widest range of genres. The well-established production bases in Bristol, Belfast, Glasgow, Greater Manchester, Cardiff and Birmingham offered “a unique creative footprint, across the UK. We are just about the only programme-­ making body working for one broad­ caster. That is a strength.”

He confirmed that children’s televi­ sion production would remain outside of BBC Studios, which will become part of commercial unit BBC Worldwide.

Children’s “is an absolutely unique part of the BBC. The BBC commissions 95% of all original children’s production. It has got to move into a new on-demand world pretty sharpish.”

Traditional strengths, led by “factual programming (including science and natural history) is going to be at the heart of what we do.… There is a real

Michael Edelstein virtue in holding on to as much depth and range. Where did Top Gear come from? From the factual features department in Birmingham.”

As for generating hits, he said: “We want to create the big new entertain­ ment [format] from in-house. We are competitive. I’m so proud of Strictly.

That’s the perfect virtuous circle.

Strictly feeds into BBC Worldwide and back into the BBC’s kitty.”

Kevin Lygo suggested that ITV Studios was, “in a way, a blend of what Peter and Jane are talking about. We were born out of this huge production base designed to serve ITV in all its manifestations.”

Over the past four years, the focus had been “on getting our act in order here in the UK” as a place that encour­ ages producers to come and work.

Younge pressed him on how much of an inside track he had.

Lygo replied: “Look, it feels like a battle, it doesn’t feel like we are slipped commissions under the table. The production base had been run down.

So we hired more, and better, people, and started to build up the three main areas we are in: scripted, factual and entertainment.”

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Peter Salmon ITV Studios now supplies 60% of ITV’s schedule, and will hit 50% of drama, a slower build, next year. “The organic growth, if you remove the acquisitions, is substantial,” said Lygo.

“Internationally,” he added, “we have taken a big step into America, where we decided to concentrate and invest.

We were impatient to [grow and expand] quickly and we acquired a number of production companies. We could see lots of production companies available at all different sizes.

“We’re in that interesting phase. Jane is ahead of us by 10 to 15 years. We are doing the federal thing. We bought these companies because they are very good.

So, at first, we left them alone. It is only now, halfway through this process, that we are shaping what the business is going to look like in a few years’ time.”

He continued: “In America, you really do have to have proper relationships with buyers, networks. Buy a company that does, and then, through them, you can get into that relationship.”

Younge challenged Lygo about the risk that ITV would face when earn-out deals end at its production subsidiaries.

Could ITV end up with a mere shell? �

All pictures: Paul Hampartsoumian

Paul Hampartsoumian

Is BBC Studios all about cash?

Peter Salmon: ‘I think it is about liberation. I genuinely think that the [BBC production] business has remained pretty static. I don’t mean in terms of ideas or creativity, but in the way it has been run.

Its structure and organisation still feels like a top-down organisation [of] 20 to 30 years ago.

‘The analogy I would use is: we’ve lived with our parents for a long time, and there is a world of opportunity. We need to move out. We don’t want to be far away, initially. [We’ll] move into the basement flat, have our own front-door key – and then we just need to move around the corner.

‘Do what some of our siblings are doing, take our shirts off at parties from time to time, have a few drinks, stay out, explore the world a bit. I just think that we need to have a bit more fun. The world has changed. I don’t think we have changed enough.’

The American way of working Jane Turton: They move faster – that’s good. They ask lots and lots and lots of questions – we try to insulate our creatives from it!

‘You take it that this is just what you do in America. You don’t take it as a criticism, it is part of the job.

They are properly supportive.

‘We look [ahead] five years now.

We used to look just 12 months [when owned by venture capitalists]. It is a radical difference in the way you plan your business.’

Michael Edelstein: ‘It’s tricky, I certainly underestimated the fact that we speak two very different languages. Being an American, you have to learn to speak softer.

‘We have to learn that we are not going to change a culture overnight.

Americans ask a lot of questions.

Learning to listen is really an important part for anyone doing business overseas.’

31

� “Yes, I think that’s the job, to man­ age what we do properly. It is different in the US to here: you have to work on succession plans early, jointly with the people. If you ask producers what they would really like, it’s: ‘I just want to get my show on air.’

“An advantage is that we have the ITV suite of channels, which we should be using more effectively.…

We should give them access. I’d hate to look back in a few years’ time and think we really missed an opportunity there of developing our own IP.” For NBCUniversal’s Michael Edel­ stein, running a boutique, English-­ language studio based in the UK, the focus is on creating the best English-­ language content outside of the US. While he operates strategically, he said that he and his team were very hands-on, creatively. “I come from Los Angeles, and I always found that my studio partners [when making shows such as Desperate Housewives] could be very helpful.

“So we get involved in projects, sometimes from the very beginning, sometimes mid-way. Our goal [is that] every time we touch the con­ tent, we help.”

He gave a specific example of where his US experience had been harnessed: the new comedy-drama You, Me and the Apocalypse, premiering on Sky this autumn. The show is expected to perform well internationally.

“In the case of Downton Abbey, we set a strategy to distribute it around the world”, drawing on the company’s 17 distribution offices, which primarily sell English-language content.

Edelstein added: “What’s happen­ ing now, with globalisation, is that you need to make scripted shows that are distinctive.… And part of that is because there is so much. Scripted is no longer competing with what is on the air that night, it is competing against the greatest series of all time, which are relatively available at the touch of a button. That’s the challenge.”

The panellists were: Michael Edelstein, President, NBCUniversal International Studios; Kevin Lygo, Managing Director, ITV Studios; Peter Salmon, Director, BBC Studios; and Jane Turton, CEO, All3Media.

The session was chaired by Patrick Younge, Partner and co-founder, Sugar Films, and produced by Dan Brooke.

32

Paul Hampartsoumian

A

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Eight

Jane Turton

QUESTION & ANSWER Q

Jake Kanter, Broadcast: ITV has significant reservations about this big new beast [BBC Studios] in the market. What does Tony Hall have to say to calm your fears?

A

Jane Turton: I’d love to have as level a playing field as possible and an opportunity to bid for some of those lovely BBC shows.

A

Kevin Lygo: Well, it is a won­ derful organisation. But we haven’t seen a lot of detail yet.

Competition is only good. I just don’t understand quite what it is going to be.

Q

Laura Mansfield, Chair of Pact Council: How important is the continuation of the terms of trade for the UK’s production ecosystem?

A A

Jane Turton: It’s a very good thing.

Peter Salmon: The independ­ ent sector is pretty fantastic and there is a huge amount we have to emulate in terms of speed

to market and distribution. We want to be a thriving BBC Studios alongside a booming British independent sector, too.

A

Kevin Lygo: They are fine.

There is going to be another review – yippee, we haven’t had one of those for 15 minutes.

A

Michael Edelstein: Terms of trade are extremely impor­ tant. They get more and more people into the business, setting up their own companies. I think that’s what makes this environ­ ment so unique. People who have a dream, risk a bit to fulfil that dream… It must be protected.

Q

Mary Ann Halford, Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting: What about the reverse: the effect of you [the British] impacting on us in the US?

A

Michael Edelstein: When I first came here, in 2010, it was a world of 22 episodes of tele­vision in the US. It is very hard to main­ tain quality. Certainly, the British have been able to make six or eight really well-crafted episodes.

It has now caught on... the British authored system makes a lot of sense, creating novels for television.

US networks are starting to open up to the fact, which helps us sell our content into the US.

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

A

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Nine

Ofcom’s new TV champion

Report by Tara Conlan

A

Sharon White

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Paul Hampartsoumian

The regulator’s Chief Executive, Sharon White, described herself as a child of television in an entertaining encounter with Stewart Purvis

udiences at the Cambridge Convention have grown accustomed to Ofcom chiefs who either “don’t think television is as special as people who work in television think it is” (Stephen Carter), or who are not averse to regulating more of the BBC (Ed Richards).

So it was refreshing when the regulator’s new Chief Executive, Sharon White, in her first interview at an industry event since being appointed, appeared to show she was less expansionist (see box on page 35) than her predecessor and said those who worked in television were “super special”.

White was not intent on overt flattery, though – her comment about programme-makers came in response to a clip her interviewer, Stewart Purvis, showed of Carter telling Cambridge 2003 that they were not as special as they thought they were.

Purvis wondered if she agreed. She did not, saying she would call them “super special, if that’s a phrase”.

“It’s fantastic to be here. I’m a TV kid,” enthused White, adding that it was “slightly embarrassing to think about how much TV” she watched when she was younger.

“When I got to university [Cambridge], I didn’t know what it was like to work without having either EastEnders or another soap on in the background,” she laughed.

In an entertaining session, White said – surprisingly, for those used to hearing Ofcom enthuse more about areas of the media beyond television – that, at Ofcom, “television is really important”.

“This is a sector that is the second biggest in the UK. You can feel the vibrancy of the industry. It’s a pleasure for so many people. As a regulator, what’s really interesting is… that TV content is thriving hugely.”

White continued: “Who would’ve thought that, even two or three years ago”, telecoms companies would be setting up TV channels?

Purvis said he was probably one of the few people who had recognised �

33

A

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Nine � White when she attended the Edinburgh International Television Festival in August.

The Ofcom CEO said she had “had a ball” at Edinburgh. She made most of the key sessions, sitting at the back and observing.

She was surprised, “apart from how young everybody was”, by “how much the BBC discussion had dominated”.

Despite having some expertise regarding the licence fee – in her “previous life” in the Treasury, she was lead advisor on public spending – White had not expected the BBC debate to be so pervasive.

In addition to enthusing about television, White admitted that, since she began at Ofcom, she has become more of a digital devotee than many other 48-year-olds.

“I’m going to ask you a question Ofcom asked the public,” said Purvis: “Which one of these things that you use almost every day would you miss the most? Games player, tablet, books, mags and newspapers, radio, PC, laptop, mobile phone or TV set?”

“By some very large margin, my mobile phone,” said White with a grin.

“I have become one of those quasi18-year-olds who wakes up in the morning and the first thing I do before I check if my husband’s still there is I check my phone, Twitter feed and Ofcom alerts. I’ve definitely got more digital in the past six months.”

Purvis told her that pretty much everyone who saw White’s appearance before the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee was “impressed” when she answered all the questions with nobody passing her notes.

She noted to laughter that being interesting at a select committee is not always necessarily a sign of success.

Purvis asked her why, when the regulator had said in July, apropos the terms of trade, that “it is too early to assess the full impact of consolidation and we will keep this area under close review”, two months later John Whittingdale wanted Ofcom to “assess the full impact”.

White said she and the Secretary of State had not had a “direct conversation” about it, but had exchanged letters.

It was “worth going back not just to the bottom line but also the analysis”.

“We said in the statement that, on the one hand, it’s a great opportunity…

34

[THE MEDIA] IS ACTUALLY LESS DIVERSE THAN WHITEHALL AND EVEN THE TREASURY

there’s more money going into the system – if you look at 15 years ago, there were real issues about the sustainability of some of the indies [being] dependent on one or two big hits,” explained White.

“On the other hand, we also said that we’re worried about the lifeblood of the SMEs. At the moment, we’re not ringing the warning bell… but it’s an area that we want to watch.

“And, I think, on the back of that, the Secretary of State said: ‘I want to have a fundamental review earlier than we would have done otherwise’.”

She challenged Purvis’s assumption that Whittingdale called for the review because the BBC wants to build its international business and “to do that it needs as much intellectual property as possible”.

“I think you’re probably further ahead than I am on this,” said White.

She thought the Secretary of State “doesn’t have a pre-determined outcome”, and “actually, it seems to be an open process… I’m not going to be

drawn into judgements before we’ve done the serious work.”

Similarly, on the prospect of the possible privatisation of Channel 4, White said the broadcaster appeared to be in “rude health”. She added that it was “not clear to me that the question of privatisation is on the agenda. And, certainly, every time John’s asked on the subject, he’s gone out of his way to praise the health” of Channel 4.

“I’m not sure this is anything more than a hypothetical issue,” was White’s intriguing observation.

Responding to a question from the floor about Ofcom’s relationship with the Government, White said that the regulator felt “very much” independent from Whitehall.

She said that it was slightly ironic, as her husband – who runs the Office of Budget Responsibility – had been having similar conversations with the Treasury.

She argued that “independence stems from being evidence-based and the quality of the analysis”.

Paul Hampartsoumian

Sharon White, Chief Executive of Ofcom, was interviewed by Stewart Purvis CBE, Professor of Television Journalism, City University. The session was produced by Dan Brooke.

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Could Ofcom take full responsibility for BBC governance?

BBC

Ofcom must operate “without fear or favour because you live or die as a regulator by your independence, this is absolutely fundamental for us.”

After Purvis pointed out that few in the room were of Afro-Caribbean descent, White was clearly keener to talk about media diversity than her predecessors had been.

White said that, having worked in international finance and the Treasury – “where the number of Etonians around on the Treasury Board has been rather higher than it used to be and even [than it was when] I was at Cambridge” – the media “is actually less diverse than Whitehall and even the Treasury”.

She suspected that the reasons included the fact that there was “not a clear career path”. As a gender champion for the Civil Service, White realised that industries needed to find a way “to widen in a transparent and fair way the talent that comes in” by going out into schools and having conversations with young children to encourage them to think “it could be me”.

White also suggested that internships could be advertised. Responding to a question from Campaign for Broadcasting Equality Chair Simon Albury about why Ofcom had not done more before on diversity, White assured him that it was now a “big priority” for the regulator.

She argued that “we have a statutory duty to support opportunities in training and the economy of the industry” but said that “collective endeavour” from the media was important, too.

Additionally, White believed that there was a “compact with the licencefee payer” that society should be “reflected back in the programming” for the UK’s “cultural well-being”.

Former Luther Executive Producer Phillippa Giles asked her if she thought that “something mainstream” had to happen to improve the ethnic make-up of television.

White suggested that, with devolution and the increasing cultural diversity of people in the UK, the issue was “not just about programming”, it was about doing things in a “non-stereotypical way”.

This is a mantra she seems set to apply to Ofcom.

Who should regulate the BBC if the BBC Trust were abolished is a key question to be resolved during Charter review, with some suggesting that it should be Ofcom.

Stewart Purvis asked Ofcom CEO Sharon White about what she meant when she told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in July that she ‘would put a line in the sand between [regulation] and the core responsibilities of the governance function. That is not a responsibility that we have the competence to discharge.’

‘Why did you say that… bearing in mind that Ofcom Chair Patricia Hodgson, probably knows more about the BBC than anyone in this room?’ asked Purvis. He added: ‘It would be natural for Ofcom to regulate the BBC. Why would you not want to… given all the things that you do already?’

White suggested that there had been some ‘confusion’ over the issue.

Her first objective had been to ‘separate out governance or corporate governance’, where ‘you’re overseeing the strategy, you’re supervising the budgets, you’re appointing people’. This could only be done by setting up close to the institution concerned.

She added: ‘Where I start as a regulator is: where does Ofcom already have a good track record and some experience and where do we already have some locus with the BBC?’ The other area, said White, is where Ofcom is called on by the BBC Trust to examine issues such as its impact on

the rest of the market. ‘The question you asked is about where the line in the sand is,’ she observed. ‘The thing I would say is, it’s not ultimately our decision, but where I would be uncomfortable [would be] for Ofcom to be deciding the detailed shape and scope of the BBC.’ She said that, even in broadcasting standards, where Ofcom has ‘experience and expertise and a degree of comfort, were we to be asked to take on additional responsibilities… I would not call that a trivial task. As I mentioned to the select committee, the scale of complaints that Tony [Hall] is lucky to receive each year – 350,000 – [must be] compared with the 25,000 complaints that we get about the all the other broadcasters.

‘So, even in an area where we’ve got great people and expertise, it would be a big upscaling of responsibility and resources… the BBC has got a place in British public life like no other broadcaster.’

Ultimately, though, said White, ‘we’ll happily discharge the duties that Parliament gives us’, pointing out that former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England David Clementi had been appointed to review BBC governance and would ‘explore all the options’.

Despite White’s non-expansionist view, a poll of the audience interestingly showed that most people thought Ofcom regulating the BBC was a better option than either the BBC Trust or a new Ofbeeb-style governance structure.

35

A

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Ten

The risk to Britain’s creative culture Tony Hall warns that the UK’s worldwide reputation for creating great TV shows will be compromised unless the long-term decline in investment is reversed

By Tony Hall

T

oday, I want to talk about one thing: content, programmes – the reason we’re all here. In this country we have a really vibrant creative ecology of broadcasting. It’s a great national success story.

But the question I want to talk about this afternoon is whether one part of that ecology will continue. Will we carry on making content to the degree and quality that we do now?

I’m concerned that, in all the arguments and debate about the BBC’s Charter, in a decade’s time we might look back and say that we missed something crucial – a big trend.

And that big trend may well be the slow and recent decline in television production in Britain. In this job, and my last one, I’ve been a huge believer in the power of Britain’s creative industries. In my lifetime, I have seen the growth of British music as a huge global success and also the success of British fashion, literature, design, musicals, architecture, art, video games – and, of course, broadcasting.

Fewer countries are in better creative shape than the UK. There are not many industries where the UK goes toe-to-toe with the US. But the creative industries do.

The big question for us is this: can it last? There is a long-term decline in the amount of UK-originated content.

Ofcom’s review of public service broadcasting last year identified this as a problem.

Between 2008 and 2013, excluding sport, total investment in new, first-run,

36

Tony Hall

Paul Hampartsoumian

original television content in the UK fell in real terms – from £2.6bn to £2.4bn.

Over the same period, investment in original British programmes by our public service broadcasters fell by around 15%.

Pay-TV channels have made up a bit of the difference. Led by Sky, they have made some brilliant programmes, such as Fortitude, Critical and The Enfield Haunting.

But this increased investment made up for less than a third of the overall loss. Partly as a result, international revenues for UK independent producers fell in 2014, the first fall we’ve seen in seven years.

As the BBC’s spending has fallen, overall investment in original British content has gone down. Whatever the other arguments may be, this is what the impact of a smaller BBC looks like.

Will Netflix or Amazon produce the range and volume of British programmes to make up the difference?

Will they make the British programmes that aren’t being made?

I will apply a very British test. It hasn’t happened yet. Over the past few years, the volume of new UK content broadcast each year outside of news and sport has gone down by around 13% – that’s 2,000 hours.

In that time, Netflix and Amazon have produced only a few hundred hours of original content between them – across the world. Almost all of it made in the US, not the UK. My point is that these new businesses are unlikely to address the Britishness problem and unlikely to address the decline in original content for the UK. This is a problem for all of us, but I’m also certain that the BBC needs to be part of the solution. We are the largest single investor in British creative ideas and talent.

The licence fee accounts for around 20% of TV revenues, but around 40% of the investment in original British programmes. Each year, we invest well over £2bn of licence-fee income directly into the UK creative sector.

Around half that money is invested outside of the BBC, with £450m in small creative businesses. And here’s the simple truth, which I am saying not for political reasons, but just because it is true and hard to avoid.

Enders Analysis summarised it well

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

ANY PROPOSAL TO CARVE OUT BBC WORLDWIDE FROM THE BBC DOESN’T MAKE ECONOMIC SENSE last week: for every £1 cut in BBC television funding, first-run UK content investment goes down by at least 49p.

In other words, the market would replace only half of lost licence-fee investment.

This raw fact means that we have to organise ourselves better in order to meet the challenge of British content at a time of greater and greater competition.

So the first thing that we need is a secure BBC. And that starts with our funding settlement. The budget agreement that we have with the Chancellor and Secretary of State delivers that – though it will not be without its challenges and painful choices.

Inevitably, we’ll have to either close or reduce some services. It’s tough, but, with all that said, we welcome the Government’s commitment to stick to the agreement.

By itself, though, the agreement won’t restore the fall in original British content, let alone allow it to grow.

That’s why we think the Government’s option for a household fee merits further consideration, because it could bring new investment and safeguard the BBC’s support for the creative economy for the long term.

That’s why, for me, reforming the BBC to be a leaner, simpler organisation, a

FOR EVERY £1 CUT IN BBC TV FUNDING, FIRSTRUN UK CONTENT INVESTMENT GOES DOWN

BY AT LEAST 49P

process I began in July, is so important.

That’s why I also want to open the BBC to become – even more – Britain’s creative partner, to become a platform for this country’s incredible talent.

We rely on the independent sector for some of our best-loved programmes – from Happy Valley to Poldark. Our partners come in all shapes and sizes.

But the market has changed. At the top end, there are big, mature companies reaping the rewards of global success.

But for some smaller companies, business remains difficult in a tough economic environment.

And we want to help. To add to some of the things we’re already doing. But we also need to keep the BBC itself as one of the world’s great programme makers, able to compete on the global stage.

Look at some of the recent deals.

Netflix securing the rights to make the biopic, The Crown – £100m apparently – and Amazon signing the Top Gear team for a reported £160m.

The cost of the best content is growing. So, if we want to continue to create great programmes and experiences for audiences, we need to be able to choose the best ideas – from both indies and in-house.

For that to be a real choice, we have to have a thriving in-house team. That’s what motivates our proposals to create BBC Studios.

And it brings a second benefit – for in-house shows, we own the rights to that intellectual property. This means that all the commercial returns are put back into the BBC. This means we can invest more in programmes.

Owning intellectual property allows the BBC to innovate. We couldn’t have launched iPlayer – or BBC Store next month – without that critical mass of programmes made by the BBC as a starting point. And it will continue to be vital as we develop new platforms and services.

The creation of BBC Studios is an essential part of our strategy. BBC Studios will have the values and quality of the BBC – a mission to inspire audiences at home and around the world with bold British creativity.

It will find and nurture the next generation of British on-screen and backstage talent in drama, comedy, science, natural history and more. �

37

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Ten

Q A

A

Jane Martinson: So it is not about saving money?

QUESTION & ANSWER Q

Jane Martinson: I’d like to take you back to that day in July when the Secretary of State called you and said: “I am going to take £700m from your budget.” Do you think you played it right over the next few days?

A

Tony Hall: I made it absolutely clear what a £700m impost on the BBC from 2017 would mean.…

We had a series of meetings, one with the Chancellor and the Secretary of State and the Cabinet Secretary, where I outlined what it would mean.…

On the Friday [3 July 2015] the Chancellor said, “Come and see me” and we went through a list of things.

What we had to weigh up then was that we had a licence fee aligned to CPI. That’s something I feel is really important. [Also] phasing in of the over-75s’ licence fees over a couple of years. The Chancellor understood the pressure we were under. [Plus] an end to top slicing the licence fee to pay £150m for broadband roll-out… and modernisation of the licence fee within a year.

Those are big things to have got.…

This is a better deal than the one in 2010 by a long chalk.

Q

Jane Martinson: You talked in your speech about hoping that they’ll stick to the agreement.

Did you get a commitment that increases in the licence fee would be linked to inflation?

A

Tony Hall: Yes, barring one thing: if there is a major change in the scope or scale of the BBC.

ping doing local radio or something like that.

Q

Jane Martinson: Do you think that John Whittingdale was stupid to have mentioned moving the BBC’s Ten O’clock News?

A

Tony Hall: He’s Secretary of State, he can say what he wants… The most important voices here are the audiences’. The audiences at 10:00pm for our news are really, really strong. It works and I therefore don’t see why you would want to play around with that.

But [with] the process that the Green Paper has set going… it is really important for us to demonstrate that we are distinctive and that [program­ mes] have a BBC quality to them.

When you see Charlotte Moore’s ideas for BBC One this autumn and winter, you’ll say that this is a BBC One that we can be really proud of.

Q A

Jane Martinson: Is it right to put The Voice against The X Factor?

Tony Hall: I believe in The Voice…

The competitive Saturday-night schedule has always been a feature of BBC and ITV. Audiences are well served by our successful broadcasting ecology… We have something here [in the UK] that really works.

Jane Martinson: Are you clear what a major change would look like?

Q

Jane Martinson: Will the creation of BBC Studios actually save money?

A

A

Tony Hall: We all know what a major change would look like. It’s not moving the news from 10:00pm. It’s something like stop-

38

Jane Martinson

Q

Tony Hall: I can’t tell you how much. That’s what Peter Salmon and I will be talking about over the next bit.

Paul Hampartsoumian

Tony Hall: We will save money wherever we can… This is about the future of intellectual property at the BBC.

Q

Jane Martinson: You’ve been described as a brilliant peacetime general at a time of war. Are you up for the fight of the next 18 months?

A

Tony Hall: Yes, absolutely.… The reason I came back to the BBC when Chris Patten invited me… I knew exactly what I was doing… [is that] I really believe in being ambitious about the BBC. Questions from the floor

Q

Conrad Roeber, Prospero Strategy: The BBC already competes with social-media platforms for time, increasingly they might start competing with the BBC as service providers.…

Why has it taken the BBC so long to achieve so little in terms of personalisation?

A

Tony Hall: We are too slow in using data. That’s the brunt of what you are saying. I would agree with you.

[BBC Trust Chair] Rona Fairhead has also said that... if you give us your data about your preferences, we won’t use it to sell you anything. We will use it to show you the broad range of programming that is available on the BBC, and other content as well.

This is a huge opportunity for us to act on behalf of the people who pay for us… I am really keen that we steam ahead with My BBC.

Q

John McVay, CEO Pact: Can you confirm that the BBC is not seeking the removal of the terms of trade?

A

Tony Hall: Can I correct something you said this morning: we haven’t been lobbying. The thing that I absolutely want to work with you and others on is BBC Studios. That’s top of my mind for all the reasons I have outlined in my speech.

Reporting by Steve Clarke.

BBC

THE BRITISHNESS OF BRITISH BROADCASTING ISN’T SOMETHING THAT JUST HAPPENS. GLOBAL MARKETS WON’T TAKE CARE OF IT. WE HAVE TO

� It will be distinctive in the market.

It will delight in range and specialism, making the full range of genres and not just those with the most commercial appeal. It will operate across the UK. It will ensure the full value of ­BBC-made content is returned to the licence-fee payer.

But please note this, it will be vital: it will stimulate the sector, but it will not be dominant. There must be a level playing field.

We estimate that it will have a share of under 15% of the UK production market. And it will operate at arm’s

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

length. There will be no cross-subsidy from the licence fee. And it will be stringently and independently regulated.

Finally, in today’s financial climate, everyone is being asked to deliver more for less, so we need to have a commercial strategy where BBC Worldwide delivers as much as possible back into public-service programmes.

It’s what we already do – it’s what’s made BBC Worldwide so successful.

Let’s not forget that we have built a world-class and growing media business. It has a £1bn turnover, which gave the BBC a record return of £226m last

year. Critically, this has supported not only the BBC but also the hundreds of independents who partner with Worldwide in production and distribution.

But this model only works if BBC Worldwide is thriving. It is an indivisible part of the BBC. Or, to look at it through another lens: without BBC Worldwide, the licence fee would be £10 higher.

That’s why any proposal to carve out BBC Worldwide from the BBC doesn’t make economic sense. While every major global player is creating a more integrated system, it would make no sense for us to go the other way and break up a system that is delivering returns that are essential to support public-service programmes.

It would make it harder for the BBC to diversify its revenues still further. And it would diminish one of the best shop windows to the world for British talent and programme-makers – whether at the BBC or from independents.

Over the next few years, we intend to work with global partners to grow Worldwide further, taking advantage of the demand for British programmes and new digital opportunities.

Overall, we think that our plans will increase commercial returns from Worldwide to the BBC to £1.2bn over the next five years – more than 15% higher than the returns of the previous five years.

We will strengthen the country’s global voice. We will give our country’s talent and creativity a global stage. The Britishness of British broadcasting is under challenge. It’s obvious and measurable. The Britishness of British broadcasting isn’t something that just happens. Global markets won’t take care of it. We have to.

I want to see a British TV ecology in the next decade that is even better than it is today. That supports a high level of investment in a wide range of high-quality programmes and new digital content – home-grown for British audiences.

And which keeps Britain punching above its weight around the world and which keeps making programmes that we all love, enjoy and watch together.

This is an edited version of BBC DirectorGeneral Tony Hall’s Keynote speech. For the full version go to: www.bbc.co.uk/ mediacentre/speeches/2015/tony-hall-rts.

The session was chaired by Jane Martinson, Media Editor, The Guardian, and produced by Martin Stott.

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Eleven

Polls apart: did TV let the voters down?

From left: Faisal Islam, Julie Etchingham, Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP and Martha Keraney

D

id the broadcasters’ coverage of the last general election actually determine its outcome? This was one of the key questions asked during what session chair Martha Kearney called an “inquest” into how television handled the run-up to polling day on 7 May. Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg certainly thought so. He argued that there was too much of a focus on the possibility of a Labour/ SNP tie-up and this “had two very big consequences. One, it had a determining factor on the outcome.

“There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that, seat after seat after seat, this growing alarm about the SNP/Labour tie-up and the amplification of the Tory message, and the way it was

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Report by Tara Conlan

Nick Clegg locks swords with two senior TV journalists over the broadcasters’ coverage of the general election echoed in the broadcast media, terrified a lot of English voters and pushed them in a Conservative direction.

“The second, perhaps even more serious, consequence is that we now have a government in power that wasn’t subject to any meaningful scrutiny at all about what they might do if it were in power on its own. And that seems to me to be really significant.”

Clegg went on: “You have got a government that almost accidentally got into power. They didn’t expect it at all – they were never asked any searching questions… about what they would do if they were ever in power on their own and that is not healthy in a democracy.”

He acknowledged that “significant vested interests in the press were pushing” an agenda but claimed that, in the latter stages of the campaign, a lot of the coverage was “speculation… hypothesis, rather than fact. It was endless crystal-­ ball gazing about the future rather than talking to people about the decision they needed to make.”

ITV News at Ten presenter Julie Etchingham did not agree, saying she “could barely move for interviews trying to press the Conservatives” on the issue of welfare cuts.

Paul Hampartsoumian

“Similarly, Labour was being pressed on the issue of how much they might borrow. The scrutiny levels were there.

There were very hard interviews.”

Clegg accepted that the other parties might not have wanted to answer those questions and said this was “not an exercise in finger pointing” but he thought that “the whole media and political elite did become completely absorbed about discussing hypothetical outcomes that didn’t happen”.

In a pre-recorded interview, Labour’s campaign strategist Tom Baldwin said that it had been the Tory agenda to make broadcasters think Labour was “devoted to the Labour/ SNP coalition… because they needed to make us the risk”.

In another pre-recorded video, Downing Street Director of Communications Craig Oliver said: “Broadcasters

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

managed to persuade themselves that the one result that actually would happen was impossible. A lot of people who should have been reporting the election wanted to commentate on it.”

Sky News Political Editor Faisal Islam was aghast and said that these interviews featured “more spin from spin doctors.… I can’t quite believe some of the things they said… both of them, frankly”.

He recounted a story of a day during the campaign when he wanted to speak to one party – he suggested that the audience guess which one it was – about record employment figures.

“I thought we should be covering this a bit higher as a dispassionate objective numbers story, it’s not biased…. The phonecall comes, I get in there first: ‘What about those job numbers?’”

He said the reply was: “What do you mean job numbers, why aren’t you reporting Labour/SNP?” Islam went on: “It was a tactic… it was a successful tactic.” But he said that the other parties could have combated it more.

“In the one interview I did with David Cameron in the back of the coach, I got him to admit that there was one party leader standing for office in 2015 who had signed off a deal with the SNP, and that was him.

“If Labour can’t use that fact to fight him…. It’s not my job to do that. They didn’t play the game, if you like, well enough,” concluded Islam.

Etchingham thought that part of the reason the SNP narrative had “shaped” some of the coverage went back to the Scottish referendum. She argued that the broadcasters were not just responding to an agenda set by the newspapers or spin doctors.

Clegg disagreed with Oliver’s assertion that the issues had been drowned out: “For Craig Oliver, who I know a bit, to say that when… I know it wasn’t done intentionally but… basically, what happened was the massive amount of broadcast coverage devoted to the possible, hypothetical outcome of a Labour/SNP government was like giving the richest party in British politics, the Conservatives, hundreds of millions of pounds of additional attack-ad funding.”

The issue was “worth dwelling on”, said Clegg, because, “it had a determining effect on the outcome and it meant also that the government that was elected wasn’t rigorously �

Election debates: the way ahead The last-minute wrangling and politicking over this year’s general election debates must be avoided in 2020, said former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

He pointed out that, in the US, an independent commission ­regulating presidential debates had been established so that, ‘at the beginning of each cycle, it promulgates rules… which the presidential candidates respect’.

Something similar should be set up in the UK to ‘drain this whole process of the politics and the argy-bargy and negotiation and the threat and counter-threat that disfigures all this’, Clegg argued.

He said that what happened this time, ‘was absolutely farcical for everyone concerned... the whole thing was hopeless. We’ve got to take all that backroom, cloak-anddagger stuff out of it. I think that what you need is to have objective criteria as to who participates.’

ITV News Presenter Julie Etchingham said she was not involved in the negotiations for the debates but, ‘clearly, it would be far preferable to be able to concentrate on policy content and not wrangling over how a debate takes shape.

‘Whatever we need to do, it would be great to get it organised and done, so that there’s clarity about it, so that everybody knows where they stand. I do think they contribute an enormous amount.

‘There was great engagement on social media. And all of the debates contributed something really useful and beneficial.’

The BBC’s James Harding agreed that broadcasters need to make sure the debates ‘are managed properly and carefully in advance so that there’s not wrangling right at the last minute’.

RTS President Peter Bazalgette pointed out from the floor that broadcasters spent about a year of ‘sterile’ argument about the debates when, in the last week of the election campaign, ‘we discovered that we had a format that has worked brilliantly for 40 years. It was called Question Time.’

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Eleven

What did BBC Director of News James Harding think of Nick Clegg’s accusation that the broadcasters’ coverage, especially their concentration on potential coalitions, determined the outcome of the last general election?

‘Oh, deary me,’ was Harding’s first thought, when pointing out that it was his first election in TV. ‘I think that, if you look at 2015, it confounded the futurologists who said that television’s not the place where big political debate happens. Actually, it turned out that it was.’

He said that probably the biggest story of the campaign – David Cameron’s admission that he would not run for a third term – came from the BBC’s James Landale.

Julie Etchingham’s chairing of ITV’s seven-way debate was a ‘masterclass’ and Question Time’s pre-election edition from Leeds was ‘where you really heard from people what they thought and how they felt’.

Harding said: ‘There’s been a fair bit of “woe is us”.’ But it was ‘an extraordinary campaign’ and ‘there was an effort by broadcasters and journalists of all stripes to get at the big issues – welfare, cuts, the future budget’.

He added: ‘The fact [that these issues were] not addressed does not mean those questions weren’t asked. And every single political party had an interest in the coalition narrative.’

Harding said: ‘Clearly, there was too much “coalitionology”.… I think there are a couple of important reasons for that. We do tend to cover general elections with an eye to what happened last time.

So I do think there’s a big issue, a big lesson there for us.’

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Julie Etchingham chaired ITV’s seven-way leaders’ debate � scrutinised [about] what it would do if it were in power”.

“I bet they were continuously ringing you saying, ‘Why don’t you focus on the SNP?’,” said Clegg to Islam, “That’s the way they got elected.”

However, Islam pointed out that, at “Clegg’s manifesto launch, they were talking about how everyone knows there can’t be a majority government”.

Clegg thought there had been “so much bogus wisdom in hindsight”.

He said that, in the south west of England, postal votes were cast two weeks prior to 7 May. The Lib Dems had canvassed those people before and after they voted and they were level-pegging or ahead.

Things changed after a concerted, “well-executed” campaign from the Tories of letters, emails and telephone calls targeting Lib Dem voters about the “risk to the economy because of Labour and everyone dancing to Alex Salmond’s tune”.

The former Deputy Prime Minister claimed: “The effect of it was massively amplified in people’s living rooms because of the coverage devoted to that hypothetical outcome. So that did have a material effect.”

According to a survey quoted by Kearney, 46% of TV stories about the election were about process.

Islam said there was more to it than just navel-gazing: “You’re thinking – what did we miss in 2010? Let’s nail it in 2015. There’s a little bit of that.

“There is no crystal ball. You can extrapolate past patterns and predict them forward. That does not mean that analysing trends… is bad or wrong.

All parties were doing it. Our job is not

ITV

Election 2015: the BBC version

to predict… but, if you like, to map out the contours of what’s changing.”

However, he added: “A little bit more humility is probably required, and an admission that we can’t actually predict the future.”

That was something Clegg did agree with: “Broadcasting is not soothsaying.”

He went on: “I accept that newspapers have an axe to grind. Particularly at the moment, we’ve got some big vested interests in Britain where a preponderance are… right of centre… but broadcasters at election time are surely beyond everything else.

“They are there to scrutinise, interrogate, challenge politicians, to draw out for the public what the truth is… not to judge your own success on whether you got some hypothetical assumption about the future right. The future is unknowable and it’s so odd that people are now beating themselves up for having discovered that the future is not a fact until it happens.”

Even so, Clegg admitted that “everyone got swept up…. I’m just saying that… for one reason or another, the speculation on that particular outcome only helped one particular party to the exclusion of the others.”

And he concluded that politicians had to change how they campaign, too: “We are talking to ourselves in an echo chamber, where politics is becoming entertainment.”

The panellists were: the Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP; Julie Etchingham, Presenter, ITV News; and Faisal Islam, Political Editor, Sky News. The session was chaired by Martha Kearney, Presenter, The World at One, and produced by Ian Katz.

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Twelve

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Smart apps for mobiles

oday, there is more power in your pocket than in Buzz Aldrin’s wildest dreams, thanks to the rise and rise of the smartphone. This was the starting point for a high-speed peek at how mobiles are changing and building on television content, from potentially enriching natural history programmes to explaining magic tricks.

Report by Maggie Brown Spencer Kelly, the engaging presenter of Click, the BBC’s weekly technology show, kicked off his talk by noting the ambivalence broadcasters currently felt about the second screen: the mobile phone could be a distraction, but it could be an enabler, too.

The key point is that smartphones come fitted with video cameras, so producers are inviting people to interact and send them user-generated content.

But smartphones and larger tablets also act as a second, rival, screen. As Kelly riffed: “It is changing the way we make our programmes because of this distraction… If we lose the audience’s attention for a second, they are not watching our programmes on TV.” The most common effect of this effort to keep viewers’ attention is on how programmes are edited. “Ever more recaps, more trails, more throw-­ forwards. We are worried that the audience are not paying attention, so we have to remind them every few minutes,” he noted.

But another, more sophisticated, way under development is to marry television storytelling techniques with the camera technology on smart­phones, to create immersive content.

This is now leading to experiments in virtual reality, marrying 360°, 3D shooting of scenes with ways to play out sequences via two lenses (“otherwise known as ‘strap the phone to your head’ in a helmet”, said Kelly). As you move your head, the world moves with it.

He referred to head sets such as the Oculus Rift and Samsung 6 Gear VR, which turn the smartphone into a portable virtual reality system.

One leading example this year has been an adaptation at London’s National History Museum of Sir David Attenborough’s First Life, the RTS volunteer swimming with extinct species BBC Two series that animates

Click presenter Spencer Kelly gave RTS delegates a taste of how broadcasters might use mobiles to enhance the TV experience

ian rtsoum ampa Paul H

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

fossils of extinct, ocean-dwelling species, using the Samsung 6 phone.

Phil Harper, Creative Director of Alchemy VR, which made First Life and the National History Museum experience, explained how it was done. He first tried – and discarded – a video-gaming format.

“When we heard about mobile we completely changed our tactics. By rendering the whole sequence out like a film, we create one image and wrap it around people’s heads,” he said. “If you do that twice, so that you have a spherical ball, one for the right eye, one for the left, you create a spherical, three-dimensional film.”

Asked about the challenges, he said: “The artists who make these [CGI] scenes are completely used to dressing the set or the frame. And everything that isn’t in frame is a disaster zone, it’s like a stage in the theatre, the mess is [offstage] on the side.

But now, you have to make it look nice everywhere.

“We have used movement sparingly.

Don’t do anything the audience can’t predict, so don’t jog them to the left or right [as users may feel nauseous]. The best subject matter, so far, is under the water or doing things that you simply can’t do in real life. You couldn’t dive in an ocean 500 million years ago.”

Volunteer Hannah Webster, who took to the stage to watch the First Life experience, reported back to the audience: “I was under the water with David Attenborough, which was great. It is quite unnerving because there is nowhere to go.”

Kelly moved on to sound effects for the helmets: as you move your head, the audio does, too. Richard Taylor, bearing the splendid title Virtual Reality Futurologist at BBC R&D, demonstrated it with a Radio 3 orchestral broadcast, recorded with extra microphones “so that we can mix it based on how you are looking around”.

BBC Director-General Tony Hall was duly kitted out with a headset and audio track to take him into the middle of an orchestra in the conductor’s position.

Taylor said: “The experience of standing where the conductor should be is not something you ever get to enjoy, normally. A really important part of it is getting the �

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Twelve A

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Thirteen

� sound of how it would be.” As the conductor brings in the different sections of the orchestra, the user turns to them and their musical contribution comes to the fore.

“Big cello sound, brass has just come in, double bass playing really beautifully, these cellos are just gorgeous,” Hall observed happily, momentarily lost in another world. “Fabulous experience.”

Paul Hampartsoumian

about magic. For me, I got into magic when I wrote to Johnny Ball with my stuff and enclosed a stamped addressed envelope.

“This is the modern version of that, putting something on television, engaging with the audience, [then] asking them to take the step of downloading an app and engaging with it.

That is how future magicians are born and also other forms of entertainment.

“For me, the way of engaging with viewers, using the second screen, [is] the great opportunity to learn how a magic trick is done.

It is more interesting than just asking people to watch something again.”

“I have always BBC Director-General experiencing a conductor’s eye view wondered,” said Kelly, “whether TV We then moved on to what was spoils magic, with the trickery of using billed as the world’s first 360° magic different cameras”, compared with live trick. It was made specially for RTS conjuring tricks.” delegates by Objective Productions’ Owen replied: “I work in both and, Head of Magic, Anthony Owen, who for me, it’s the difference between film works with Derren Brown. acting and theatre acting. There are Owen said: “The challenge was to things that work better in different create a magic trick that fools you environments. I work a lot with Derren initially when you see it on TV. When Brown; there are things you can do on you see it in 360°, and download the television that you can’t do in theatre. app, you can see how we achieve the And things that you can do live with magic trick and you learn the special someone that you can’t do on TV.” trick behind it.”

As delegates left the hall they were He first showed the magic trick as able to collect Google cardboard headone would see it on television. Ben sets complete with a slot for whatever Hart, the magician, had orange consmartphone they owned. They could then download the virtual reality video centrate in a glass and a cardboard from YouTube to see how the orange tube. He covered the glass with the drink disappeared. tube, then introduced a collapsible But before they did, Kelly concluded magician’s top hat. He squeezed, this way: “We would like to think that turned the tube upside down, and we will be able to use the phone in a the glass vanished completely. really creative way to keep people’s Volunteer Sir Peter Bazalgette was attention.” then invited to strap on the headset so This session recalled the late Richard that he was able to look at a replay of Attenborough’s much-quoted adage the whole studio scene and the magiabout television: “We are, after all, in cian’s assistants. show business.”

“I saw precisely how the trick was done and I won’t give anything away, The session was presented by Spencer except to say… it was very clever. I was Kelly, Presenter, Click, with contribuduly deceived. You have taken the scales from my eyes and given me a tions from Phil Harper, Acting Creative religious experience,” he said.

Director, Alchemy VR, and Anthony Owen, Owen added that “all we wanted Head of Magic and Executive Producer, was entertaining content for people.

Objective Productions. The producers Some magicians tend to be protective were Simon Hancock and Peter Price.

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Report by Matthew Bell

Independent producers argue that plans to end national markets within the EU will damage their businesses

T

he European Commission is determined to tear down regulatory walls and move from 28 national markets to a Digital Single Market.

TV’s independent sector harbours strong doubts, especially if geo-blocking, which prevents content crossing borders, is outlawed.

In a film shown at the session – “TV without borders: is the Digital Single Market boom or bust for UK television?”

– the threat to indies was outlined by Gareth Neame. The Managing Director of Carnival Films, which makes ITV’s Downton Abbey, said: “[Initially,] we financed it by risking our own money against the value of the major European markets, such as the UK, France and Germany… the individual value of those major territories in Europe far outweighs what the value would be within a single market.”

Panellist Jörgen Gren, the European Commission Cabinet Member for the Digital Single Market (DSM), tried to allay indies’ fears. “Digital transformation is a high-speed train and the DSM is there to ensure that we actually get on this train, breaking down barriers, making better choices for consumers and ensuring we have a competitive industry,” he said.

The Commission is currently consulting on and assessing a number of measures, which it hopes to introduce by the end of 2016.

“We need to protect our rights to sell our property – if we remove geo-­blocking, we can’t do that,” argued John McVay, CEO of the UK’s indie trade association, Pact.

He offered an example of how his members could be affected: “Say, a member is selling [a series] to a free-toair broadcaster in Lithuania, which then puts it on a VoD service for everyone else in Europe to see for free. [This] will

From left: Katya Adler, John McVay and Jörgen Gren

Single digital market woes then damage the price I can get in other parts of Europe.”

The Commission claims that the DSM will create €415bn of growth in Europe, pointed out the session’s chair, Katya Adler, Europe Editor for BBC News – but did it have any evidence?

“If we are able to improve enforcement in fighting piracy,” replied Gren, “if we take down the barriers for the industry to sell their products across the board, if we help consumers to find paid-for content and if we expand the market, this will help the industry.”

To applause from the hall, McVay replied: “I welcome your comments on enforcement but it does seem to be conditional: agree to get rid of geo-­ blocking and open up cross-border access, then we’ll do something about piracy. The Commission should be doing something about piracy anyway.”

Antony Walker, Deputy CEO of TechUK, which represents the country’s technology companies, backed the DSM: “There’s a huge opportunity for the UK technology and creative industries, working together in a largescale market that is open, dynamic and flexible.”

He was perplexed that geo-blocking, which is “just a tool for managing and expressing rights across Europe”, was so high on the EC’s agenda. “We don’t see cross-border access as a huge issue.”

BT Head of Media Policy Helen

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Burrows was also sceptical: “Geo-­ blocking is the means, not the end. To protect the value of markets, we are still going to need some geo-blocking.”

One widespread fear, said Adler, was that a Digital Single Market would benefit “the big boys, and not necessarily the European big boys, but the global players”.

Gren disagreed: “The only winners of a fragmented internal market [would be] the big players – the more we take down the barriers, the better it is for businesses to scale up.”

As evidence, he pointed to Swedish music streaming service Spotify, which “had to go to the US to scale up, come back and now has sufficient clout to expand into most of the European markets”.

The Commission, reckoned McVay, should focus less on removing national borders and “get rid of local red tape, improve broadband speeds and make mobile data roaming charges cheaper – all these things would really benefit rights holders”.

The panellists were: Helen Burrows, Head of Media Policy, BT; Jörgen Gren, European Commission Cabinet Member, Digital Single Market; John McVay, CEO, Pact; and Antony Walker, Deputy CEO, TechUK. The session was chaired by Katya Adler, Europe Editor, BBC News, and produced by Denise Bassett, Nigel Warner and Peter Jones.

Paul Hampartsoumian

RTS delegates offer their view Nigel Walley, Managing Director, Decipher: ‘The platform is becoming more important than the country in the way we distribute TV… it might be time to start… looking to sell to multiple platforms across Europe.’

Ed Shedd, Partner, Deloitte: ‘I buy the idea that the Digital Single Market can expand opportunities but isn’t this a question about the timing of investment?… When you’re selling rights you’re essentially selling before you’ve made something, primarily so you’ve actually got the funding to make content.

‘When you’re in a Digital S ­ ingle Market you’re… saying that it’s a scalable opportunity driven by subs, which means the revenue is coming in after you’ve made something. One suggestion would be to look at that cash flow… and understand how best to ameliorate that potential gap in funding.’

John McVay, Chief Executive, Pact: ‘In the UK, all our budgets have deficits and the way we close those deficits is by pre-selling the rights to buyers.

‘If we can’t pre-sell, then we won’t be able to make [the programme], or we’ll have to make it at a lower price, which diminishes quality and the competitiveness of the UK.… There aren’t enough good platforms to sell to; I wish that there were more pan-European pay-TV or subscription VoD platforms.’

Helen Burrows, Head of Media Policy, BT: ‘How can you continue to have effective competition between platforms? As they get bigger, that becomes a risk both for consumer outcomes and for producers selling to those platforms.

‘How do you continue to enable regional players [to prosper] so that there is diversity across Europe? How do you [guarantee] the investment that produces the amazing richness and quantity of content we see at the moment?

‘The idea [of the Digital Single Market] is appealing, but the execution… is where the challenge is.’

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S

ince Jeremy Clarkson punched his Top Gear producer, Oisin Tymon, during a row over the lack of a hot meal, the problems of managing talent have been centre stage.

Former BBC Controller of Entertainment Commissioning Jane Lush said that the fracas distilled some of the key questions that executives and programme-makers face: “How power­ ful is talent, where do you draw the line on bad behaviour and is top talent really irreplaceable?”

It sparked a fascinating and frank debate among the Cambridge panellists.

When Lush asked what he would have done, had Clarkson been working for him, Sky’s Stuart Murphy said: “Hats off to the BBC. You can’t have a set of values that you live by and the whole organisation corrals behind and then you junk them the moment one of your presenters goes rogue.

“I phoned Danny Cohen to say you’ve got our support,” he revealed. Murphy thought it was interesting that no other broadcaster had criticised the BBC for sacking Clarkson.

Asked how he would have handled the Top Gear presenter’s escalating desire to push boundaries, Murphy said: “You’d probably want to have a conversation where he could save face, and you could save face.”

One option would be to give him a show where he wasn’t encouraged to say tasteless things: “So you’d probably, I guess, put him on a military history series.” Murphy said that Clarkson was “not someone we’d want to work with”, explaining: “We’re a family brand. It’s really important – people are paying for us each month, it’s important we reflect their values, as well. The discussion we had at work lasted, literally, 10 seconds.”

Murphy drew applause when he said: “You can’t just junk your brand the minute something with a huge pound sign comes along. It would’ve been short-term gain for long-term mess, I think.

“Who, nowadays, is happy with someone saying the word nigger? I’m sorry, but that’s not acceptable. [Clarkson’s] view was that it wasn’t transmitted, but, come on – people who use that word… there’s no need to say that.… Then, for him to be so tentative

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Top presenters, such as Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Evans, are TV’s lifeblood. But do they have too much power and are they overpaid?

Report by Tara Conlan

The trouble with talent

Danielle Lux about an apology and loving the fact that he was a naughty schoolboy….

Grow up, it’s a different age, grow up.”

Danielle Lux said that “talent are human beings” and they respond to “nurturing and understanding”.

She suggested that “good management comes from a great relationship with them”, but acknowledged that “there’s a moral line there. You can’t condone physical abuse, you can’t condone bullying.”

Lux, who, like Lush and Murphy, has worked at the BBC, added: “Of course, the BBC made the right decision at that point… he probably should have had a hot meal, but the response is not to punch somebody.”

If Clarkson had been on his books, agent Jonathan Shalit said he would “have had to defend my client. Privately, I’d have said, ‘You’re an idiot.’”

Shalit pointed out that a level playing field was important: “Some people are

Stuart Murphy very well known in the industry… senior producers, particularly at ITV, who were fired for bullying, and you can’t have execs fired for bullying but the presenters are not.”

Had Clarkson had the last laugh, asked Lush, with the lucrative, threeyear deal, reportedly worth £160m, that his team has signed with Amazon?

“Definitely,” thought Shalit: “I was talking to a very senior executive who made an offer to the Top Gear boys, one of the Sony/Universal kind of boys, and offered them a five-year deal. They wanted a three-year deal… so, probably, they are having the last laugh.”

But Shalit wondered how easy it would be for Clarkson to return to mainstream prime-time TV in three years’ time – although “he’s made enough money to go and retire”.

He said he admired Richard Hammond for his loyalty, but wondered if he had missed a trick, as he could have

All pictures: Paul Hampartsoumian

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Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Fourteen

Jeremy Clarkson “gone on to become a very significant mainstream presenter”.

For Lux, Chris Evans taking over at Top Gear was the “most potent example” of whether or not talent was irreplaceable. “The people we cherish are those who imbue that show with authorship.

That’s why it is hard to keep shows running without them, but it’s not impossible,” she said.

She added that shows could be skewed to adapt to new presenters.

Shalit warned that “anyone who thinks they are irreplaceable is very foolish. I always say to a client, never quit a hit.”

Lush said she thought that Adrian Chiles – whose career stalled after he and co-host Christine Bleakley quit The One Show for ITV’s Daybreak – “would agree with that”.

Shalit said that, if Bleakley had stayed at the BBC, she would probably have gone on to be “a Saturday-night queen”,

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Getty/ Murdo Macleod

Jonathan Shalit

and that she was badly advised. But he pointed out that Evans had form: he had taken over from Terry Wogan on Radio 2 and now “gets more listeners… so people clearly are replaceable”.

Is talent overpaid, wondered Lush.

Murphy gave an interesting insight into how Sky judges how much to pay “as scientifically we can”, depending on what the person is doing for the broadcaster.

“We ask 3,000 people how they feel about 500 names every six months. We ask them, do you know them, do you like them, are they on their way up? Do you want to see more of them?

“Some people say they know them, they like them, they’re on their way up, but they don’t want to see more of them.”

Certain talent and creators are hired because they get a particular subscription message across or appeal to those viewers who might switch from �

Paul Hampartsoumian

What talent really earns

Much of what politicians and newspapers say about the cost of talent is ‘hypocritical and untrue’, claimed agent Jonathan Shalit.

Following a question from the floor by Broadcast’s Jake Kanter about politicians querying how much the BBC should pay talent, Shalit said, ‘I think politicians, most of them, sit in glass houses… [they] are totally hypocritical about people in television.’

He said that ‘talent should get paid more per day’ because they did not get staff benefits, such as pensions or job security.

‘Ultimately, all jobs are about supply and demand…. If you’re a quality piece of talent, you should get paid the best rate you can,’ added Shalit. ‘The reality is that, for most talent, it will not last that long… and their salary will drop fairly quickly.’

He continued: ‘If you’re non-­ scripted talent, then you’ve got to be liked as a person.’

He gave the example of Christine Bleakley. ‘Everyone liked her’ when she started at the BBC. ‘Then she moved to ITV and The Daily Mail managed to portray her as a very greedy individual.

‘The Daily Mail often writes about how much talent get paid.

People then quote what they read in there. It’s often not true. I know for a fact that the vast majority of talent is not paid that much.’

That prompted Daily Mail Media and Technology Editor Katherine Rushton, who was in the audience, to extend an ‘invitation to tell us’ how much they are actually paid.

‘It’s not for me to reveal,’ replied Shalit.

‘There you go,’ said Rushton, pointedly.

47

A

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Fourteen

� Freeview to Sky. In a crowded advertising market, “you need someone who short-circuits to your world”, said Murphy.

Lux agreed that talent has “a different value for each broadcaster”. Her experience before casting James Corden as the host of A League of Their Own was that Sky wanted to know who the host was going to be.

The talent are “the people on that poster who are going to reach out and encourage people to buy the box and watch the programme” and “embody” brands, Lux noted.

How to break new and more diverse talent is something all broadcasters have to consider. Murphy stressed the importance of channels such as ITV2, E4 and BBC Three for nurturing fresh faces.

He said it was not necessarily what viewers came to Sky for, although there have been exceptions, such as Karl Pilkington. “Even there, in a spirit of openness and honesty, we needed a Ricky [Gervais]. Everyone needs a Ricky to have a Karl.

“We have tried with new talent. I just don’t think audiences expect Sky to do that. People do go to some of the public service broadcasters for a longterm relationship. People come to Sky for a treat and a dirty weekend.”

Lux said there is a “hard dynamic” that makes viewers watch a new show because they love a particular presenter, but added that unknowns could be brought on by channels such as Comedy Central.

Shalit reckoned that shows such as BBC Breakfast or Good Morning Britain

48

ITV

Christine Bleakley

ANYONE WHO THINKS THEYARE IRREPLACEABLE IS VERY FOOLISH… NEVER QUIT A HIT were useful. They were ensemble shows with a guaranteed audience, so “you’ve got a better chance of giving someone a platform to go forward”.

Murphy said it was “embarrassing” for the industry that it was still working out how to encourage more diverse talent. Sky has, arguably, set the pace on diversity initiatives; it is incentivising production companies by offering faster meetings if they have “got talent that’s not a white man in his sixties pointing at something static”.

The panel wrestled with the question of why some presenters, such as Des Lynam, have switched channels and “discovered that they weren’t as popular as they thought they were”, as Lush put it.

Shalit said that even the – now successful – BBC star Graham Norton had experienced some issues when he moved from Channel 4 to the BBC, but the corporation had stuck with him.

PEOPLE COME TO SKY FOR A TREAT AND A DIRTY WEEKEND

The thorny issue of transferring YouTube stars to so-called “old media” was raised by a questioner from the floor. What advice would the panel give to new presenters?

Murphy replied: “Work out what your passion is, learn your voice and film yourself a lot. Then, if you do end up with a load of followers on social media, don’t be arrogant enough to assume that old media can’t help you.

“One of the conversations we’ve had at work is whether we blindly sign up people who have a great social-media following but, actually, don’t adhere to our values.”

He cited YouTube star KSI, who has around 7 million followers, but whose jokes are often misogynistic.

Murphy said that online media could learn from the values of the established broadcasters: “Actually, I think one of the reasons that British TV is amazing is that we have standards about taste, decency, respect, fairness and accuracy.

“I think new media talent could absolutely learn from that and should… have a moral responsibility to the next generation of consumers to give them the quality, taste, respect that we have on so-called old media.”

The panellists were: Danielle Lux, Managing Director, CPL Productions; Stuart Murphy, Director, Sky Entertainment Channels, Sky; and Professor Jonathan Shalit OBE, Chairman, ROAR Global. The session was chaired by Jane Lush, Managing Director, Kalooki Pictures, and produced by Samir Shah and Patrick Younge.

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

A

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Fifteen

Adam Crozier (left) and David Abraham

I

t was time to take stock. After three days of intense and stimulating debate, Lorraine Heggessey corralled some of broadcasting’s big beasts onstage to chew the fat at the final session of Cambridge 2015. Was television heading for Happy Valley or was the House of Cards about to collapse?

The panellists agreed that there was much to keep their chins up between now and 2020. “Television has got a great future,” said ITV CEO Adam Crozier, making his convention debut. “It is a constantly changing future and, yes, it’s got its challenges but there is a lot of opportunity, too.

“One thing that won’t change is the desire for great content. The key becomes who makes the best content.

They are the people who, in the end, will win.”

Who could buy the best content, produce and distribute it, were all important – but none of these would

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Report by Steve Clarke

Four television heavyweights predict how the future might unfold for them work unless the content was “fantastic”, stressed the ITV CEO, who has overseen the emergence of ITV Studios as a key US player.

As for traditional TV being usurped by online platforms, Crozier was sceptical. Yes, things were evolving – particularly “at the younger end of the audience”. But, provided the content was good enough, people would find it in the most convenient and cheapest way.

In any case, change would occur over a long time. New players were not going to replace old ones. “It never

Paul Hampartsoumian

All roads lead to content

happens, it just becomes part of the industry’s overall structure,” said Crozier, perhaps mindful that ITV’s 60th birthday was imminent.

“One of the things we’ve done better in this country than in the States is… they are far too expensive out there and they try to be a bit too King Canute-like and slow [the pace of change] down – over here, people have said: ‘If this is going to happen, it is better to do it ourselves.’

“We’ve all gone online and made our product available to people on as many platforms as possible. That is a very sensible thing to do because it makes it harder for someone else to do it as well.”

Would ITV consider moving channels online, probed Heggessey. “No, all our channels are available online.”

Further changes were being introduced to the ITV Player, now responsible for 20% to 25% of viewing to ITV’s UK channels, according to the CEO. “Our view is that a screen is �

49

A

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Fifteen

Does ITV face a US takeover?

Is ITV CEO Adam Crozier taking meetings with suitors, probed ­session chair Lorraine Heggessey.

‘When we started five years ago, we said we needed ITV to become a much more robust, balanced company. That meant not being reliant on advertising, but growing a very strong production arm and digital presence,’ he replied. ‘We’re well on the way to doing that. ITV’s value has gone from under £2bn to between £10bn and £11bn.

‘That’s because lots of people are doing a really good job in delivering that. We think we have a fantastic future as a stand-alone company.

Unless it’s escaped anyone’s attention, a lot of the consolidation is actually being done by us.’

Might Discovery bid for ITV? ‘I heard the comment yesterday about Discovery and ITV, and, in time, we may be interested in buying Discovery,’ countered Crozier to sustained audience applause.

‘It’s a small fact, but we’re actually roughly the same value as it is.

‘The world has moved on a long, long way. We’ve got a very clear future and we are very focused on delivering that.’

But if ITV did come under US ownership by 2020, Heggessey persisted, what impact would that have on the ecology of British TV? ‘I genuinely don’t think that will be the case. As a public company, we have lots of American shareholders today, including Liberty,’ said Crozier. ‘It doesn’t make any difference, because all any shareholder really wants is to run a very successful company. That’s what our job is and ownership doesn’t really impact on that.’

C4 CEO David Abraham added: ‘It won’t be Adam’s decision who owns ITV. He is running ITV, but it will be his shareholders who make the decision [to sell to the US].

‘Once that happens, there will be cultural consequences in the midto long term. To say otherwise is to be in denial.’

50

PEOPLE WERE WRITING OFF TERRESTRIAL CHANNELS FIVE YEARS AGO… BUT THEY’VE SURGED BACK � a screen and a viewer is a viewer”, regardless of how people watch.

Channel 4 CEO David Abraham was almost as optimistic as his ITV peer: “For us, it is very much Happy Valley.…

The only cloud on the horizon is: will the regulatory framework, which we’ve benefited from over the past 30 years, remain as potent to support that creativity?”

Did he know more than he was letting on about culture minister John Whittingdale’s real thoughts on the possible privatisation of Channel 4?

The DCMS was revealed the following week to be much more actively pursuing privatisation, thanks to an enterprising photographer. Or maybe Abraham was referring to the latest review of the terms of trade, announced to Cambridge 48 hours earlier?

It was, though, no longer enough “just to innovate creatively, we have to innovative technically”. Abraham agreed with his ITV colleague that British broadcasters had embraced online innovation, but more technological disruption was coming soon.

The Channel 4 leader was struck by News UK’s recent acquisition of digital ad upstart Unruly for a reported £114m.

“That whole world of how video is discovered in a fully fragmented and connected environment expands the notion of what a channel actually is,” he

said. “How it will find its audiences and how data will connect great content for audiences.… The way in which we, as an industry, collaborate with the next wave of technological excellence in the UK is a fantastic opportunity for all of us.”

As a platform operator, rather than a broadcaster, Virgin Media’s Tom Mockridge’s concerns were different. He, too, however, was living in Happy Valley, as Virgin was part of a sector experiencing “phenomenal growth”.

He said: “[We have] enormous strength here in the UK.… Put that together with the phenomenal demand that’s been created… [and] the ability to access an audience that has grown exponentially over the past five years.

It is going to continue to do so.”

There were challenges but, ultimately, creative people had more opportunities than ever before to reach audiences. “It is a fantastically interesting time to be in the sector,” said the Virgin CEO. Would channels continue to be the most important way of curating content on Mockridge’s platform, asked Heggessey. Or would catch-up and other VoD services eventually take over?

“The pie is growing bigger, linear channels remain very significant.

There has been so much growth in pay-channels in this country in the last five to 10 years. That’s driven the incremental growth.

“People were writing off terrestrial channels five years ago… but they’ve surged back. We have a combination, now, with various forms of on-demand.

“We’re constantly challenging ourselves and thinking of how we can make [content] more accessible.…

The beauty of it is that the balloon is expanding, overall.”

Was it frustrating now for audiences to find that a show was not available on demand, Heggessey asked.

“There should be a 30-day catch-up window,” replied Mockridge. “The good news is that people want to watch this stuff.… The demand is there, not only for everything that is new, but for every programme that’s ever been made that is accessible and producing a revenue stream. These opportunities are sensational.”

Turning to Tony Hall, Heggessey remarked that the BBC had experienced “another interesting week”. Where did he stand – was it a case of House of Cards or Happy Valley for the beleaguered Beeb?

“I actually think it’s both,” opined the Director-General, who always appears to be on the side of programme-makers.

Over the previous two days he’d been struck by two things – the need to ensure that creative cultures were fully nurtured and the keen sense of risk-taking fostered by the UK’s

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

AS LONG AS WE KEEP EMPHASISING THE CREATIVITY OF WHAT WE DO IN BRITAIN AND HAVE THE ABILITY TO TAKE RISKS, WE’VE GOT A GREAT FUTURE creative ecology. That word again.

Later, as the debate continued, Heggessey wanted to know if the British television sector talked up its so-called unique “ecology” too much. For now, she allowed Hall time to tackle his favourite theme.

“As long as we keep emphasising the creativity of what we do in Britain and have the ability to take risks, we’ve got a great future,” Hall reiterated.

As the conversation gathered pace, the mood of optimism began to be tempered by what was, arguably, a more realistic picture of British TV’s position in the global pecking order.

“I don’t want to talk down the indus­ try but, although we’re second [to the

Paul Hampartsoumian

From left: Adam Crozier, David Abraham, Lorraine Heggessey, Tom Mockridge and Tony Hall US], we’re miles behind. There’s a lot of ground to make up,” warned Crozier.

“Collectively, with ever more competition, we’re all going to have to get better at this and be more creative.

“A lot of the hits that are running across the world that came out of the UK are relatively quite old…”

If Crozier meant I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! or Strictly Come Dancing, launched in 2002 and 2004, respectively, he wasn’t saying.

“We need the next round of programmes to come through. They will probably be scripted, rather than entertainment shows, because that’s the locus for everyone,” he added.

Ah, scripted. Delegates had heard how drama dominates global content plays. Every genre appears to have its place in the sun.

Crozier wondered if Americans were over-investing in scripted. He explained: “There is so much scripted being produced in the US right now that it will definitely not all work.

Some of it is quite mediocre.

“Channels are looking to get noticed as they look to negotiate their affiliation fees. What they are really worried about is a big drop [in ratings and subscribers], so they are trying to stand out from the crowd.

“The problem they’ve got is that a lot of their business models aren’t suited �

51

� to scripted shows. That’s not how it works. I think there is going to be some fall-out.”

No one mentioned that, back home, Downton Abbey’s final season was upon us. But Heggessey did bring up the lacklustre performance of ITV’s flagship channel (see box, below).

Staying with drama, were the big beasts worried that Netflix was prepared to pay so much for marquee drama?

Hall suggested that the VoD service needed to win only once or twice a year, [but] “all of us have to win every day…. When you look at the cost of commissioning something from Netflix, such as House of Cards, versus what we can all do with the same amount of money…

“Look at the hours of drama we can produce and our [shows are] watched by a far greater part of the population than are watching Netflix. I think the two models are creatively very different, too.”

How is ITV going to cope in this competitive market, where Netflix can pay a reputed £100m for The Crown?

“That’s just one example,” Crozier responded. “I can’t think of another one. We didn’t go for that. I can’t think of another one where we have been outbid.

What’s up with ITV1’s ratings?

While it was true that ITV’s overseas production business was growing, at home the main channel was declining quite rapidly, noted session chair Lorraine Heggessey.

So, how was CEO Adam Crozier addressing this problem? ‘Viewing ebbs and flows. A couple of years ago, we had a fantastic year, up by around 4%,’ said Crozier. ‘What [the recent fall] means, candidly, is that we didn’t get all the decisions right about what we put on air.’

There had been issues in daytime, the soaps were down, so was some of the sport, he added.

There had also been problems with factual, especially at 9:00pm, but drama was ‘pulling up.’

52

A LOT OF THE HITS THAT ARE RUNNING ACROSS THE WORLD THAT CAME OUT OF THE UK ARE RELATIVELY QUITE OLD “The truth is, as a commercial broadcaster, we wouldn’t pay that much for a drama.

“It’s completely mad. It wouldn’t work for us. That’s why we don’t get involved in making films. You have to know what your business model is.”

Netflix aside, Crozier pointed out that there were many US broadcasters, given everything they’ve been through, who were, if anything, shifting to shorter drama series because the risk involved in doing long runs was too great.

Turning to Mockridge, Heggessey asked if he thought that there had been too much focus on the BBC at Cambridge. He disagreed: “The conference has had fantastic breadth.…

This has been a very good conference and covered a lot of key issues.

“The BBC is a big, central part of the creative sector in the UK.… We are very, very strong supporters of that.”

The BBC, however, is facing a number of threats. Even its time-honoured coverage of the Olympic Games is no longer a certainty, following Euro­ sport’s recent e1.3bn, Discovery-­ backed deal for exclusive rights.

Would Channel 4 and ITV be bidding for the Olympics, asked Heggessey. Crozier gave the only single-word answer we had heard in three days of talking.

“Yes,” he stated emphatically. Abraham said his station would continue to concentrate on the Paralympics.

Focusing on Hall, a BBC without the Olympics would surely be unimaginable, prodded Heggessey. “We’ve got the Olympics until 2020. We did a

Strictly Come Dancing

BBC

Cambridge Convention 2015 Session Fifteen

fantastic job in 2012. We’re going to do a great job next year…,” said the Director-General.

Cheque-books would, therefore, be at the ready, noted Hall’s interlocutor.

“A very modest chequebook in our case,” said Hall in an aside, perhaps already beginning the game of poker with ITV. Concluding the debate, the chair invited panellists to identify their biggest competitive threat. The most interesting answer came from Abraham. He mentioned “algorithms” as the gravest danger to the TV business in the coming years.

Abraham was concerned that broadcasters might eventually go the way of the dinosaurs if the behemoths of the tech world further refined their offerings.

He said: “In the long term, how do people discover individual pieces of content – what will be the technology that enables that to happen…?

“We have to morph into being, as we [already] are in so many ways, both technology companies and creative companies, working together. If we fail to do that, the future will go elsewhere.”

No one said that it wasn’t a jungle out there.

The panellists were: David Abraham, CEO, Channel 4; Adam Crozier, CEO, ITV; Tony Hall, Director-General, BBC; and Tom Mockridge, CEO, Virgin Media. The session was chaired by Lorraine Heggessey, Chair, Grierson Trust, and Advisor, Channel 4 Growth Fund; It was produced

by John Ibbotson and Martin Stott.

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

‘W

hen it’s spring again, I’ll bring again, tulips from Amster­ dam”, so the Max Bygraves hit goes. And what won­ drous, lush, deep tulips they were.

Vibrant in hue, tantalising in texture, delicate in definition.

I was like an explorer lost in this year’s IBC, its vast arrayed halls laid out like some modern tech remake of King Solomon’s mines.

With 1,887 exhibitors and 55,128 attendees from more than 170 coun­ tries, IBC is the media sector’s Glas­ tonbury, minus the mud: a six-day festival, headlined by The Future of Media in an Age of Disruption, with support acts that included The Age of Mobile, Over the Top Comes of Age and Telcos Tune in to Broadcasting.

What a running order and what breadth. The combination of confer­ ence sessions and sprawling exhibi­ tion halls demanded adept time management, a map, and a good sense of direction.

Venue navigation was, however, compounded by the engineer in me, struggling to walk past any kind of new idea, technology or bright, red, flashing light. I found myself drawn, magpie-like, into everything from the brilliant ARRI cinematography sessions to the captivating 8K demonstrator on the NHK stand. All the while, I kept an eye on the airspace as the drones engaged in wild aerobatics.

For me, the slot from the manufac­ turers’ association, the IABM, “Where’s the money in broadcast media?”, set

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

And what beautiful tulips they were

IBC review 1

First-time IBC visitor Haydn Jones is wowed by the sheer scale of the event, but next time vows to bring sandwiches the backdrop. “It’s a dynamic time in our industry,” said Peter White, IABM CEO. White sketched a picture of a broadly flat market in terms of yearon-year sales, with some modest underlying growth.

Pressures on margins were cited as a prime concern, with a lack of skills and staff seen as a strong inhibitor for the industry. Investment was expected to be concentrated in tech­ nology, especially IP [internet proto­ col connectivity], with a majority view that software-defined networks would be a big part of the future.

“The transformation we are facing is fundamentally moving towards a software-defined workflow,” said panel member Lionel Lapras from HP. Steve Canepa of IBM went fur­ ther, citing the need to create a more efficient digital factory.

Later that day, writer Michael Dobbs

THE INDUSTRY IS VERY SCARED OF TECHNOLOGY

Public domain

Media’s Glasto – minus the mud

offered his own perspective on how new platforms are changing the face of television.

“The viewer is now in control,” Dobbs declared boldly, adding: “The viewer can press the button and get what they want.” The grand-­architect of House of Cards then delivered his most interesting observation: “The future is not feature film, it’s the new television.” While ubiquitous, televi­ sion is all but an inevitability (think Periscope or Meerkat); film, surely, trumps everything when it comes to audience engagement. Where would we be without Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Some Like it Hot? Audience engagement was also a central theme in the session on weara­ bles, where a mind-blowing, if not terrifying, view of the future was pre­ sented. Here, a brave audience volun­ teer was subjected to a white-knuckle, immersive tightrope canyon walk, throughout which his vital signs were beamed on to the big screen. It didn’t take much to conclude he was fright­ ened, his life-signs zig-zagging wildly as he tiptoed blindly across the stage.

When it comes to engagement, the ability to monitor audience biology in response to content takes the indus­ try into new territory.

What was previously a subjective assessment based on the professional views of the director, producer and editor, now becomes a measurable parameter, taking us to a place where content can be modulated in sympa­ thy with audience response.

The need to measure this was ­echoed in several other sessions.

“Peoples’ expectations have shifted: �

53

� the broadcasters need to do a better job of understanding what the audi­ ence wants,” said the BBC’s Matthew Postgate in the chief technology officers’ session.

It appears that measurement is a disaster at the moment; that’s why the consumer expects content to be free.

Is a lack of data driving an almost random and Darwinian evolutionary approach to finding the next Breaking Bad? Microsoft’s Tony Emerson, Managing Director for Worldwide Media & Cable, lent some weight to this view during the discussion on IP and the Cloud. He said: “Predicting the future is nigh on impossible and puts us in the realm of experimentation.”

This is an industry that is tiptoeing into the next big thing, but there are lots of tiptoes, some of which are bigger than others.

By far the most exquisite session was the Saturday matinee with ARRI, to profile its Alexa camera range.

The audience sat in awe as Jo Willems ASC shared his experience of making The Hunger Games films.

He was followed by Visual Effects Supervisor Jake Morrison discussing his work on Ant-Man. We also had a session on Downton Abbey with Director Michael Engler and First Assistant Camera Operator Milos Moore, dis­ cussing their use of the Alexa on set.

This was all virgin territory for me. I sat guiltily in the realisation that, after so many years enjoying film, I’d never once thought to get closer to the craft, people or machinery that makes it all happen.

The next day I made a beeline for the ARRI stand to make my apologies.

Saturday evening involved a steak, in town, just off Rembrandtplein. Not the greatest steak, but a steak nonetheless.

I needed food. The problem with IBC is that, with so much going on, there isn’t much of an opportunity to eat. Next time I will take sandwiches.

By Sunday, with my Amsterdam adventure coming to an end, I was searching for a narrative to tie all of this together. The holy grail has to be end-to-end platform digital interoper­ ability, from lens to screen, with soft­ ware becoming the only tool.

Such a transition has the effect

of dissolving the different platform boundaries. Over an English cup of tea, and proper biscuits, this view was endorsed by Colin Judge, Director and co-owner of IPE Systems, one of the UK’s leading broadcast systems inte­ gration companies.

He said: “The reality is that we are dealing with two worlds here – the traditional linear [model] and the new order, where everything will be soft­ ware defined.”

The shift from old to new is further complicated by the market ­segmentation between the vertically integrated, do-­it-all ­broadcasters (including telcos) and the host of specialist players who provide facilities and services.

Sharing this view with Sadie Groom, Managing Director of Bubble & Squeak, the marketing and events agency, she struck a note of ­caution, say­ ing: “The industry is very scared of technology.”

The extravagance of IBC puts the challenges of the sector in sharp relief. At one level, the future is all about the technology, at another it’s about disaggregated content and specialised services – that’s obvious from the number of exhibitors.

While it is still all about content, wear­ ables and analytics must be paving the way for reflexive content, where plot lines change to mirror your body chem­ istry. Content on steroids, if you like.

Enhanced content specificity would then drive targeted engagement, poten­ tially towards content-as-a-service.

But, as it stands, there is too much choice at every level of the stack. While the industry must retain traditional production values, the buyer must become more discriminating in shap­ ing where the supply chain is going.

So, although IBC is a treasure trove, it suffers from the absence of a connecting golden thread – or large rope, for that matter – to tug on every now and again and explain what’s going on. None­ theless, it was fabulous in its extrava­ gance, and there were even tulips. And what beautiful tulips they were.

MEASUREMENT IS A DISASTER AT THE MOMENT; THAT’S WHY THE CONSUMER EXPECTS CONTENT TO BE FREE

54

Haydn Jones is an Account Managing Director focused on the media sector, operating out of Fujitsu’s London office, and is a Fellow of the IET.

London looks back IBC review 2

An RTS expert panel explored the major themes to emerge from Amsterdam this year, reports Matthew Bell

A

msterdam’s annual media technology jamboree was domi­ nated by three themes – Ultra-HDTV, virtual reality and the shift to an IP-based infrastructure – according to the experts assembled for London Centre’s annual review of IBC. “I go to IBC to see what’s maturing in the industry to the point where it rolls out into the mass market,” said Nigel Walley, Managing Director of media con­ sultancy Decipher. “[It struck me] how painful Ultra-HDTV is turning out to be for the industry,” Walley continued. “For somebody looking for a bridge into the mainstream, I wasn’t seeing it. I sensed a mood of tired resigna­ tion that Ultra-HDTV transition is going to be just as, if not much more, painful than the transition from standard definition to HDTV.” At least, pointed out Peter Weitzel of the Society of Motion Picture & Tele­ vision Engineers, “with Ultra-HD, we’re down to two standards [from seven]”.

Meet the RTS young technologists

Higher dynamic range, which enhances Ultra-HDTV pictures, was also much in evidence at IBC, but it is beset by problems of standardisation.

“If the industry is struggling to come to terms with it, the poor consumer has no hope,” admitted Simon Gaunt­ lett, Chief Technology Officer at the Digital TV Group. The DTG is the members’ association for digital TV in the UK. “As a viewer, not as someone trying to decide the standards, I liked the experience and looking at [HDR] con­ tent,” said Anna Patching, the winner of this year’s Coffey Award for Excel­ lence in Technology (see box, right).

The virtual-reality demonstrations at IBC intrigued the panel, which had been assembled by RTS London to review the kit showcased in Amsterdam.

“The ability to do live 360° [virtual reality] is exciting, but there are huge challenges in the area for the content creator, as well as the device manu­ facturers,” said Gauntlett. “It needs a whole new production language: Where do you put the sound record­ ist? Where do you hide the camera operator?”

“Virtual reality is clearly coming. Do I think it’s going

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Panascope

VR was big at IBC: Panoscope 360° camera ball

Michael Colyer received the annual RTS Young Technologist Award in July, while Anna Patching – who was part of London Centre’s IBC 2015 review panel – won the Coffey Award for Excellence in Technology, the runner-up prize.

Colyer missed the London event because of work commitments in Japan, where he was working as a Special Cameras Engineer at Formula One Management.

‘I develop and implement small trick shots that give the audience a unique angle on the race,’ he explained.

‘We’ve installed cameras in bollards, kerbs and pit crew helmets, to name just a few.’

His ambition is to develop special camera systems to promote more dynamic and compelling storytelling. ‘This is an especially exciting time to be taking on such a challenge, as the industry is slowly moving towards higher-definition images – such as the 4K and 8K [implementations of Ultra-­ HDTV] – in combination with the rise of second-screen viewing. This means that offering additional content from

to replace tele­vision? No, but it’s clearly something we need to embrace in short-form con­ tent,” he added.

For Decipher’s Walley, the virtual-­reality exhibits had “an element of The Gadget Show” about them. “Nothing I saw around virtual reality talked to me about TV. To me, it took all the bad aspects of 3D and multiplied them by 10.”

Patching agreed: “I don’t think virtual reality ties in with traditional broadcasting.” It will, however, “have a massive impact in the games industry”, argued Walley.

The time to shift the media produc­ tion and distribution infrastructure to one based on IP (internet protocol) is surely now, reckoned the panel. The industry’s ubiquitous SDI (serial digital

unique perspectives is becoming ever more important,’ he suggested.

Anna Patching, a Trainee Broadcast Engineer at the BBC, said her RTS award was unexpected, adding: ‘I was delighted that Michael won, because he’s such a good engineer.’

She described the current broadcasting landscape as ‘exciting but quite scary as well.

Since I graduated from Ravensbourne in 2012, Colyer the technology has changed so much. I’m fortunate on my trainee scheme that I get taught lots of IP stuff – there’s lots to learn.’

Next summer, Patching will be a freelance sound assistant at the Rio Olympics, providing host coverage of the tennis event. She worked in the same role for the equestrian events at the London games in 2012.

‘It was incredible to be Patching part of the atmosphere and the whole circus that goes with the Olympics,’ she said, adding that a job at the 2018 winter games in PyeongChang would complete her personal Olympic set.

interface) standard is very reliable, but inflexible – it cannot, for example, connect to Cloud-based video services.

“IP was everywhere, not just in dis­ tribution but also in production [where we can] do live video across IP net­ works reliably. People are now starting to use it in anger in the production world,” said Gauntlett.

All the exciting equipment on show at IBC has a purpose, Weitzel reminded the audience: “What really sells is good content and what we see at IBC are the sort of things that enable those who have a very artistic, creative idea to get it recorded, manipulated and then transmitted to the maximum number of eyeballs.”

London Centre’s IBC review was held at the DTG in central London on 23 September. The event was chaired by journalist Nick Radlo.

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RTS NEWS Wales awaits broadband bonanza

n “In the past, just getting a mobile signal at the National Eisteddfod was a miracle, but this year we’ve had 200Mb/sec connections on the field,” said the Welsh Government’s Peter Williams, using the tiny village of Meifod at Wales’ annual cultural festival to illustrate how connectivity is being improved.

Williams was speaking at an RTS Wales event, chaired

by Boom Pictures’ Sioned Mills, in August that asked whether the increased availability of high-speed broadband is likely to change TV viewing habits.

The Welsh Government’s Superfast Cymyu project aims to boost coverage to 96% of premises – currently, 79% are connected – by the summer of 2016.

Rhodri Williams, Ofcom’s Director for Wales, said that, although improved connectivity would enable viewers in rural areas to make full use of their smart TVs, it could also challenge the public service broadcasting model, with services such as Netflix gaining viewers.

The regulator said that, if online viewing continued to increase, as current trends suggest, there would be pressure to switch off Freeview services and sell valuable UHF frequencies to mobile operators.

S4C Digital Manager Huw Marshall stressed the opportunities for broadcasters such as S4C, which has developed CywTiub, a web-based, pre-­ school children’s service. He said that S4C was responding to demand for more online short-form content.

Hywel Wiliam and Tim Hartley

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Mood music in Dublin

Peter McEvoy: the power of music

U

sing excerpts from no fewer than 19 films, former RTÉ producer/director Peter McEvoy gave a fascinating presentation on the power of music in film to the Republic of Ireland Centre.

Music has a critical role in filling in the gaps, creating atmosphere and helping to

tell the story in movies, argued McEvoy at “Music in film: the narrative voice”, held at RTÉ in Dublin in early September.

McEvoy, who completed a masters in film studies at Dublin City University after retiring from RTÉ, described two forms of narrative structure. The first is “restrictive

narrative”, where the viewer is watching the drama unfold in the company of a character on screen.

The composer aims to show the emotions being felt by a character, assisting the narrative voice by reflecting, for example, fear, anger, sadness, happiness or romance in their score.

McEvoy used a clip from Carol Reed’s 1949 film noir, The Third Man –which features a renowned score by Anton Karas for the zither – to demonstrate his thesis.

He called the second form “omniscient narrative”. These are scenes where viewers can see what is unfolding in a scene, but the on-screen characters remain ignorant.

He played a clip of the robbery at the start of Sam Peckinpah’s bloody 1969 western, The Wild Bunch, in which the score builds tension as a temperance march, accompanied by a brass band, parades through the town.

Charles Byrne

ONLINE at the RTS n September was a busy month for the RTS digital team as we launched a popular app for the Cambridge Convention.

A highlight of the event was watching BBC Director-­ General Tony Hall and Sir Peter Bazalgette trying out virtual-reality headsets with help from Click presenter Spencer Kelly.

In a world first, the RTS app users witnes­sed a magic trick in 360°: viewers could move their heads around to see how the trick was done.

The trick was created by Objective Production Head of Magic Anthony Owen and filmed by virtual-reality specialist Visualise. Try it out for yourself at j.mp/VRmagic.

Videos of all the Cambridge sessions are online at j.mp/ RTSCambridge.

Elsewhere on the website, our collection of Tips in 60 Seconds videos is growing fast.

They give a brief insight into the many roles and opportunities available in TV. Recent videos include Channel 4 News’s Krishnan

Guru-Murthy talking about how to become a newsreader (j.mp/RTSkrishnan) and a guide to setting up your own YouTube channel by vlogger Tyler West (j.mp/RTSTyler).

We also spoke to the team behind upcoming BBC series The People’s History of Pop to ask why they are after your music memorabilia (j.mp/RTSphop).

And hear all-round entertainment guru Richard Holloway discussing his 50 years in the business with Vernon Kay at an RTS event earlier this month (j.mp/RTSHolloway).

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

Bill and Ben Productions

Terry Jones and friend explain the history of economic highs and lows in Boom Bust Boom

Jones tests Pythonomics n Economic crashes are nothing new but we seem unable to learn from our mistakes, or see the next one coming.

That was the conclusion of Boom Bust Boom, Monty Python Terry Jones’s new documentary, a mix of live action, animation, puppetry and song that takes the audience through the history of economic crashes from the tulip mania of 1637 to

the Wall Street crash in 1929. It is a skillfully woven story, brought to life with animation and puppetry, which both pokes fun and unravels economic conundrums.

The screening took place in mid-September during the Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival at the Watershed in Bristol, in association with the Bristol Festival of Ideas and the RTS.

Bristol-based Arthur Cox animated the documentary.

‘We were approached by the [animation producer] of Boom Bust Boom, Justin Weyers. We had previously worked with him, Ben Timlett and Bill Jones on A Liar’s Autobiography, the animated untrue biography of the late Python Graham Chapman,’ said Sarah Cox, the company’s owner and Creative Director.

Matthew Walker and George Sander-Jackson directed the animated sequences of the film.

‘It was a great project to work on and we are enthused about the potential in documentaries to use animation and graphics when there is little filmed or photographic material, and also to express more abstract and conceptual issues,’ said Cox. In the same month, Bristol was host to several leading figures from the world of film and television.

Peaky Blinders director Otto Bathurst and cinematographer Ula Pontikos (BBC Two spy thriller The Game and Weekend) joined an international line-up at the city’s inaugural Festival of Cinematography at the Arnolfini, hosted by the Centre for Moving Image Research at the University of the West of England.

The festival, aimed at new and emerging talent, also saw packed audiences join Roberto Schaefer (Quantum of Solace and The Kite Runner) for lighting masterclasses.

Lynn Barlow

Sky Arts sets out stall in Bristol

I

t’s not new to hear a channel controller express that their job is the best in the business.

They would say that, wouldn’t they? But it’s hard not to believe Phil EdgarJones, the man in charge of Sky Arts, when he describes his channel’s ambitions.

Sky Arts was formed from the merger of Sky Arts 1 and 2, launching as a “super channel” in June. “It’s an on-demand service with 10,000 hours of content so far. It’s updated all the time and it means customers can watch our back catalogue whenever they wish,” Edgar-

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

Phil Edgar-Jones

Jones told an audience at a Bristol Centre event held at the Arnolfini in September.

Edgar-Jones was joined on stage by Sky commissioner Siobhan Mulholland, as he outlined the opportunities for all arts genres, including comedy, opera, ballet, drama and music.

He also discussed the Sky Arts Amplify initiative, which brings together arts organisations and producers to develop partnerships and pitch ideas to the channel.

Amplify is backed to the tune of £3m over three years.

The first commissions include a drama-doc about

sexting with the National Youth Theatre and a new work at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Earlier in the day, EdgarJones and his team had spent time with arts organisations and independent broadcasters in Bristol. “We had a truly inspiring and invigorating day in Bristol,” he said.

“I am a huge admirer of Bristol as a powerhouse for the creative industries and a brilliant benchmark for the UK in general. And, given Banksy is from Bristol, there must be an essence of genius in the water.”

Lynn Barlow

57

OFF MESSAGE

I

t would be invidious to single out any one Cambridge speaker from September’s dazzling line-up for a special mention, but let’s hear it for Philomena Cunk’s sublimely hilarious Convention videos.

Cunk’s artfully dumb comments were ideal for cheering up any dele­ gates worried that they might be hit by the next wave of digital disruption.

Equally enjoyable was the video clip featuring Status Quo veterans Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi poking gentle fun at John Whittingdale.

The self-proclaimed heavy metal fan, who once impersonated Neil Kinnock as part of Margaret Thatcher’s preparations for PMQs, revealed that he’d attended some 22 Quo gigs.

Off Message wonders how many Quo albums he owns – and what’s the secret to telling them apart.

■ OK, it might be unfair. Off Message can’t help but praise Sharon White, Ofcom’s newish CEO, for her hugely impressive Convention debut.

What a breath of fresh air this ­jargon-free regulator was – cerebral, witty and well-informed, as one delegate put it. Her smile alone should go a long way in getting stakeholders and policymakers on side.

It was heartening to see White, takeaway coffee in hand, on Friday morning sitting towards the back of the conference auditorium, ready

58

and waiting for the first session to start. And not a minder in sight. Her relaxed, inconspicuous style is not what you’d expect from a regulator.

Thankfully, in her encounter with Stewart Purvis she didn’t use the E words once – that’s E for “ecosystem” and “ecology”.

■ Back to music… well, Off Message supposes that we can call it music.

Thursday night at Cambridge is the time for exhausted media executives to loosen their ties and switch off their devices.

What better way to forget the day at the Convention coal face than to show off some well-honed karaoke skills.

John Hardie, aka ITN’s CEO, was in his element covering George Michael’s Faith. This was followed by a rip-roaring version of Abba’s party perennial Dancing Queen.

Show-stopping though the ITN man’s efforts were, he was almost upstaged by David Docherty’s startling take on Bruce Springsteen’s breakthrough anthem, Born To Run. What a pity Docherty had left his bandana and leather jacket in the office.

■ Perhaps the new shadow culture secretary, Michael Dugher, would have been in his element at the after-hours karaoke session.

Little is known about Chris Bryant’s successor – apart from the politician

apparently once being an amateur rock musician. One thing is for sure – unlike Byrant, the MP for Barnsley East never worked for the BBC or took holy orders.

Reckon he’s a mean air guitarist, though.

■ And finally, Off Message was thrilled to attend the 40th anniversary party for Arena, BBC TV’s peerless arts documentary series.

Hosted by Anthony Wall, in charge of the programme since the untimely death in 1995 of his Co-Editor, Nigel Finch, the bash was held at what had been Finch’s sprawling and totally gorgeous South London home.

The garden, backing on to Tooting Common, must be one of London’s finest.

Arena is often brilliantly idiosyncratic. So, too, was the party. There was poetry – including a specially written verse celebrating the birthday – performance and an energetic trio that kicked off by playing a euphoric version of The Shadows’ classic Apache.

Off Message, did not spot too many BBC executives at the gathering – apart from a beaming and conspicuously casually clad Alan Yentob. He once edited Arena. Among his shows was his brilliant profile of Mel Brooks, which he is fond of recalling.

Sincere congratulations for four decades of often-inspirational television. Long may Arena continue to run.

October 2015 www.rts.org.uk Television

RTS PATRONS RTS Principal Patrons

BBC

RTS International Patrons

Discovery Networks Liberty Global NBCUniversal International The Walt Disney Company

Turner Broadcasting System Inc Viacom International Media Networks YouTube

RTS Major Patrons

Accenture Channel 5 Deloitte Enders Analysis EY

FremantleMedia Fujitsu IBM IMG Studios ITN

KPMG McKinsey and Co S4C STV Group UKTV

Virgin Media YouView

RTS Patrons

Autocue Digital Television Group ITV Anglia ITV Granada

ITV London ITV Meridian ITV Tyne Tees ITV West

ITV Yorkshire ITV Wales Lumina Search PricewaterhouseCoopers

Quantel Raidió Teilifís Éireann UTV Television Vinten Broadcast

Patron HRH The Prince of Wales

Chair of RTS Trustees John Hardie

CENTRES COUNCIL

History Don McLean

President Sir Peter Bazalgette

Honorary Secretary David Lowen

Vice-Presidents Dawn Airey Sir David Attenborough OM

Honorary Treasurer Mike Green

Who’s who at the RTS

CH CVO CBE FRS

Baroness Floella Benjamin OBE Dame Colette Bowe OBE Lord Bragg of Wigton John Cresswell Adam Crozier Mike Darcey Greg Dyke Lord Hall of Birkenhead Lorraine Heggessey Ashley Highfield Armando Iannucci Ian Jones Rt Hon Dame Tessa Jowell MP David Lynn Sir Trevor McDonald OBE Ken MacQuarrie Gavin Patterson Trevor Phillips OBE Stewart Purvis CBE Sir Howard Stringer

Television www.rts.org.uk October 2015

BSkyB

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Tim Davie Mike Green John Hardie Huw Jones Jane Lighting Graham McWilliam David Lowen Simon Pitts Graeme Thompson Jane Turton

EXECUTIVE

Chief Executive Theresa Wise

Channel 4

Lynn Barlow Mike Best Charles Byrne Isabel Clarke Alex Connock Gordon Cooper Tim Hartley Kingsley Marshall Kristin Mason Graeme Thompson Penny Westlake James Wilson Michael Wilson

SPECIALIST GROUP CHAIRS

Archives Steve Bryant

Diversity Marcus Ryder Early Evening Events Dan Brooke Education Graeme Thompson RTS Futures Camilla Lewis

ITV

IBC Conference Liaison Terry Marsh RTS Legends TBC RTS Technology Bursaries Simon Pitts

AWARDS COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Awards & Fellowship Policy David Lowen

Craft & Design Awards Cheryl Taylor Television Journalism Awards Stewart Purvis CBE Programme Awards Alex Mahon Student Television Awards Stuart Murphy

59

Humans –anatomy of a hit Speakers: Jonathan Brackley, Writer Gemma Chan, Actor Chris Fry, Executive Producer, Kudos Simon Maxwell, Head of International Drama, Channel 4 Sam Vincent, Writer Derek Wax, Executive Producer, Kudos Beth Willis, Deputy Head of Drama, Channel 4 Chair: Stephen Armstrong

Tuesday 27 October 7:00pm for a 7:30pm start

Venue: 90 York Way, London N1 9AG

Book online at: rts.org.uk