ITV and UTV have stepped in to defend Ofcom’s proposed £100m budget for regional news, after the BBC dismissed the figure as “fantasy”.
A Freedom of Information request seen by Broadcastnow shows that in 2007/08 the BBC spent a total of £94.2m on regional news services – close to the top end of Ofcom’s range.
Ofcom has previously estimated that between £40m and £100m should be reserved from the surplus of the Digital Switchover funding pot to fund a regional news services across ITV channels.
ITV, which is suffering in the recession, has previously said it cannot afford to provide regional news services past 2012.
But on Monday, BBC officials citing independent research claimed that full news provision for all the ITV regions including a website would cost between £30m and £50m at most and dismissed the higher figure as“fantasy”.
The FOI request revealed that £6.9m was spent on the BBC’s regional news in Northern Ireland, £6.3m for Scotland, £4.9m for Walesand £76.1 for the English regions - a total of £94.2m.
UTV managing director Michael Wilson said that the BBC was being disingenuous by saying a full news service could be funded with a budget half the size of their own.
“That would not be a partnership, that would actually be the BBC dominating, and that’s not good for establishing a sustainable plurality,” he said.
“Monopoly of funding”
Meanwhile in a letter to the Financial Times, ITV chief operating officer John Cresswell said that it was “disappointing” that the BBC had “set itself so resolutely against this [regional news] solution”.
“The comments suggest that the BBC’s chief objective is the defence of its monopoly of funding. If the plurality of impartial regional news on television withers and dies, the viewer will be entitled to know why a fraction of the £3.6bn generated annually by the licence fee was not made available to sustain it,” he said.
STV director of broadcast services and regulatory affairs Bobby Hain added that Scotland’s regional news currently cost £7m annually - and nearly £10m if corporate costs were included.
”I don’t know what figures the BBC are working to, but I know what our costs are and I know at the moment, our news service cost works out to about £10,000 per hour of television. I think anyone would agree that is an outstandingly reasonable sum and reflects excellent value for money,” he said.
Partnerships
Broadcastnow understands the BBC believes it is not valid to compare the FOI figures with the quoted costs for providing regional news on ITV, because they serve 12 regions to ITV’s nine.
A BBC spokeswoman said: “True news plurality is more likely with a plurality of funding. In return for taking on ITV’s commitment to regional news, it is only fair that new providers benefit from the advertising minutage proportionate to the Channel 3 slots made available to them. Providers in a new consortium should also be able to leverage news resources across different platforms and thereby achieve cost and revenue benefits.
The spokeswoman added Ofcom’s consultation in June last year showed that using licence fee revenue to support public service output on ITV was the “least popular option”.
“Partnerships, of the kind that have already led to successes like Freeview and Freesat, are a better way to leverage the nation’s investment in the BBC, and to continue the valuable tradition in UK broadcasting of competing for audiences not funding,” she said.
