The Incredible Shrinking British Media

Michael Hedges March 30, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Some corners of British media are gasping for air. Others are holding their breath. The oxygen is being sucked out.

British media has in recent decades flown high; stratospheric perhaps. Every sector – television, radio, print, even advertising – fixed their gaze ever higher. Shareholders were delighted. The public was delighted, and that reach was global. All expected more and more of the same.

The trip into the ether – oxygen being replaced by toxic substances – was guided, as much, by “the hubris of the meteorically risen.” British media is simply running out of air. Economics may be the dismal science but physics and biology are absolute.

A decade ago British media was at the top of its game, all of it better than the rest. British newspapers - tabloids included – were must-reads. British television was admired by – and exported to – all. British radio excelled, becoming a global model.

What changed was everything. What didn’t change was physics: matter cannot be created. What mattered was money.

“After careful consideration,” began the BBC Trust’s statement (March 20) on the approval of the BBC’s 2009/2010 budget. The BBC will be spending less, far less. “Significantly less than BBC management originally asked for,” means cuts everywhere.

The BBC Trust sets the BBC’s overall course. It has mandated reviews of program commissioning, talent payments and salaries. BBC staff has been reduced by 7,200 since 2005. Another 1,200 will go. Program and production centers will be further dispersed from London, hardly a cost saving proposition. Broadcast output – both popular and worthy – will be less; fewer writers and producers, crews and resources. Online media development, the wave of the future, will have its wings clipped. The BBC is reentering the atmosphere.

“Given the falling away of household growth,” said BBC General Director Mark Thompson, “the collapse of the commercial property market and pressure on commercial revenues, without a further significant reduction in spending we would exceed our statutory borrowing limit.”

British commercial broadcasting faces its own tempest. Solely dependent on the largess of advertisers commercial radio and television has, essentially, nowhere to go but down. Ad spending in the UK is expected to be 10% lower this year than last.

Commercial television broadcaster ITV continues to cut programming output, last week axing the National Movie Awards show and delaying the National Television Awards. Both programs have been produced for ITV by Indigo Productions, making obvious that pain trickles down.

ITV lost £2.7 billion in 2008. Chairman Michael Grade called the financial predicament a “short term horror,” as he announced 600 job cuts and further reductions in program budgets (March 5). ITV’s share price has dropped 80% in 18 months. Recriminations for ITV’s plight have been loud, nasty and public. Former BBC Chairman Greg Dyke mounted the pages of the Times, which is not inconspicuously owned by Rupert Murdoch, for a withering criticism (March 7) of Grade’s “lose-lose situation,” with attention to a ghastly amount of money spent on football rights.  Dyke lost an attempt to buy ITV. Mr. Murdoch, principal owner of pay TV challenger BSkyB, wanted those football rights. 

Commercial radio has cut itself to the point of no return. Short-term financial salvation may come from major UK commercial radio companies taking themselves private and away from the whim of stock traders. “Expectations ran away from reality,” said Digital One chairman Ralph Bernard to MediaWeek (March 17). “Decisions were taken that reflected the short-term demands of the stock market rather than allowing a more considered approach.”

Local and regional media – all of it – is being shredded. ITV was launched – as Channel 3 - in the 1950’s with a public service mandate to provide regional TV. The interim Communications Ministry Digital Britain report suggests merging the regional channels into yet a new network, funding yet to be determined. Trinity Mirror has closed or sold 30 local and regional newspapers in just over a year with more than 1,300 job losses. Not to single out Trinity Mirror, all of the big UK publishers have cut back on ink, paper and bodies. Publishers successfully lobbied the government to prevent the BBC from exploiting – or serving, depending on your perspective – the dearth of local media with online portals. Commercial radio operators are seeking – and getting – government waivers to ‘network’ local stations into quasi-national broadcasters with less local content and fewer people.

The BBC’s Mark Thompson has acknowledged that British media must stand together or fall together. “A situation where the BBC thrives and the rest of the UK media struggles is,” he said, “not a satisfactory state of affairs.”

The BBC has offered strategic support to the commercial radio sector, including development of an iPlayer for radio. Proposals have been floated to merge regional BBC facilities with ITV. And, too, the BBC seems willing to part with some of the BBC Worldwide revenue stream giving oxygen to the failing Channel 4.

Meanwhile, the UK media regulator OFCOM floats a new idea almost every week, mostly mired in old thinking. Market failure is upon British media, so it seems. It is not, however, the product of simple misjudgment or miscalculation. And it’s certainly not the product of the Web. The haste to be all and do all – and profit all the more – resulted from a certain hubris.

“Don’t panic until it’s time to panic,” is the jet pilots’ first rule. Pulling back the stick and soaring to the edge is a beautiful ride. It sometimes comes with unexpected bumps. That’s part of the thrill. Losing oxygen sets off the alarm and getting back to earth, once a distant speck, is all that matters.  British media people, much as Mark Thompson reflected, need to work as a well-trained crew to bring the ship to a safe and happy landing.

See also in ftm Knowledge

The BBC

Few pure media brands transcend borders and boundries to acheive the iconic status of the BBC. The institution has come to define public service broadcasting. Yet missteps, errors and judgment questions fuel critics. The BBC battles those critics and competitors and, sometimes, itself. 72 pages PDF (February 2009)

ftm Members order here

Available at no charge to ftm Members, others from €49
Order