These are rough notes and I’ll need to tidy them up at a later stage.
Jeremy Hunt, shadow DCMS representative, was first up today, and talked about the uniqueness of radio and his radio history. He’s certain that radio has a good future, although he knows how badly commercial radio is faring. He notes that the BBC is spending more on radio than the entire commercial radio sector is earning.
Hunt quoted quite a lot of facts in his speech, but he spoke without notes which means he’s really learnt his stuff.
Things like the internet have damaged commercial radio, but he also thinks that the regulatory regime has not helped. He talked about the three key acts surrounding radio in 1972, 1996 and 2003. He thinks that it’s failed overall and we can see this by the number of licences that have been handed back to Ofcom (again, off the top of his head, he can quote the numbers handed back for the last three years).
The Birmingham, Alabama comparison is brought up: the US version has much more local television than the similarly named UK city. With newspapers closing down, he sees struggling local coverage. He also bemoans the fact that there’s only one local TV station in a city – Channel M in Manchester.
He says that the reason he’s against top slicing the licence fee for regional ITV because he thinks it should be going local.
A future Conservative government is wholeheartedly behind digital radio. DAB is part of this and he sees a future that might involve many technologies. He namechecked “WorldDMB Digital Profile 1” as what should be placed in all devices.
£150m is the amount he says is what he’s been told needs to be spent to bring coverage up. In Surrey, where he lives, DAB coverage is patchy.
He’s not happy about the idea that in 2015, we have to thrown away millions of radios. He also thinks that this could make people very angry and we really need to think about that.
Cars are also critical and he’s not sure that Digital Britain went far enough. He thinks that what the French did is bold and we should look at it. But we should look at incentives for car manufacturers.
Hunt says that we also need to think very carefully about the listener and asks whether we really want to get everyone to throw away 100m radios in 2015.
If the market hasn’t got to where it needs to be, should Ofcom delay switchoff, he wonders. He also thinks we might want to consider swap schemes.
But people also need to see some tangible benefits. Currently they’re small, and people complain that they’re hungry on batteries. He talked about surround sound, listening to full concerts or football matches, EPGs and the opportunity to download songs. He talks about Shazam and its popularity on iPhones, and wonders if that kind of functionality should be built into radios.
We need to make sure that we don’t have angry listeners – something that won’t be good for the industry.
He concludes that when we’re mandating new technologies we don’t have chaos as a result. He concludes that he hopes that’s the leadership that a future Conservative government.
Nicky Campbell then interviews Hunt, and he begins by saying that it’s a dream job for him and he wants it if and when the Tories get into power.
On the BBC licence fee, Hunt says that in a zero inflation world, the fee should be fixed at the moment. But they don’t have any current plans for a future licence fee period since he current one runs until 2013. But a future one should include elements that take account of the economic situation.
He says that if the BBC doesn’t need the digital switchover money then perhaps it should be handed back to the licence fee payer.
Hunt believes that the BBC sometimes gets into areas it perhaps shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to talk specifically about areas despite Campbell pushing him.
He says that we should look at the money used for imported programming: £108m. Curiously he uses the example of The Wire as a programme the BBC bid up the price for. It was broadcast on commercial TV in the UK first of course, on FX.
He also thinks the BBC needs a “reality check” on executive salaries.
Campbell points out that analogue radios will still be useful because of the tier of ultra-local services, but Hunt says that the bigger services will have moved to digital and be lost to some consumers.
On presenter salaries at the BBC, Hunt would like them transparent but Tim Davie in the audience believes that revealing them would present legal issues and would also lead to salary inflation. However he believes that there’ll be a level of transparency that hasn’t been available in the past. Hunt doesn’t buy it and says that a top BBC presenter is building his or her brand when their in primetime. Davie says that since they don’t have editorial control it’s not fair on them – instead you should look at
On the question of 2015 he says that we should have a switchover date but not necessarily a switchoff date. There’s a lot of work to get to a place where it’s publicly acceptable. He doesn’t think we’re at a place where this could happen currently.
Someone asks what Hunt would do if he was running an analogue radio service that was also on digital and was losing money – what would he do? His answer would be to consider the business model and look at methods of reaching people through a multiplicity of media.
Tim Blackmore presents a session on how to win a radio award. Lorna Clarke from the BBC and Mark Story (now from RadioStory) joined him on the panel. We heard a Feargal Keane interview, some Kiss promos, some of Absolute Coldplay, and a couple of “sound fixes” from Electric Prison Radio Brixton, along with extracts of what the judges said about the awards.
An award winning entry will engage and grab you from the outset. A lot of award entries are very good, but they need to be beyond the norm.
Clarke says that the worst thing you can do is put an entry into the wrong category. Story says that you should start with something that will amaze the judges and “get the hell out of there.” So don’t put a full hour in, if you can get it done in twenty minutes.
Judges are not all from London we’re assured, and paper parts of entries should be relevant and back up the award’s audio. Other things we learnt are that judges can spot edits (if you’re being naughty and making in categories where you shouldn’t), and some of the details of the judging process. One final point: don’t assume that the judges to your programme are familiar with it or have ever heard it before!
You Ask The Questions with Torin Douglas is the session where Festival attendees ask questions of a panel, who were Alison Hastings (BBC Trust), Stewart Purvis (Ofcom), Bob Shennan (BBC Radio 2 & 6Music) and Phil Riley (Now running LDC).
They began saying a little about what they’d heard from Jeremy Hunt earlier on. Purvis said that it is down to politicians to make regulation and that power rests with them, and not the regulators themselves. Hastings said what he’d mentioned about switchover and switchoff was inteersting, and that what he said about the public.
Shennan was concerned that equivocation that he detected might lead to slippage. And he was concerned about damaging the BBC to plaster over the troubles of commercial radio. Riley thought it was good that he has business experience, and like Hunt he was worried about some of the issues surrounding switchover.
The whole panel was impressed with his presentational style and knowledge.
The first question proper was about John Myers blistering attack on Ofcom the previous day. Purvis says that his response is more in sorrow than anger at what he heard. He says that there’s far too much regulation in commercial radio, and he thinks that he has good relationships with the business. He also thinks that the Broadcasting Code review is a very positive step forward.
Riley thinks it’s sometimes healthy to hear things like Myers said the previous day. Myers has considered it much more than probably anyone else in the indsutry; he wanted to express some home truths.
Next up is the question of top-slicing the BBC licence fee. Purvis said that Ofcom had identified where there was a lack of competition – particularly in local news on ITV, but that they’d not specified where the money would come from, that had been a government decision. Hastings is unsurprisingly against it, and is very uncomfortable about the process of giving licence fee money to private companies. “You mess about that at your peril.”
Douglas suggests perhaps that the BBC Trust should distribute that money, but Hastings says that this isn’t what the Trust was set up for. The licence fee is not a slush fund for whatever the government of the day wants.
Shennan says that it changes fundamentally the relationship between the public and the licence payer. Riley thinks that we have too much public service broadcasting in this country and that it should be just handed back to the public.
Douglas asks Bob Shennan whether it matters that he has no music radio background. Shennan says that he’s had similar accusation put to him in all his previous roles and while he might not be a music expert, he knows good radio.
Asked about what he’ll be doing in the role he says that there’s no major issues that need addressing, and there’s no underlying strategic intent.
Why isn’t Jonathan Ross live now, is the next question. Shennan things the programme is very important for Radio 2 and he wants it to be watertight. Half the programmes he’s done since he came back were recorded as live and commentators hadn’t noticed. He says that they can get a higher calibre of guest with the new timing.
The discussion moved to taste and “standards” (no longer “decency”) and we learnt that since Radio 1’s remit starts at 15 the regulation for that service is different to how it might otherwise be.
Then it was on to the question about the publication of expenses and talent fees. Hastings basically reiterated what Tim Davie had said earlier in the day. Riley believes that at the top the BBC outbids commercial radio, but lower down the chain publishing all fees would allow cherry picking.
Finally the panel stopped talking about executive pay and what the panel do about BBC talent costs, and the panel was asked about what they’d do if they created a new station.
Phil Riley wanted Nick Ferrari and The Arrow, the latter of which he thinks will sadly be going. Shennan would still have liked to launch E4 radio. Hastings wants a children’s radio station (Fun Kids anyone?). Finally Purvis (jokingly) said bring back birdsong.
Before the break we saw a tribute reel remembering those who’ve died in radio over the last year.
Paul Gambaccini gave us a brief history of popular radio from its creation until the present day. Effectively these are Gambaccini’s heroes. I can’t even begin to summarise it I’m afraid, but perhaps it’ll show up as a Radio 4 Archive Hour soon. There was some excellent audio to accompany it.
Finally, The Media Show was recorded for broadcast as live from the Festival with Steve Hewlitt. You can listen to it later today, or via the iPlayer.