IPA On Quality TV

Detailed standards of programme quality which could be used to measure the performance of TV licence holders and set the criteria against which they would incur financial penalties are being called for by the IPA in a new discussion paper published today.

The paper reaffirms the IPA’s 1989 proposal that viewer reaction should be an important criterion in monitoring the performance of licence holders’ programme output against the ‘quality’ requirements of their contracts with the ITC. being placed by Government on the need for licence holders to meet ‘quality’ and ‘diversity’ criteria since the IPA believes that present and future licence holders should live up to their public service broadcasting obligations

However, it is at this point that the question arises as to how the above performance criteria can in practice be established in advance and monitored by ITC on a continuous basis during the life of each licence. There is, in the IPA’s view, a number of tests which can be applied to determine whether the criteria are being met, as follows: a) Programme “input” analysis. The IPA believes it is not sufficient to accept that a programme schedule agreed, and delivered, totally fulfills the obligations, and notes the needs for a measure of programme quality. b) ‘Output’ measures of quality. Further measures of “quality” are needed – which take account of how the ‘consumer’ of the programme schedule (ie the viewer) rates the programming ‘output’ of each company The IPA believes that ‘quantifiable’ targets can be set. Key factors in establishing these targets should include: i) the actual level of viewing to a licensee’s programme output ii) The composition of the audience to a licensee’s programme output measured by the standard demographics

iii) The ‘appreciation’ shown by the audience towards individual programmes or programme types

It is reasonable to postulate that, if an individual company’s share of total viewing (and/or, within the total, its share of viewing to specified types of programme) fails to reach an acceptable minimum level, this points to consumer dissatisfaction with the quality of the fare on offer. It is also reasonable to postulate that, unless the audience to an individual company’s programme output (or specified parts of it) is satis- factorily balanced across specified demographic groups, the programme company is not meeting its ‘diversity’ requirement since otherwise it would not be consistently failing to attract a significant porportion of its viewers

The IPA has for a long time been concerned that the ITV audience has been seriously skewed towards downmarket and older population groups and would argue that this bias seriously calls into question whether some ITV contractors have necessarilybeen fulfilling their contractual commitment to produce programme schedules of appropriate balance and range.

The IPA has also been arguing for many years that it wishes to see the present Channel 4 remit protected since adherence to that remit provides advertiosers with the opportunity to reach audiences with distinctive characteristics different from those available through ITV.

However, potentially AI data (or some other measure of audience appreciation) could provide valuable supplementary information as to the extent to whichviewers appreciate the programme fare on offer. AI data may, for example, be able to indicate that certain low rating programmes have high AI scores, meaning that they are much appreciated by the relatively small numbers that watch them.

The IPA would also wish to sound a cautionary note in order to avoid a situation where the rigid application of AIs in the monitoring process ended up being, in effect, a fine on innovation. The IPA would like to encourage programme companies to bring forward innovative programme ideas and believes that application of AI criteria needs to take this requirementinto account.

The starting point to implement such a quality monitoring system would be for the ITC at the earliest possible moment to announce to potential licence applicants the criteria against which it would be reviewing their programme proposals and against which, assuming they obtained licences, it proposed to monitor their performance during the licence period.

The IPA recognises that individual licence holders may not in practice be responsible for all their programme output, but will probably ‘buy in’ aproportion of it from network sources. The IPA argues that it would be possible for the ITC to levy two types of fine, one against individual licence holders and the other against all stations on the network assessed pro rata to their share of advertising revenue.

ATTACHMENT ‘A’ Average Daily Hours of Viewing (All Individuals)

ATTACHMENT ‘A’ Average Daily Hours of Viewing (All Individuals)

ATTACHMENT ‘B’ Share of Audience (All Individs)

ATTACHMENT ‘C’ Average Peak (1800-2300 Hours) TVR (Percent of All Adults Viewing) 12 w/e 25th June 1989

INDICES OF VIEWING BY SUB GROUP All Adults 4 W/e 26th February 1989

should only go ahead once the need for it has been clearly demonstrated.