Sir Peter Gibbings, chairman of the Radio Authority claimed that “Without regulation there would be chaos”. He outlined the Radio Authority’s tasks, and why regulation is necessary; for planning the spectrum in the first place, for choosing suitable companies and for regulating content.
He pointed out the recent success of radio as a medium, with independent radio growing in popularity and finance. The diversity of output is as a direct result of the Radio Authority’s regulatory powers, which also ensure a minority output.
Barry Cox of the ITV Network Centre put the case for ITV; “We pay for it, so let us get on with it”. He conceded that ITV as a medium has probably peaked, and addressed whether ITV can be maintained in the multimedia future.
Financial pressures are increasing; ITV companies have to increase their earnings per share. So far ITV companies have done well, cutting costs during the recession. However, to do so successfully in the future will mean a reduction in programming spend. Although ad revenues have shown real growth to date, this will be low in real terms for 1996-1998; Channel 5 in 1997 will have an impact on ITV, as will increased costs at the same time in sport, films and big-name stars.
With regard to politics and regulation, he maintained that current regulation does not need fixing, ITV can live with it, although it is more heavily regulated than any other media.
The way for ITV to cope in the future is to do better with the key audiences such as the young and ABC1s, strengthening their schedule, focussing their marketing and keep investing in programming.
Adrian Birchall, chair and CEO of the Media Centre put forward the viewpoint of the advertisers and agencies at the end of Thursday morning, in “Why are our interests always overlooked?”. His first point was that on the whole this is not true; advertisers and agencies have made progress in the last few years in terms of getting their interests looked at; these include:
* The Broadcasting Act – this got the separate selling of Channel 4 airtime after January 1993 which agencies and advertisers had lobbied for.
* Achieved ITC ruling on separation of selling of Channel 3, C3 Breakfast, Channel 4, BskyB and Channel 5.
* Channel 5. Ideas have been around for seven or eight years, but at times it has seemed the only interested parties have been the advertisers.
He reiterated that the morning’s subject was really the interests of the advertising industry in the economy; advertising costs are of great importance to the industry and to the UK economy overall. However, he pointed out there was no mention of the word ‘advertising’ at all in the government paper on media ownership; the powers that be remain unconvinced of the industry’s strength. Industry lobbying needs to be stronger, and more focussed. ‘Overall we need to be more successful at getting our message across. The challenge is ours.’ He finished by saying it is no good criticising people for not understanding the issues; it is not their problem, it is ours.
