Ofcom: PSB investment in decline
Investment in Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) programming from the five main broadcasters has dropped by almost 15% over the last four years, according to new research.
Ofcom’s latest PSB annual report shows that the five main PSBs spent £2.6 billion on original UK programmes in 2008, down from £3 billion in 2004.
The report also found that the total number of hours of original UK content broadcast on the five PSB channels fell by 3% between 2004 and 2008 to 33,177 hours a year.
Ofcom said today’s report “reveals the extent of the decline in investment in PSB programming” between 2004 and 2008, which has seen:
- spend on new UK-produced Children’s TV by the commercial PSBs fell by 70%, down from £42 million to £11 million;
- BBC spend on children’s programmes fell by a fifth from £97 million in 2004 to £77 million; and
- overall spend on UK network news and current affairs fell from £289 million in 2004 to £250 million in 2008
Children’s programming has been particularly affected by the drop in spend – the number of hours of new UK-produced kids programmes aired on PSBs, including CBBC and CBeebies, has almost halved over the four year period.
As a result, the proportion of children viewing the programmes on PSBs fell from 47% in 2004 to just 36% last year.
The report also shows that overall investment in news has reduced significantly over the past four years, with ITV, stv and UTV spending a quarter of the amount they did in 2005.
The BBC’s spend on national and regional news also fell during the four year period, down 15% from £220 million in 2005 to £186 million in 2008.
Inevitably, the total amount of news broadcast across the PSB channels dropped as a result – ITV, stv and UTV only aired 4,155 hours in 2008 compared with 4,486 in 2004.
However, the BBC managed to increase its hours slightly, up from 4,742 to 4,945 hours during the same period, although the corporation’s viewing share [for national and regional news] fell everywhere, except in Northern Ireland – down from 30% in 2004 to 28% in 2008.
On a more positive note, Ofcom found that viewers’ overall appreciation of the PSB channels has increased over the last two years.
This sparks hope for the future of PSB given the rapidly changing television market, which is witnessing the continued growth of multichannel and pay TV, as well as non-linear viewing such as digital video recorders, the BBC’s ever-popular iPlayer and VoD services.
Despite this, the report found that 63% of viewers believe that the PSB channels offer well-made, high quality programmes, while over two thirds believe PSB news programmes are trustworthy.
Around 67% of viewers also think PSBs cover big national events, such as sports, music events and news, “well”.