BBC Trust

In her welcome to participants, Prof. Elan Closs Stephens, said:

“The broadcasting landscape is changing rapidly with technological developments seeming to appear ever more swiftly. Audiences can now access a myriad of services on a whole range of devices, and from providers in all parts of the globe. What does this means for the BBC’s mission in Wales? What does an increasingly diverse population in Wales think the Licence Fee should be providing for it? This is a key question for BBC Audience Council Wales, since making sure the BBC listens to how well people in Wales think the BBC is providing for them is its central role. To do that it must be clear about what Wales’s population looks like in 2014 and what that means for the BBC’s TV, radio and on-line services. Following today’s discussion, we will consider to what degree those viewers, listeners and users can rely on the BBC to reflect the many communities that exist in Wales”.

BBC Director of Strategy and Digital picked up on this theme and he outlined the current situation, where all the commitments made by the BBC when negotiating the current Royal Charter (unless prevented by external factors beyond the BBC’s control, such as the proposals for BBC Jam and Local TV) had been realised. These included digital TV switchover, the introduction of the iPlayer and ensuring that 17% of BBC Network TV content was supplied from the UK’s devolved nations. The primary focus had been on growing the BBC’s reach, quality and value, as well as trust and approval, and these had all improved since 2007.

He informed participants that the broadcasting world had, however, changed substantially during this time, with the market having now become a global one and the pace of change accelerating all the time. He predicted that these trends would continue and accelerate further during the next Charter period.

Participants were reminded that the BBC had always played a crucial role in driving technological change so as to create opportunities to deliver the BBC’s public mission in innovative ways. This had been possible as a result of the way in which the BBC was funded through the Licence Fee. However, it also brought with it a duty to serve all audiences and in looking towards the next Charter period, the BBC had set itself three goals – to innovate online, to be the best place for creativity, and to make its channels even better – and he outlined what these might mean in practice.

In closing he emphasised how the BBC was delivering more value for audiences, with 35% cumulative annual efficiency savings between 2004/05 and 2014/15 (% of 2004/05 baseline). The cost of the Licence fee had remained low relative to other services and utilities. He also informed participants that in the USA $100m would deliver two drama series of around 22 hours of content, while for the BBC it would typically deliver 14 BBC drama series, around 79 hours of content, viewed by 71% of UK adults and gaining an audience appreciation of 8.8 out of 10.

A number of questions from the floor followed, with a key theme being the frustration many participants felt at the lack of representation for Wales and its people in the BBC’s output. Some participants made the point that BBC Network News, while better at identifying to which of the UK’s nations news items were relevant following Anthony King’s impartiality report for the BBC Trust, remained poor at comparative coverage of the legislative and policy differences across the UK’s different nations. Others said that while people strongly welcomed the excellent network drama series now produced in Wales, and recognised the contribution to Wales’ economy and culture arising from them, there was still a paucity of drama depicting Wales and its people. There was a need both for the people of Wales to be reflected to themselves through BBC Wales’ TV output, but also for Wales to be more strongly portrayed on Network TV and radio output.

The Government of Wales’ Chief Statistician, Glyn Jones, gave a presentation on the demography of Wales (such as the age profile of the population, projected future rise in population and geographical dispersal of the population), including such matters as diversity, health, education, economic status, the Welsh language and digital access.

During his presentation he drew on information from the results of the 2011 Census, the National Survey for Wales, the Annual Population Survey and other Government sources. Details of the information presented at the Seminar is available from the Government of Wales’ statistical website – www.wales.gov.uk/statistics. Of particular interest to those attending the seminar was information on the digital world, and the headline information included:

-       75% of households in Wales had access to the internet in 2013-14,

-       around 82% of people aged 18 or over having access to the internet at home,

-       younger people were much more likely to use the internet than older people.

The final presentation at the seminar was by Director BBC Cymru Wales Rhodri Talfan Davies. He began his presentation by informing those present that the audience was fragmenting to a greater extent than in the past, and that this was particular true for younger people, but the key question was whether this change was generational or structural. With the broadcasting context being much more global than in the past, and the proliferation of services and devices upon which to access them, this fragmentation was certain to continue.

Nevertheless, he said, there were reasons to be cheerful, with BBC radio reaching three quarters of all adults in Wales (a much higher proportion than any other part of the UK) and BBC TV reaching 5 in every 6 in Wales (at 86%, again a higher proportion than any of the other nations of the UK).  The appreciation scores for BBC Wales’ national TV output also exceeded scores in Wales of BBC Network output. This was as a result of smarter working, which had reduced the impact of savings and the number of viewers reached by BBC Wales TV each week had increased, despite the annual budget falling 30% in real terms. Nevertheless, there was an acknowledgement that there were gaps in the provision for parts of the audience, with those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, those under 35 years old and people living in north-east Wales being obvious ones in this regard.

Turning to BBC Network production from Wales, the participants were informed that this was good news, with 6.8% of Network production now from Wales, which was worth of the order of £60m of business annually.

There was a significant amount of discussion at the end of the seminar, with the theme of representation for Wales on the BBC’s output, as well as future governance and accountability structures, and the Corporation’s accountability to Welsh audiences, to the fore. There was a consensus that the seminar had been a very useful occasion and a request from a number of participants that it should be repeated.