I. General Considerations

1.

Television is the most popular of leisure activities, and in many ways the most powerful. Demands of all kinds are made upon it—and rightly: that it should entertain, divert, and interest us (all fifty million of us) when we want relaxation; and that it should enlarge our range of knowledge, experience, and awareness, so that we grow as individuals and as members of society.

HTV Outside Broadcasts van

2.

To do all this demands a balance of the most delicate kind, as a broadcasting service seeks both to entertain and to contribute something to our experience and knowledge. If it tries only to please, it is only using part of the medium’s potential. If it tries only to contribute and to educate, then again, whatever praise it may gain from the critic, it is wasting a great opportunity; for those who have fewest other resources for equipping themselves with wider and deeper interests will switch away. A competitive climate strengthens the broadcaster’s will to connect with large audiences through entertaining and interesting them; a climate where there is some shelter from competition strengthens his power to contribute.

Granada's studios

3.

If it wants to strike a balance successfully, a broadcasting service needs both a competitive stimulus and the knowledge that it does not have to compete all the time and at each point of the output. If it is to combine recreation and public service for a very wide range of viewers, it needs elbow-room. The BBC, to the advantage of us all as listeners and viewers, has the elbow-room which comes from a multi-channel operation both in radio and television; the Government of the day, in authorizing BBC 2, called it “one directly effective way of giving the viewer a choice of different types of programme, including more programmes of an educational and informative nature, or drawn from regional sources”. To provide a more extensive range of service to the viewer, we ask that Independent Television should be given comparable freedom.

Grampian's studios

4.

The Authority seeks this freedom because it has a duty to provide television broadcasting services as a public service for disseminating information, education and entertainment. With this duty placed upon it, the Authority must, whenever it thinks it desirable to do so, put forward suggestions for improving the quality and range of the service it can offer. At the present time, it is suggesting to Government that it can make such improvement possible in two ways: by removing outside restrictions on the length of time during which Independent Television can be on the air, and by the authorization of a second service. These two approaches have a single and similar aim, the broadening of ITV’s range. A derestriction of hours would be of immediate advantage, since it could take effect without any need to wait for fresh transmitters to be built. Its benefits, though substantial, would however not apply to all viewers, but to those who find themselves able to watch television during the day. A second service would enable the programme range to be extended at the times when it matters most—the main evening hours. Both of these changes seem to the Authority most desirable if it is to implement fully the duty laid on it by Parliament—the running of a high quality television service which exploits to the full the potential of the country’s principal mass medium.

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II. Background to the Present Proposals

5.

Before 1970 the Authority had on a number of occasions considered the possibility of a second ITV service. The first reference to the desirability of there being two services was made in 1955 in the Authority’s first Annual Report. Then, in the first half of the 1960s, there were further expressions of interest in the subject both from the Authority’s side and from the Government’s. In its White Paper of December 1962 the Government of the day, in deferring any decision to authorise a second ITA programme, said that it still felt such a programme might prove to be desirable in order to allow full scope for Independent Television to offer more selection to viewers and to experiment. Up to this stage, the assumption was being made by the Authority and by Government that both services would operate on a competitive basis and be run by different people.

6.

In the White Paper of December 1966, the Government of the day announced that there would be no allocation of frequencies to a fourth television service for the following three years at any rate. In 1969 there were informal discussions with the Post Office about the possibility of ITV 2, but these were not pursued because of the serious financial position of Independent Television in that year. The Authority continued to hope, however, that a second service could be authorised which would, by giving ITV the same opportunities as the BBC had had since 1964, lead to a situation of parity, both of competition for the viewers and of ability to offer them a full range of programming, between the two separate public services of television in the United Kingdom.

London Weekend's studios

7.

In 1970 the Authority and its Policy Committee gave fresh consideration to the question of ITV 2. For it was clear that, apart from the need for ITV to have sufficient funds for the provision of the best possible programmes (a need which led to representations about the Levy and to the Government’s decision in this matter), the most important requirement of Independent Television was that it should be enabled to offer a wider range of service. Restricted hours and a single channel lead to frustrations for the viewer who wants the same range on ITV as he can obtain from the BBC’s two channels, and frustration for the programme maker whose chance of innovating and of providing for particular audiences is much reduced by the constraints of a single channel. ITV is obliged, as it were, to cater for readers of The Guardian, The Express, and The Mirror, within the confines of a single channel. It seemed to the Authority that the removal of these constraints was, together with a derestriction of the permitted hours of broadcasting, essential if ITV was to improve and broaden its service during the 1970s in the way that the Authority wished.

8.

In the course of its discussions, the Authority dwelt particularly on the following points:

(i)

If the service given by ITV was to be broadened and was to cater for a number of interests which we try not to neglect but which we cannot serve as adequately as we would wish, then the second service must be complementary to the first and not competitive with it. All the evidence suggested that competitive programming did not enlarge the range of choice: indeed, it tended to narrow it. Competition has its own advantages in sharpening effort and increasing attention to what the viewer wants; but this sharpness has already been brought into television by competition between ITV and BBC.

(ii)

ITV is already equipped with more facilities than the BBC and with a more disparate collection of creative enterprises. This is due to its deliberate decision to provide a federal and regional structure for Independent Television’s service. But the result is an amount of programme production which, while consistent with the regional structure, is in total more than is needed for a minimum single-service output. Potentially, there exist the means of providing between two and three times the amount of material that a single channel requires. It is therefore plain that any expansion of the service, relying (as it will have to rely) on quite small expansion in income, must make use of potential within the present structure for the most part, and not expect to duplicate that structure. The existence of this reserve meant that the Authority could look forward past the financial problems that then existed to a situation in which quite a small improvement in resources might make it possible to start planning for a second channel.

Southern's studios

9.

Since the Authority neither produces programmes nor sells advertising, the next step was to discuss with the companies actually producing the programmes of Independent Television such matters as the likelihood of additional revenue from ITV 2, what a complementary service might mean in terms of programme categories, what the extent and location of surplus studios were, and the scope that there would be for increased regional opportunities in a two-service situation. The Authority therefore decided to set up a joint working party of members of the Standing Consultative Committee, drawn both from the Authority’s staff and from the representatives of companies. This working party had six meetings between May and November 1971.

10.

It also seemed right, in a matter of such importance for the future of Independent Television, that the views of those working in the industry should be canvassed in a more general way. The Authority therefore decided to ask for ideas from within ITV generally, and from trade unions and societies with relevant membership, and to have these discussed at a Consultation towards the end of the year. In order that this discussion could be frank and positive, we decided that it should not be a public debate attended by the Press. The result of this arrangement was that a large number of questions were considered in fair detail and a range of useful views expressed by those who had experience of the working of Independent Television at all levels.

Yorkshire Television's studios

11.

The Authority also invited the views of its General Advisory Council and its Educational Advisory Council; during its discussions, it has also learnt, through information gained by membership of the European Broadcasting Union and through staff visits, of the experience of other countries which have more than one broadcasting service. In addition, it has taken account of the views of bodies representing the advertising industry, as given both in informal discussions and through the Press, and it has also received the views of a number of programme producers from outside Independent Television. These contacts, together with the Authority’s interest in the current Press discussion of this and other aspects of the future of broadcasting, mean that it has considered the various implications of any proposals for ITV 2.

12.

Although the proposals are now being put forward after the collection and examination of a wide range of views and data the Authority has accepted from the outset that it is for Government to set the proposals in perspective and to take a decision.

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1971 // THIS IS TRANSDIFFUSION