Are we about to see the BBC and the regional press, to use my colleague John Plunkett’s endearing phrase, “getting into bed with each other”?
Clearly, the MPs want to see the public service broadcaster and commercial publishers settle their differences.
Here is a key sentence from the Commons culture, media and sport select committee report on the future of the BBC:
“We believe there must be a more symbiotic relationship between local media and the BBC, where each benefits from the other. The BBC as the dominant partner must always be mindful of the effect of its activities on regional media groups and their ability to turn a profit”.
And to accomplish what amounts to a partnership between the two to cover news in the regions and at local level, MPs are urging the use of licence fee money. The committee’s chairman, John Whittingdale, is quoted as saying:
“I am worried about the parlous state of local newspapers which is quite dangerous for local democracy. We should consider using part of the proceeds of the licence fee to support local newspapers directly”.
That’s top-slicing, a painful notion for the BBC to accept. But the MPs clearly think it is necessary. Their report points to the problems faced by the regional press industry as audiences turn away from print to read online. More people are consuming the papers’ output, but they are doing it for free.
Print media’s online platforms have also found themselves in competition, according to some publishers and editors, with the BBC’s online content.
The report quotes, with apparent approval, a statement by Geraldine Allinson, chair of the Kent-based KM Group, urging a partnership with the BBC:
“We can do the commercial side and they can also provide local services but in a way where we are supportive of each other rather than actually in direct competition and fighting... I do believe we can coexist for the best of each other and for the best of UK plc rather than just competing head-on”.
It also refers to the call by Ashley Highfield, chief executive of Johnston Press (and the BBC’s former director of new media), to introduce quotas on web traffic sharing, while seeking a commitment from the BBC to support regional papers.
He has argued, as he did on this site three weeks ago, that the regional press should be allowed to take content, such as video, from the BBC and republish it on their websites with, of course, appropriate attribution. This would be a genuine innovation.
Allinson’s further point, that it should be possible for the BBC to support local journalism by commissioning content from third parties - such as independent journalists - also gets an airing in the report.
For all that, Allinson - and, as far as I’m aware, virtually all the publishers - abhor the very notion of accepting a public subsidy. (I hope to pursue that seperately in a posting tomorrow).
The report dismisses the BBC Trust’s 2013 review of BBC Online, in which it called on the BBC management to make sites more local, as demonstrating “a disregard for the health of local journalism”.
Instead it recommends “exchanges of content and information, where the BBC local websites link to the source of local material they have used, and in return the BBC allows others to use its content and embed BBC clips on their sites”.
It concludes: “There need not be a financial transaction. However, we also see the case for the BBC outsourcing the supply of some local content on a commercial basis, where there is an ongoing requirement for such material, and it is a more cost-effective way of meeting this need.”