Latest news with #publicservicebroadcasting
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
UK ministers ‘too scared of Donald Trump' to back levy on TV streaming giants
British ministers are 'running scared' of Donald Trump in their refusal to force US streaming services to fund more UK-focused shows, the director of the BBC's Wolf Hall has warned. Peter Kosminsky said a 'supine and terrified' government was worried about anything that might upset the 'bully in the White House'. He said programmes that spoke truth to power were needed amid global tensions and political division. However, he said important UK dramas were 'under threat as never before', with the BBC and ITV struggling to fund shows and cautious about productions that did not appeal to audiences outside Britain. Kosminsky is calling for a 5% levy on streaming companies – to be spent on UK-focused television – and said a similar surcharge had been adopted by 17 other countries. But he accused UK ministers of being afraid to follow suit because of the US president's threat to impose huge tariffs on films made outside the US. 'We're running scared of Donald Trump and his tariffs,' he said in a speech last week, reproduced in Radio Times. 'The government is so supine and terrified that it's not prepared to run the risk of upsetting Trump and the delicate trading relationship that they've fought so hard – and grovelled so intensely – to achieve.' Kosminsky said ministers could still be pressured into changing course because they were 'terrified of swings in public support'. He added: 'If you care about public service broadcasting, if you care about the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, I would beg you – get out there and campaign for the government to stand up to the bully in the White House and protect the 100-year tradition of public service broadcasting in this country, of which we are rightly proud, before it is lost for ever.' His speech follows warnings from other television figures, including Elisabeth Murdoch, that UK stories could be lost from the small screen as producers and broadcasters turn to shows they can sell internationally, most notably in the US. Kosminsky said the overall effect had been to ensure shows such as Three Girls, a drama about the Rochdale child sexual abuse scandal, or Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which brought a huge miscarriage of justice to wider public attention, would not be made in today's market. He said Wolf Hall was turned down by streamers and that senior figures behind the historical drama had voluntarily given up payments. His demand for a 5% levy on companies such as Netflix and Amazon Prime has split the television industry. Other senior figures are pushing for a significant increase in the tax relief, which they say would ensure more shows are economically viable. A spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: 'As the creative industries minister, Sir Chris Bryant, told the culture, media and sport select committee in January, the government has no plans to introduce a levy on streaming services.'
The Independent
21-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Channel 4 boss urges Ofcom to be ‘brave' and back public service broadcasters
Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon has called on Ofcom to be 'brave' in ensuring public service broadcasters remain discoverable in an age of misinformation and disinformation. Launching the broadcaster's annual report in central London, Ms Mahon, who recently announced she was stepping down from her role, made a final call for the regulator and policy-makers to ensure that younger generations remain connected to the world through 'objective truth'. A report from Ofcom is due to be published this summer and is expected to lay out recommendations on which TV apps should be given prominence to ensure public service content can be easily found. She said: 'I would say that doing nothing simply isn't an option because, without action, we really risk losing that generation's connection to the world around them and society's grip on objective truth. But we definitely can't do it alone as just Channel 4. 'I do encourage Ofcom and the policy-makers to be brave, to stand with us against misinformation and disinformation by ensuring that Britain's peerless public service media remains prominent and easily discoverable on all the platforms that younger generations use.' Ms Mahon also urged the Government to reconsider copyright proposals to ensure that they 'don't harm British creativity'. This comes as the Data (Use and Access) Bill is at its final reading and could allow copyrighted work to be used to train AI models without permission or remuneration. The Bill has been condemned by high-profile figures in the creative sector, including musicians such as Sir Elton John, Annie Lennox, Sir Paul McCartney and Kate Bush, who say the Government's plans to make it easier for AI models to be trained on copyrighted material amount to the theft of music and will decimate the sector. Ms Mahon added: 'Ofcom has confirmed that they're looking at digital prominence for PSM (Public Service Media) content, and the Government, I hope, is reconsidering its stance on copyright proposals, on training LLMs (Large Language Models) to ensure that they don't harm British creativity.' In April, Channel 4 announced that Ms Mahon would be stepping down as the chief executive after nearly eight years. Joining the organisation in 2017 as the channel's first female chief executive, she will be leaving the business in the summer when the broadcaster's chief operating officer, Jonathan Allan, will serve as interim chief executive. The annual report revealed that Ms Mahon took home £1.29 million last year, including £544,000 worth of bonus payments which was worth 88% of her salary. This marked a 30% increase on the £993,000 total pay package she received in 2023. Senior executives have the opportunity to earn up to 80% of their salary in performance-related bonuses each year with Ms Mahon's being lifted this year due to a 'great performance', according to the company's annual report. The company's pay-setting committee said the bonus payouts reflected a 'year of strong strategic, financial and operational delivery in 2024', particularly while 'navigating a challenging transformation across the organisation'. It cited coverage including the Paralympics, current affairs programmes, and growth of its streaming platform. The report also revealed that Channel 4 ended 2024 with a pre-tax deficit of £12 million, better than the £52 million reported the previous year, while the broadcaster's revenue rose to £1.04 billion, a 1% rise year-on-year. It said digital advertising made up 30% of total revenues, reaching a target that the corporation set itself back in 2020, a year earlier than planned. Meanwhile, the broadcaster said it spent £643 million on content last year, slightly less than the £663 million in the previous year, though it saw a 4% rise in spending on commissioning content from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions.
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Why is Israel still in Eurovision? The answer is more complex than you might think
As they get ready to watch this year's final on Saturday, many Eurovision fans will be feeling conflicted. Some will not watch at all. The reason is the participation of Israel. Isn't Eurovision supposed to be about 'love, love, peace, peace' (as the 2016 contest's Swedish hosts so memorably portrayed it)? If so, they may ask, what's the besieger of Gaza doing there? Some people argue that the people who run Eurovision, members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), are simply spineless. Others point to the sponsorship of the event by Moroccanoil, which despite its name is Israeli. But a big international organisation is hardly dependent on a beauty products company. The Eurovision vlogger Matthew Wrather has put forward a more subtle argument: it's about the EBU's fundamental purpose. The union was founded in 1950, and had both a technical and what we would now regard as a political remit. Technically, the project was about sharing ideas and enabling international broadcasts (the song contest was just one of these: the first was an awards festival in Montreux). Politically, the EBU supported state-run 'public service broadcasting' with a fundamentally critical, liberal bias: broadcasters that were simply mouthpieces for their governments were excluded. Having fought nazism and now living in the shadow of Soviet Russia, western Europeans saw open debate as being at the heart of serious broadcasting. Since then, however, this model has come under fire. In most parts of Europe, the right routinely blasts public service broadcasters as liberal mouthpieces. Many on the left see them as bastions of conservative values, defending the status quo at best or as state propaganda at worst. With its mission now contested, the EBU has its back to the wall in ways it didn't in 1950. Nowhere is this more true than in Israel. In 2017, Benjamin Netanyahu abolished the old Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) – Eurovision in that year was its last broadcast. The reasons cited were financial, but commentators argue that it was a political move: the IBA was seen as too leftwing. It was replaced with Kan, the current broadcaster. Kan is more docile than the IBA – but still not docile enough for the government, which wants to it handed to the private sector. The communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, previously put forward a proposal to this effect in 2023, accusing the network of biased coverage and claiming that it spoke in a 'disgraceful manner' towards members of the government. Such a body would be breaking EBU rules and would not be allowed into Eurovision. The EBU feels obliged to protect Kan, even if that means risking the Eurovision brand. That's what it was created for: to champion 'free and independent' public service broadcasting. Running the Eurovision song contest is only tangential to that mission. There is no easy way out. After Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine the EBU made no move to ban Russia from Eurovision until participating nations changed from issuing statements and suggesting meaningful dialogue to saying they would quit – at which point action followed swiftly. The same has not happened over Israel's involvement in the competition. The EBU is in a way the victim of its own success in running Eurovision. The contest has grown from its original, essentially lighthearted roots into something that sends powerful political messages around the world. Its bosses had it easy for a long time, as these messages were uncontroversial in liberal circles. When the transgender Israeli singer Dana International won in 1998, the EBU could genuinely pat itself on the back for being at the forefront of social change. The same with Conchita Wurst's magnificent victory in 2014. Eurovision was about good and wonderful things. 'Love, love, peace, peace.' Now, the organisation finds itself with a dilemma. The current Israeli government is not a practitioner of peace and its participation in the contest has been used by some to demonstrate support for the nation. In the long run, the EBU must either relinquish control of the song contest or change its mission so that protection (and development) of the Eurovision brand lies unambiguously at its heart. It must set clearer rules for eligibility, so that the contest really is about 'love, love, peace, peace'. But this year, Eurovision will not be an easy watch for the thoughtful fan. Chris West is the author of Eurovision: A History of Modern Europe Through the World's Greatest Song Contest, published by Melville House UK
