RTS Convention: “The prize for standing still simply isn't an option”

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AI was largely sidelined at the annual RTS gathering where the fate of public service media took precedence

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Consolidation of UK TV seems increasingly inevitable even if, equally inevitably, each broadcaster vows to keep calm and carry on.

At the Royal Television Society’s annual convention in London there was unanimous agreement that change was unstoppable but differences of opinion about the extent.

“The prize for standing still simply isn't an option,” said Jane Turton OBE, RTS Chair and Deputy CEO, Banijay Entertainment. “The stakes are high.”

Describing the “unprecedented pace and scale of change” Sophie Jones, CEO, RTS talked of “a pivotal, seismic moment unlike anything we have encountered before.”

Since the RTS last gathered in Cambridge a year ago, the BBC has a new Director General, Channel 4 and ITV have installed new CEOs and there’s a new President at Five.

The lawyers and financiers have been busy too. Internationally, Paramount's planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney's full acquisition of Hulu and Fox’s pending £16.5bn acquisition of Roku are signs that scale

At home, All3Media’s £6bn merger with Banijay will create the world’s largest independent production company (though ‘indie’ seems an inappropriate badge for a group of this scale); Sky is buying ITV’s media and entertainment business for £1.6bn; and Channel 4, the most vulnerable of the main UK broadcasters, is setting up its own production division to fend off attack.

The BBC faces most scrutiny. With licence fee income fallen by approximately £1.3bn over the past decade, equivalent to 25% of its funding and with Charter settlement uncertain, it is making significant cuts to news, sports and media technology.

“We are having to make half a billion pounds of savings and we don't yet know what our future [financial agreement] will be,” said DG Matt Brittin. “The way the BBC is currently funded by the licence fee is a busted flush. We need a new mechanism if we're going to have the sort of scale of public service media that we've had in the past.”

The former Google Europe boss called for a more open approach to partnerships, arguing that the BBC should be present wherever audiences consume media, from YouTube to Spotify and TikTok.

“We're trying to reinvent our apps at some speed. iPlayer was incredible when it launched; it's way off the technology today. That’s no fault of the people working on it but we have to invest in that so we can fulfil our mission in better exposing audiences to this incredible content.”

Channel 4 future

Discussions are underway with Channel 4 about distributing its programming on iPlayer, provided a way is found for the commercial broadcaster to generate ad-revenues. The pressure is on both PSBs to merge completely, something that CEO Priya Dogra ruled out.

“I don't want Channel 4 to be taken over by the BBC,” she said. “Consolidation often leads to less choice whereas collaboration can increase choice because it allows organisations with complementary strengths to work together.”

Wayne Garvie, a former BBC head of entertainment, now President, International Production, Sony Pictures Television thought the writing was on the wall.

“If Channel 4 became part of a wider public service broadcasting structure there could be benefits,” he said. “As things stand, Channel 4 has a challenge around identity and long-term sustainability. Frankly, it's difficult to see how Channel 4 survives indefinitely in its current form. That's not their fault. The market is changing around them every week.”

He was more positive about the BBC’s chances. “It's got a brilliant new leader who is clearly not afraid to make difficult decisions. Obviously, the BBC won't be able to do all the things it used to do, because audiences have changed. PSBs can no longer rely on the linear schedule in the way they once did. But let's be positive about the future.”

Mega-merger of UK PSB

Acknowledging that PSBs still produce world class shows, Heather Jones, Chief Creative Officer EMEA and General Manager UK, Hearst Networks said content alone was not enough.

“You also need a fantastic [streaming] product and you need to understand discoverability and marketing,” she said. “The businesses that are furthest ahead across all three areas are the streamers and Sky because they've nailed each of those elements in a way that perhaps public service broadcasters have not.”

Calling the BBC “Europe’s university of media” and saying “no-one else would have commissioned Peaky Blinders”, writer, director and executive producer Steven Knight advised the BBC to sell TV licences in the US.

“Anyone in America who wants to get unbiased news, for example, then buy a licence for iPlayer. It’s only [the cost of] a subscription. I understand the BBC is not allowed to make a profit so all revenues should be returned into programmes.”

Jeremy Clarkson was prepared to go further than anyone by contemplating a full scale merger of all UK broadcasters, Sky included.

“If we had one great big broadcaster, let's call it ‘Britflix’, perhaps everyone could come together and make fewer programmes, but make them bigger, better and properly funded,” he said.

Clarkson added that he would ringfence news and have that paid for by the licence fee.

“The biggest problem with social media is accuracy and the tendency to mistake opinion for news,” he said. “Having said that, I think old media is suffering from the same problem to a dangerous degree. Opinion increasingly being dressed up as news.”

Pressed as to why broadcasters are not discussing collective consolidation, Sky’s Chief Advertising and Content Officer and CEO, Sky Studios Cécile Frot-Coutaz said, “We have different business models and shareholding structures.”

The sector had collaborated more in recent years, she said, adding that UK broadcaster competition is no longer with each other but YouTube and streamers.

Yet she doubled down on Sky’s “advantage” as a platform for PSB content. The Comcast-owned business is in the process of buying ITV channels and committed to maintaining news as a public service.

“The goal of our transformation is to create a business model with more revenue streams that is sustainable to scale content. We know that content is super important but so is the technology that goes with it since as a viewer that effects your ability to engage with a platform,” she said. “Bringing an ad-funded broadcaster with ad-funded streaming and subscription TV will create scale.”

“Focus on what you do well”

Richard Halton, Country Manager, Roku UK said he believed the global industry will wind up with just a handful of major TV operating-system platforms.

“That means a platform has to be incredibly respectful of the consumer, who simply wants to find something to watch quickly and of content partners, who need revenue, data and proper brand credit for the programmes they've invested in and produced. Platform businesses that understand both sides of that equation are the ones that will succeed.”

As BBC head of strategy Halton was responsible for the BBC’s first YouTube deal in 2006 and saw how online platforms would become more important in how audiences choose what to watch.

“Audiences now sit at both ends of the spectrum,” he said. “At one end, you've got niche FAST channels serving highly specific interests. At the other, you've got major shared experiences like the World Cup, where broadcasters come together to create huge moments for mass audiences. Platforms need to support both with tailored search, recommendations and discovery.”

What's remarkable about the UK content economy isn't just its ability to create new shows, he added, it's also the depth of its archive and IP built over decades.

“One of the most profitable streaming services globally is Crunchyroll, which proves the value of truly understanding a specific audience and serving it exceptionally well.

“That may be the future for many broadcasters,” he said. “Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, focus on what you do uniquely well.

“The BBC's specialist expertise remains among the best in the world, and that's a strength it should continue to build on.”

Clarkson: Event TV has to go big

Clarkson was sharing the stage with his daughter, Em Clarkson, who has built her own media career online including with the chart-topping podcast ‘Should I Delete That’.

Taking note of the rise of creator-led content the veteran broadcaster believed that TV should go big or go home.

Ever since I started in television the argument has always been the same,” he said. “We need to make fewer programmes, but make them bigger and better. The problem is there was never really any urgency to do that.

“We've all carried on making lots of programmes because it's very difficult to stop. At some point, you've got to put money in the attic, as it were. You've got to keep the machine running. But I think we're now reaching a point where it has become imperative.

“Cinema is struggling and will increasingly become more like theatre - a premium experience rather than a mass one.

“Meanwhile, there's a huge wave of creator-led content coming up from underneath. And because of that, I genuinely believe television has to become bigger.

“It has to do fewer things, but do them on a much grander scale.”

He said that current discussions with Amazon Prime about a successor to Clarkson's Farm “will have to be bigger and ambitious enough to stand out against everything else that's competing for attention.

“We've always had event television, but there's far less of it than there used to be. I think television now has to lean back into that.”

The rise of sports social

Gary Neville, former right-back and co-founder of soccer content creators The Overlap, rejected suggestions that broadcasters should attempt to compete directly with creator-led formats.

"What I don't understand is why people think the BBC, ITV or Sky should be competing directly with something like The Overlap," he said, in a session devoted to the differences between legacy and social media’s ability to reach sports fans. "They can never be the same thing."

The appeal of independent digital formats, he argued, lies in their freedom. Conversations can be closer to the way fans discuss football in pubs.

"On The Overlap, I can swear, I can be more relaxed and I can take conversations into places that fans would naturally take them," he said. "Broadcasters can't do that. They operate under Ofcom rules."

Traditional broadcasters and creator-led platforms serve different audience needs, he said, even when discussing the same stories.

“When myself, Roy [Keane] or Ian [Wright] appear on TV we might say the same thing we’ve said on our programme but we say it in a different way.”

Built around flagship formats such as The Fan Debate and Stick to Football, his business is preparing to launch a daily football news podcast in response to growing audience demand.

"When Ruben Amorim was sacked at 11 o'clock on a Monday, we didn't have a programme for ten days," Neville said. "We looked at that and thought: that's not right."

The same challenge emerged during developments surrounding Manchester City's 115 charges, where major news broke days before The Overlap was due to air.

"People don't want to wait six days for analysis anymore," he said. "They don't even want to wait six hours.”

Signals to watch

The panel discussed which signal, of all the data collected about audience viewing habits, was the one they valued most. For Neville, this was audience sentiment. “A couple of hours after a programme goes out, I'll read the first 20 or 30 comments from people who've watched it. That gives me a feel for what people actually think.

“Sometimes they're critical. Sometimes they're harsh. That's fine. What people are genuinely thinking about your content is still the most important thing.”

Alex Kay-Jelski, Director, BBC Sport looks toward completion rate. “If you've made a 60-second video, are people watching all 60 seconds? If you've made a 60-minute documentary and everyone switches off after 10 minutes, then you probably haven't made a very good documentary.

“People can sit there and say, ‘We had 10 million people visit the live page.’ But if the live page was rubbish, then all you've done is show 10 million people something rubbish. That's not good for your brand.”

For Nikki Doucet, CEO, Women's Super League it starts with the product itself.

“If people care about what's happening on the pitch, they'll want to watch. They'll consume more content. Everything else follows from creating a competition that fans genuinely care about.”

The advice of Fiona Wood, Strategy Director, of All3Media’s Little Dot Studios was to focus on engagement.

“Don’t obsess over follower counts. Subscribers and followers are increasingly vanity metrics. You don't have to follow a channel anymore to be served its content. The algorithm has completely changed that dynamic. You can overlook a lot of important moments if you're only focused on total views. Engagement shows you where niche communities are forming and where audiences are genuinely connecting with content."