My Lords, summing up from these Benches on the amendments in this group, I congratulate those who have spoken, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It crossed my mind as I was about to stand up that on the first day in Committee I was congratulating and following a prima ballerina and today it is an Olympian—which rather reduces my sense of myself. I am sure the Minister will agree that it is a remarkable example of what the Department for Culture, Media and Sport produces that we have as great legislators these great sportsmen and artists.
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The Government have listened to our incredibly important public service broadcasters and heard their plea about future-proofing prominence, and made it prominent in this Bill. For British audiences to lose easy access to our PSBs would be a very bad idea. How lucky we are to have them, and what a vital role they play in underpinning not just our creative economy but our culture and democracy. That is why we must ensure that all PSB content and services are available on all major TV-connected platforms, and that they are easy to find. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, UK audiences have demonstrated time and again, through their viewing and listening habits, that they want to watch this material—in fact, more time is spent watching BBC iPlayer on average per person per week than Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video combined.
The streamers love the UK because of its trailblazing R&D, led by the BBC, as well as the skills and infrastructure of the PSBs as a whole, but they cannot
become the cuckoo in the nest, and that is the challenge. Amending the prominence clauses of the Communications Act 2003 is essential, which is what this Bill sets out to do. Some 20 years ago, we carefully constructed a linear broadcasting system to ensure that the benefits of PSBs would be easily accessible to everyone. However, with apologies to the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Lansley, 2003 was a very long time ago, and the media landscape today is very different.
The fact that the Media Bill updates the rules to embrace the PSBs’ on-demand services, such as BBC iPlayer and ITVX, is hugely welcome, and we want to see it passed into law as soon as possible. However, as my noble friend Lady Featherstone said, we do not think it goes far enough. The Bill mandates only “appropriate” prominence, thereby allowing too much discretion to the regulator, Ofcom, which will no doubt be lobbied vigorously by powerful platforms. More direction from Parliament, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said earlier, is critical to ensuring that neither Ofcom nor the platforms are left with any doubt as to the importance of prioritising PSB content.
We discussed the use of the word “appropriate” during the first day in Committee, in the context of genres. The same arguments made then—lack of a proper definition—apply to prominence. Amendments 46 and 47 would provide greater clarity by replacing “appropriate” with “significant”. This was also recommended by the CMS Select Committee report on its pre-legislative scrutiny, which said:
“The current position, that PSBs are given ‘appropriate’ prominence … has determined that they have the top spots. However, this does not work in the advanced user interfaces of today and so we recommend that the threshold for PSB prominence should be raised to ‘significant’”.
Amendment 50 continues on this theme, and would ask Ofcom to ensure a strong degree of prominence for the PSBs when issuing its new code of practice. This is also in line with the CMS Select Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny report. Amendment 51 adds to this by specifying that the new code should ensure that prominence applies to other functions currently available on digital and on-demand platforms, including search functions, recommendations and personalised functions—in other words, that algorithms owned by the streamers do not promote their own content at the expense of the PSBs and do not make the viewers’ choices for them.
Finally, as we heard earlier, Amendment 42 is designed to ensure that the linear electronic programme guides on which many of us still rely for accessing the PSBs do not disappear as households move from Freeview or Freesat delivery to broadband. Some 82% of BBC content is currently delivered via linear programme guides, but the Bill places no requirement on TV manufacturers or other platforms to guarantee easy access to that linear guide, which could, for example, disappear completely from remote controls for smart TVs. Platforms that want to prioritise their own services could easily relegate the linear guide, making it difficult or impossible to find, while promoting their own services on their TV interface. The amendment will address this loophole.
The UK has a proud history of public service broadcasting, which has enriched this country for over 100 years. It has been the cornerstone of a thriving
creative economy, of British stories for British people, and of a dynamic and informed British democracy. That is what we are seeking to future-proof today, and it has never been more important.