.........
The
proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken
in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
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Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:30.
The meeting began at 09:30.
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Cyflwyniad, Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan
Buddiannau
Introductions, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of
Interest
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[1]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch a chroeso i gyfarfod ffurfiol
y pwyllgor y bore yma. Croeso i’r Aelodau ac i’r
tystion. Os bydd larwm
tân, dylai pawb adael yr ystafell drwy’r allanfeydd
tân penodol a dilyn cyfarwyddiadau’r tywyswyr a’r
staff, ond ni ddisgwylir prawf heddiw. Dylai pawb droi eu ffonau
symudol i fod yn dawel. Mae’r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol yn
gweithredu’n ddwyieithog, ac mae clustffonau ar gael i glywed
y cyfieithiad ar y pryd ac i addasu’r sain ar gyfer pobl
sy’n drwm eu clyw. Mae’r cyfieithu ar y pryd ar gael ar
sianel 1, a gellir chwyddo’r sain ar sianel 0. Peidiwch
â chyffwrdd â’r botymau ar y meicroffonau, gan y
gall hyn amharu ar y system, a gofalwch fod y golau coch ymlaen cyn
dechrau siarad. Rydw i’n
credu fy mod i bron wedi cael hynny’n iawn ar ôl
misoedd o gadeirio.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you and welcome to this formal meeting of the
committee this morning. I’d like to welcome the Members
and the witnesses. If the fire alarm does sound, everyone should
leave the room following the exits and the instructions of staff
and ushers, but we do not expect a fire alarm to be sounded out as
a test. Could everyone switch their mobiles to silent? The National
Assembly does operate bilingually, and headphones are available to
hear the interpretation and to amplify the sound for anyone
who’s hard of hearing. The interpretation is available on
channel 1, and amplification via channel 0. Please don’t
touch the buttons on the microphones, because that can interfere
with the system, and please wait for the red light to come on
before you begin to speak. I think that I’ve almost got that
right after several months of chairing.
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[2]
A oes unrhyw beth i Aelodau’r
Cynulliad eu datgan o ran buddiannau ar hyn o bryd? Dim byd. Nid
oes ymddiheuriadau na dirprwyon.
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Do Members have
any interests to declare? I see that you don’t. We’ve
received no apologies and there are no substitutes.
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09:31
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Dyfodol
S4C—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 5
The Future of S4C—Evidence Session 5
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[3]
Beth Jenkins:
Rydym ni’n symud ymlaen at
eitem 2, ar ddyfodol S4C, a sesiwn dystiolaeth 5. Yn
anffodus, mae Simon Curtis o Equity yn sâl ac wedi gorfod
tynnu mas. Ac, felly, gan fod agenda brysur gennym ni am weddill y
bore, byddwn ni’n trio cadw’r sesiwn yma bach yn
fyrrach nag oedd y bwriad ar gychwyn y bore. Ond diolch i
chi’ch dau am ddod i mewn: David Donovan, sydd yn swyddog
cenedlaethol BECTU
Cymru; a Siân
Gale, cadeirydd cangen
llawrydd de Cymru, BECTU Cymru. Diolch yn fawr am ddod i mewn atom
heddiw.
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Bethan
Jenkins: So we’ll move on to item 2, which is the future
of S4C. This is our fifth evidence session. Unfortunately, Simon
Curtis from Equity is ill and has had to pull out. And, so, because
we have a busy agenda for the rest of the morning, we will be
seeking to keep this session a little briefer than we intended
initially. But we would like to thank you both for coming in: David
Donovan, the national officer for BECTU Wales; and Siân Gale,
the chair of the south Wales freelance branch, BECTU Wales. Thank
you very much for joining us this morning.
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[4]
Y cwestiwn cyntaf, wrth gwrs, rydym
ni’n ei ofyn i’r bobl sy’n dod i mewn yw: sut
ydych chi’n credu y mae S4C yn diwallu anghenion ei
chynulleidfa ar hyn o bryd? Ac i ba raddau rydych chi’n credu
ei bod wedi addasu i’r newidiadau yn y byd digidol sydd
ohoni? A ydych chi’n credu eu bod nhw wedi gallu gwneud
hynny? A beth yw eich barn chi ynglŷn â’r
adolygiad sydd yn mynd i ddigwydd ar lefel San Steffan?
Diolch.
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The first question, of course, we ask of
the witnesses is: how do you believe that S4C is currently meeting
the needs of its audience? And to what extent do you believe that
they have adapted to the changes that have happened in the digital
world as it is? Do you believe that they have been able to do so?
And can you give us your view about the review that is going to
take place at a Westminster level? Thank you.
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[5]
Mr Donovan: May I say thank you very much for the invitation
to speak to you this morning, and to provide evidence? We’re
very grateful. Very often, it’s overlooked that the driving
force and the creativity behind most of these broadcasters of
course, if not all, is the workforce. Is S4C meeting its targets?
Is S4C meting the aspirations of Wales and the forthcoming review
that we will all be welcoming? I think the difficulty is that S4C
has clearly not been seen to make its targets. Simply, if you
monitor its performance over the last seven or eight years, there
has been a decline in viewers. The question is: what it is the
driving force behind that? Is it the proliferation of alternative
means of getting enjoyment or getting your information? Or is it
something as fundamental as the correlation between budgets, the
quality of the programmes that S4C is making and the range of
programmes that S4C is making? And has it, in an attempt to meet
the challenges of the modern world, overstretched itself? I believe
it has overstretched itself. I believe that S4C needs to reconsider
again its core operation, because, if it starts to deliver and
attract the viewers in Wales to quality Welsh-language programmes,
we may see a reversal—we will quite likely see a
reversal—in the correlation between the budget and the
viewing figures for Wales.
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[6]
Bethan
Jenkins: A ydych
chi’n credu mai teledu yw’r model gorau ar gyfer S4C?
Rydym ni wedi clywed tystiolaeth yn dweud bod angen i S4C arloesi a
bod angen newid y remit yn hynny o beth. A ydych chi’n
credu bod hynny’n rhywbeth rydych chi’n cytuno gyda fe
ai peidio?
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Bethan
Jenkins: Do you believe that television itself is the best
model for S4C? We have heard evidence that states that S4C needs to
innovate and that the remit needs to be changed in that regard. Do
you believe that that is something that you would agree with or
not?
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[7]
Ms Gale: Rwy’n credu bod angen sgwrs ehangach. Ar
hyn o bryd, mae S4C newydd wynebu toriadau o 40 y cant o’i
chyllid. So, sut, yn y cyd-destun hwnnw, gall S4C gymryd mwy
ymlaen?
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Ms
Gale: I think that a broader conversation is needed. At the
moment, S4C has just faced cuts of 40 per cent in its budget. So,
in that context, how can S4C take more on?
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[8]
Ac fel y soniodd David, beth rŷm
ni’n ei deimlo fel undeb yw bod y problemau y mae S4C
wedi’u hwynebu dros y blynyddoedd diwethaf yn deillio
o’u polisi digidol. Rhan o’r polisi digidol oedd creu
llawer mwy o raglenni gyda’r un cyllid. Felly, os ydym
ni’n edrych ar fodel S4C a’r cyllid sydd gyda ni ar hyn
o bryd, sut allwn ni ddisgwyl iddi gymryd mwy o gyfrifoldeb? Nid yw
hynny’n meddwl nad oes angen i ni drafod y Gymraeg a’r
cyfryngau a’r byd diwylliannol yn gyffredinol, achos mae
angen gwneud hynny. Mae angen trafodaeth genedlaethol arnom ni ar
hynny, rhwng y diwydiant, y Llywodraeth a chymunedau dros Gymru.
Felly, mae yna ddau beth ac nid ydym ni’n hapus iawn yn
cymysgu’r ddau, achos os ydym ni’n sôn am S4C,
sianel darlledu teledu yw S4C, ond mae yna sgwrs ehangach am y
diwydiannau creadigol yng Nghymru a’r Gymraeg.
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[9]
And as David mentioned, what we as a union feel is that the
problems that S4C has faced over the past few years are down to the
digital policy. Part of that policy was to create far more
programming with the same budget. So, if we look at the S4C model
and the funding available at present, how can we expect them to
take more responsibilities forward? That doesn’t mean that we
don’t need to discuss the Welsh language and the media and
the cultural sphere more generally, because we need to do that. We
need a national debate on those issues between the industry, the
Government and communities across Wales. So, there are two things
there and we’re not happy in confusing those two things,
because if we’re talking about S4C, it is a television
broadcast channel, but there is a broader conversation to be had on
the creative industries in Wales and the Welsh language.
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[10]
Bethan Jenkins:
A ydych chi’n credu bod S4C
wedi gwrando arnoch chi a’r consýrn ynglŷn ag,
efallai, glastwreiddio’r hyn sydd yn digwydd gydag S4C
oherwydd y ffaith bod yna ddiffyg adnoddau ac maen nhw’n
ceisio gwneud mwy gyda’r adnoddau hynny? A ydych chi wedi
codi’r consýrn yna gyda nhw?
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Bethan
Jenkins: Do you believe that S4C has listened to you and the
concern that you have about watering down what is happening in
terms of S4C because there is this lack of resources and
they’re seeking to do more with those resources? Have you
raised that concern with them?
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[11]
Mr Donovan: We have raised this concern with them and not
only with them, but with the industry in general and also with the
various committees of the Welsh Government. The difficulty is that
the message that we’re giving is quite an unpopular message
and it certainly goes against the tide, quite frankly. Everybody,
10 to 15 years ago, was overawed by the new, digital future, and
there was a lot of conflicting information and visions of what that
digital future would have. And here come trade unions that are
talking about the necessity of maintaining quality, and maintaining
budgets. Therefore, it seemed to some people that we may have been
using the broader dialogue to mask our insistence that people
should be treated fairly at work. Okay?
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[12]
We attended the Institute of Welsh Affairs conference yesterday and
it was most interesting. It was most interesting because here we
are now in 2017 and there is a dialogue that has just been started
about whether and what news we can support on our public service
broadcasters, and that dialogue is starting for the first time to
include a notion of levies—levies on non-PSB and Google,
Facebook, et cetera. Now, with every respect, I would say to you
that, back in 2009, we gave evidence to the industry: ‘Mind
the funding gap. The potential of industry levies for continued
funding of public service broadcasting.’ This was a joint
document, prepared with BECTU and the National Union of
Journalists. So, the reason I point that out is that we are very
pleased to see that the industry, the rest of the industry, is
starting to catch up with the notion of, ‘How is it
appropriate that we tackle the pressures on our public service
broadcasters?’ I don’t say that simply to come here and
say that we know it all—far from it—but what I do come
here to say is that the unions have taken a step back and have
looked at the most fundamental reasons why a public service
broadcaster should survive in today’s competitive arena.
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[13]
Ms Gale: A gaf i jest ddweud
un peth? Fel undebau, rŷm ni yn edrych yn ôl ond
rŷm ni’n edrych ymlaen hefyd. Roedd y gynhadledd ddoe yn
dda iawn achos rŷm ni’n trial edrych ymlaen pum mlynedd,
trial bod yn realistig ac edrych ymlaen pum mlynedd, ac fe wnaeth
rhywun o’r enw Claire Enders, sydd yn ymgynghorydd yn y
sector, sôn, o ran unrhyw fath o ddarlledu a
newyddiaduriaeth, y pethau ar-lein fel Google a ballu sydd yn
cymryd yr arian i gyd ar hyn o bryd drwy hysbysebu. Felly,
mae’n bwysig bod peth o hynny yn dod yn ôl i’r
sector gyhoeddus—
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Ms Gale:
If I could just say one thing. As unions, we do look back, but we
also look to the future. Yesterday’s conference was excellent
because we were trying to look forward by five years and being
realistic in doing that. Someone called Claire Enders, who is a
consultant in the sector, did mention that, in terms of any
broadcasting and journalism, it’s online facilities such as
Google that are sucking up all of the funding at the moment through
advertising. So, it is important that some of that is returned to
the public sector—
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[14]
Bethan Jenkins: Byddwn
ni’n trafod hyn yn hwyrach, os yw hynny’n iawn. Nid
ydym eisiau mynd i mewn i gyllid ar hyn o bryd. Ond os gallwch chi
roi’r ateb hwnnw pan fydd rhywun yn gofyn am gyllid, byddai
hynny’n grêt. Fe wnawn ni symud ymlaen at gylch gwaith
statudol S4C yn awr. Mae gan Suzy Davies gwestiynau.
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Bethan
Jenkins: We will discuss funding later on, if that’s
okay. We don’t want to stray into that area now, but if you
could respond to that when someone raises the issue of funding,
that will be fine. We’ll move on to the statutory remit of
S4C now and Suzy Davies has questions for us.
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[15]
Suzy Davies: Thanks, Chair. It’s very interesting what
you’re saying. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to this
conference myself yesterday, actually. From what you’re
saying, it’s pretty clear that the current remit of S4C is
well past its sell-by date and it needs to be playing in its new
future very, very differently. Bearing in mind that the review of
its purposes is there and it’s up for grabs, really, what
needs to be fed into that, how are you planning to look at this as
an opportunity for your members and how would you think that you
can feed that information into the review?
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[16]
Mr Donovan: We welcome the opportunity, simply because part
of the dislocation and part of the difficulty of the industry has
been its core funding. Siân mentioned it earlier: we cannot
get away from the significant damage that has been done to S4C
because of the significant cuts, up to 40 per cent, that it faces.
If you then feel that we should be sanguine because it’s now
being funded through the BBC licence fee, just look at the cuts
they’ve experienced over the last three or four years.
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[17]
I think what we need to be saying is, above all else, we believe
that this industry’s success rests on the quality of the
output. Whatever forum that output is based on, it needs to be
quality. It sets it apart from somebody doing a local blog or
typing away in their bedroom at home. That quality is based on the
dedication and the creativity of the workforce. Not all trade union
members would say that to you, but the fundamental issue is the
creativity of the people who want to get their story, the story of
Wales or their story of coming into Wales out there.
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[18]
So, we would welcome and want to reinforce, frankly, that you have
to treat this workforce with respect. We don’t believe it is
treated with respect today, simply because the hours that
they’re expected to work are far too long and the life
opportunities they have to consider at certain stages of their
career are too significant. Do you want a social life? Heavens
above. More importantly perhaps, for some people, do you want to
start a family?
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[19]
So, what we’re saying—. Yesterday, the watch word was
about partnership. We are advocating partnership and we recognise
what the Welsh Government and Welsh Assembly is aiming to do in
terms of it cultural committees. However, that partnership has to
be on something more than a begrudging respect, almost, for the
trade unions. We see ourselves as partners—full partners. I
am here today speaking to you and putting in the message of the
people who are members who inform us.
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[20]
It just so happens that the critique that they reflect to us is
recognised in the annual reports of S4C and the annual reports of
the BBC. There is a correlation between reduced budgets, the number
of hours people have to work, and the impact that has on their
ability to retain a creative outlook.
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[21]
Ms Gale: A gaf i jest ddweud un peth? Mae’n
gamarweiniol i ddweud nad ydym yn cytuno bod remit S4C yn
iawn fel y mae, i raddau. Beth rydym ni’n dweud yw bod eisiau
edrych ar S4C ac ar bethau eraill hefyd. Ond, ni ddylai hynny i gyd
ddod o dan yr un cyllid. Hefyd, y peth arall sy’n bwysig i
ni—ac rydym yn meddwl bod S4C wedi mynd ar y ffordd anghywir
dros y blynyddoedd diwethaf—yw bod safon yn bwysig.
Mae’n rhaid inni gynhyrchu—. Byddai’n well gyda
ni ein bod yn cynhyrchu llai yn yr iaith Gymraeg gyda’r arian
sydd gyda ni ond yn creu mwy o safon.
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Ms Gale:
May I just say one thing? It’s misleading to say that we
don’t agree that S4C’s remit is fine as it is, to some
extent. What we’re saying is that there’s a need to
look at S4C and other issues as well. But, that should not all come
under the same funding envelope. Another thing that’s
important to us—and somewhere where we think S4C has taken
the wrong direction over the past few years—is the importance
of quality. We have to produce—. We would prefer to produce
less in the Welsh language with the money that we have, but create
something of a higher standard.
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[22]
Hefyd, mae trafodaeth ynglŷn
â bod eisiau mwy o hyder arnom ni yn yr iaith Gymraeg a beth
y gallwn ni ei gynhyrchu yn yr iaith Gymraeg yn unig, a’n bod
ni’n gallu gwerthu hynny drwy’r byd yn yr iaith
wreiddiol. Mae pobl yn gallu defnyddio isdeitlau ac maen
nhw’n hapus i wneud hynny. Felly, i ni, safon sy’n
bwysig a’r math o ddiwydiant a’r creadigrwydd sydd yn
rhan o’r diwydiant hwnnw. Dyna sut rydym yn mynd i
ffynnu.
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There’s
also a discussion to be had about the need for greater confidence
in the Welsh language and what we can produce through the medium of
Welsh solely, and that we can sell that internationally in the
original language. People can use subtitles and they’re happy
to do so. So, for us, the quality is what is important and the type
of industry and the creativity involved in that industry.
That’s what will lead to prosperity.
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[23]
Suzy Davies: Two questions just coming from that, if I may? The
first is, we’ve had some evidence that suggests that, when
we’re talking about quality, we could, in the future, be
considering a range of quality, depending on the audience and the
type of content they consume. So, there’s a big difference
between quality drama on S4C and stuff on YouTube, for example.
But, both have a role. The question is where S4C and the promotion
of the Welsh language should fit in that huge range of things. So,
when you’ve got people coming into your industry—brand
new members coming out of college—they might have different
expectations about what they would be doing in the future from the
members that you currently have.
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[24]
Your question of quality is an important
one. I agree that, if you’re going to have something
that’s sellable across the world, it has to be of a high
standard. So, what leverage or influence do you have on,
let’s say, S4C at the moment about what type of product
they’re actually producing? Because if you’re looking
for a future for your members, I want to know what that
relationship is, really. Do you ask them, for example, ‘Why
are you putting on stuff that nobody watches?’
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09:45
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Mr Donavan: Yes,
we do. May I say that—? I’ll stick my neck out: there
is a quantifiable difference between wanting to have a hobby
that dabbles in access to the media or social media. Everybody who
wants to come into this industry has one aim: they want to work on
quality programmes. The structural difficulty in the industry now,
caused by its funding crisis, is the dynamic from the
broadcasters’ view is that they need quality and they
recognise quality, but only for, notionally, the high-end drama. I
would say that S4C’s digital objective was exactly to mirror
the all-day television, the digital coverage, by having, my word
would be, ‘wallpaper’—that is, of a less high
standard, but mixing into the menu then would be high-quality
productions.
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[25]
What we say is that if you’re a professional and a public
service broadcaster, you should have one aim: quality. It should be
quality. The mechanisms by which you deliver the programming can
differ and the budgets can differ and that’s always been
so—there has always been a difference there. What we’re
saying is that the balance and the desire to embark on the brave
new digital future and the cuts have meant that we have lost the
balance there.
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[26]
May I come back to say that we have a very good working
relationship with the broadcasters? I say that. I say that we have
many arguments with the broadcasters, not least over terms and
conditions, et cetera, for individual staff. But as trade unions,
the Federation of Entertainment Unions in Wales, we have also got a
very strong idea about what our members should be working on.
We’ve taken part in campaigns, such as quality television,
over the years. So, you cannot disassociate the notion of quality
per se from saying, ‘Well, this goes out at a certain time;
it goes out on a certain forum, but that has to be quantifiably
less.’ Everybody comes into this saying that we should be
aspiring to work on a quality programme. The budget that is
allocated to these different times and different genres, that can
change. The balance is wrong and S4C’s current cuts are
causing some fundamental difficulties to its ability to
deliver.
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[27]
When we criticised S4C over its digital policy some years ago, S4C
was saying, ‘It’s the future and we have to compete and
we have to be part of this marketplace.’ The danger was that
if they weren’t going to be doing that, they would face a
funding crisis. We would say that they’re facing that funding
crisis, so it’s time to review that very policy and I’m
glad to say that it has in many ways. It is starting to look again
at the quality of its output and there are signs of that. It is
starting again to look at the budgets and they’re set to
increase and we welcome that. But I still feel that, if anything,
they are less susceptible to argue for quality and the relationship
between the quality of its output and its potential audience rather
than it being deflected, ‘Well, we only have a set sum of
money; we’ve got to work in partnership, what else can we
do?’
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[28]
Ms Gale: A allaf wneud jest un pwynt bach? Mae’r
gwahanol weithwyr sydd gyda ni ar draws Cymru yn eithaf cymhleth.
Rŷm ni’n gweithio ar draws teledu, ffilm ac
adloniant—adloniant byw, theatr ac yn y blaen. Mae’n
syndod faint o aelodau sydd gyda ni yn ein cymunedau yng Nghymru.
Nid yw’r aelodau i gyd yn fan hyn, yn ardal Caerdydd; maen
nhw dros Gymru i gyd. Mae yna bob math o gwmnïau gwahanol yna:
mae yna gwmnïau digidol efallai sydd ddim yn gwneud pethau ar
gyfer darlledu neu sydd yn gwneud pethau ar y we. Felly, mae
e’n gymhleth iawn ynglŷn â pha fath o aelodau sydd
gyda ni.
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Ms Gale:
Could I just make one brief point? The various workers that we
represent across Wales is quite complex. We work across television,
film and entertainment—live entertainment, theatre and so on.
It’s surprising how many members we have in our communities
in Wales. Not all members are here, in the Cardiff area;
they’re spread all over Wales. There are all sorts of
different companies: there are digital companies that perhaps
don’t produce output for broadcasting and work online. So, it
is very complex in terms of our membership.
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[29]
Mae yna 2,000 o wahanol swydd
ddisgrifiadau ar ein cronfa ddata ni yn BECTU, a gyda’r oes
ddigidol mae hynny’n newid: mae swyddi’n dod
trwy’r amser; mae rhai newydd yn dod ac y mae hen rai yn
diflannu. Felly, mae’n sefyllfa eithaf cymhleth
nawr. Yn siarad amboutu S4C, rŷm
ni’n canolbwyntio ar hyn o bryd ar bethau o safon, ond wrth
gwrs mae rhai pobl yn gwneud pethau digidol ac arloesol yn eu
cymunedau eu hunain ac y mae gwahanol fathau o blatfformau i
ddangos hynny. Beth sy’n fy mhoeni i yw, os ydych yn
tynnu’r rheini mewn i bot llai a llai i S4C, lle mae
rhaglenni yn costio £10,800 am raglen hanner awr, rŷch
chi’n drysu pethau a rŷch chi’n troi S4C mewn i
ryw fath o McDonald’s.
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There are 2,000
different job descriptions on our database in BECTU, and with the
digital age that is constantly changing: jobs are appearing all the
time; new jobs are being created and the old jobs are disappearing.
So, it’s quite a complex picture. In talking about S4C, we
are focusing at the moment on quality, but of course some people
are working digitally and innovatively in their own communities and
there are different types of platforms to actually issue that
content. What concerns us is that if you draw all of that into a
shrinking pot in S4C, where it’s £10,800 for a
half-hour programme, then you’re confusing things and
you’re turning S4C into some sort of McDonald’s.
|
|
[30]
Suzy
Davies: Ocê, diolch yn fawr.
|
Suzy Davies: Okay, thank you.
|
|
[31]
Bethan
Jenkins: Mae’n rhaid i fi symud ymlaen nawr at gyllid, sori. Mae
gan Lee Waters gwestiynau i chi.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: We have to move on now to funding, sorry. Lee Waters
has questions on this subject.
|
|
[32]
Lee Waters: I think the witnesses have already fully
explained their views on funding so I'll curtail my questions, if I
might. I just wanted to pick up on something that Dave Donovan was
suggesting, which is the relationship between funding and quality.
So, a counter-argument to that view is one that we heard Huw
Marshall make, which is, essentially, that your view is—.
You've got an analogue set of values in a digital era, would be one
way of putting it, and you think that the production values in the
digital sphere should be the same as the production values in
television. And much of the evidence about the drive in digital
viewership shows that those production values aren't present and
don't reflect the viewing patterns—namely, people
aren’t as fussed as you or I might be about the standard of
the programmes and it's the content and the compelling nature of
the story being told that’s more important. So, don’t
we, maybe, have to recalibrate our attitudes towards what quality
means in this new era?
|
|
[33]
Mr Donovan: I'm not entirely convinced of that. I believe
that quality is the importance, because, in the age of multimedia,
where, then, you've got all of these competing programs, what is
going to make you stop zapping through that handset or looking on
your phone? You need to engage that viewer; that is exactly what
you need to do. You need to offer the type of programming that they
want to watch, to begin with. You also need to deliver it to the
best possible standards. I believe there is a fundamental
difference between looking on YouTube or looking at amateur
produced programmes—. However, we’re not talking about
an amateur output. The public service broadcasters get a
significant amount of money. Why should we be saying that we
shouldn't also care about quality?
|
|
[34]
Lee Waters: We should. But doesn’t it need to be with
a bit more granular than that, though? So, should the quality
standards apply equally to all the programmes and also to digital
and analogue?
|
|
[35]
Mr Donovan: I believe they should. Yes, I believe they
should.
|
|
[36]
Lee Waters: But you said in your evidence earlier that
there’s a relationship between budget and viewing figures.
I'm not sure what evidence you have to justify that claim.
|
|
[37]
Mr Donovan: Well, the evidence is if you go back over the
reports for S4C over the last 10 years they will show that. We've
given evidence to the Welsh Assembly—
|
|
[38]
Lee Waters: Well, they don't show that. They show the
budgets have gone down and they show the audience has gone down.
The audiences have been going down for a number of reasons across
all broadcasters. So, I'm not sure you can really establish a clear
link between those two things.
|
|
[39]
Mr Donovan: Well, we believe that it's due to the quality
that is being offered to the public.
|
|
[40]
Lee Waters: Well, you may believe it. My point is it's hard
to evidence it, isn't it?
|
|
[41]
Mr Donovan: How we evidence is we will refer back to the
reports, because what other reason is there, then?
|
|
[42]
Lee Waters: Well, because there are changing viewing habits
across the whole sector. Television views are declining across all
broadcasters.
|
|
[43]
Ms Gale: Yes, but what’s growing is viewing on
iPlayer, et cetera. Forty-eight per cent, I think the stats were
saying yesterday—48 per cent of viewing of S4C—
|
|
[44]
Lee Waters: That's growing under current budgets.
|
|
[45]
Ms Gale: Excuse me; 48 per cent of viewing of S4C is
viewed—people are viewing it outside of Wales. So, there is
an appetite for that—
|
|
[46]
Lee Waters: On the current budget. That’s happening
now, under declining budgets you’ve just pointed out.
|
|
[47]
Ms Gale: Yes. Sorry, I don’t understand your
argument.
|
|
[48]
Lee Waters: So, my point is—
|
|
[49]
Bethan Jenkins: Can we just have one at a time, please?
|
|
[50]
Ms Gale: Yes.
|
|
[51]
Bethan Jenkins: Thanks.
|
|
[52]
Lee Waters: What I’m trying to get clear in my head is
that you’ve stated that there’s a clear link between
budgets and viewing figures, and I’m not convinced that the
evidence has been produced to justify that claim.
|
|
[53]
Ms Gale: Do we want, as a nation, to have productions like
‘Hedd Wyn’ that will bring money and kudos to the
industry in Wales, and our culture is shared throughout Wales, or
do we want to build an industry on YouTube and digital programming?
There’s nothing wrong with digital programming. I think, you
know, the sort of cheap—
|
|
[54]
Lee Waters: With respect, that’s a different point
from the one I’m making.
|
|
[55]
Ms Gale: I don’t understand your point, then.
|
|
[56]
Lee Waters: Indeed. But the point I’m making is that
there’s an argument for saying we need to take a more
sophisticated approach. Rather than saying that the quality
standards and budgets for all output should be the same—and
Huw Marshall has made this argument persuasively, to my
mind—we should concentrate investment in high production
values where we think that’s justified, but, some of the
output, we could get away with lower production values, especially
when it’s for a digital audience.
|
|
[57]
Ms Gale: How low do you want to get? We’ve gone pretty
low. And, again, what we said at the beginning is that we need to
look at the Welsh language medium digital. We need to look at our
cultural side of things, including newspapers and digital news. We
need to look at it holistically, rather than say, ‘This is
S4C, this is what exists; it can do everything’. It
can’t do everything, so let’s have a big debate about
it all and bring in the academics, bring in our communities and
bring in people like yourselves.
|
|
[58]
Bethan Jenkins: I’m sure that Jeremy Miles wants to
come in on a question now, so, if that's okay.
|
|
[59]
Jeremy Miles: What was the economic impact on your members
of a schedule that has more repeats because it’s spending its
money on a smaller number of better programmes?
|
|
[60]
Mr Donovan: Sorry, can you repeat that again?
|
|
[61]
Jeremy Miles: What’s the economic impact on the
availability of work for your members of a model for S4C where it
spends more money on fewer programmes, and therefore repeats more
of those programmes?
|
|
[62]
Mr Donovan: With the exception of one or two grades, our
members don’t gain any benefit advantage from repeats. There
was a discussion about the impact of repeats on S4C’s digital
output, and I notice now that they’re at, I think, 50 per
cent repeats. So, for our members, in the main, with the exception
of two or three grades, they have no benefit from a repeat show.
So, there is less work, arguably, for the amount of output now for
our members.
|
|
[63]
Jeremy Miles: But isn’t the end point of an argument
that says, ‘S4C should spend more money on fewer
programmes’, that your members are making less money in the
long term?
|
|
[64]
Ms Gale: Buaswn i’n
anghytuno gyda hynny mewn ffordd, achos efallai bydden nhw’n
cael llai o arian o S4C, ond mae yna fwy o gyfle gyda nhw i gael
digon o arian am y gwaith mae nhw’n ei wneud. A
hynny—sori, mae yna knock-on effect.
|
Ms Gale:
I would disagree with that in a way, because perhaps they will get
less money through S4C, but they will have greater opportunities to
be paid properly for the work that they do. And that—sorry,
there is a knock-on effect.
|
|
[65]
There’s a knock-on effect, in that, on that, we can build a
sustainable industry.
|
|
[66]
Jeremy Miles: For fewer people.
|
|
[67]
Ms Gale: No, not necessarily, because you will have
high-level productions coming into Wales and they will use Welsh
talent. If we’re going to be the cheap and cheerful, then
you’re not going to build a sustainable industry.
That’s why, in the 1980s, we started to build a very
sustainable industry. It’s growing now, and we can grow it
again.
|
|
[68]
Jeremy Miles: And one of the arguments you’ve made in
your submission, with which I happen to agree, is that it was bad
for the sector in Wales for S4C to concentrate its commissioning on
a smaller number of large, independent production companies.
Isn’t that, effectively, what happens to the workforce under
the model that you’re proposing? There are fewer people doing
better paid work.
|
|
[69]
Mr Donovan: No, not necessarily so. We’ve noticed that
the forthcoming committee has an aspiration to create 100 companies
producing. Well, we had that. Up until S4C’s digital policy,
there were over 80, 90 independent companies making programmes for
S4C, and S4C was in Wales, because those companies were spread all
over Wales—all over west Wales, north Wales, mid Wales and
south Wales. So, it’s not necessarily so. What we
want—. And could I just say one thing, Lee? In terms of the
individuals and the access to the industry, we should not, Lee, be
explaining to people that you can come into this industry and you
can work at low-end productions and you shouldn’t have the
aspiration for the high quality. The simple reason is that we want
them to work in a sustainable industry, and we want them,
therefore, to be working in an international industry. So, you are
correct, we need more of a debate on this, but—. We will need
to provide the evidence that satisfies you about that correlation,
then. That’s what your questions have asked.
|
|
[70]
What you’re asking is: are we saying that we want just a
smaller selection working on these smaller—? No, what we want
is a return to the times when individuals had an aspiration to tell
a story. That aspiration, it didn’t matter where you lived in
Wales. In fact, it was very important, and, where you lived, and
your community and your experiences, gave you that very story. We
don’t see a problem with that whatsoever, and we share the
aspirations that you’re coming out with. We are not being
selective or protective of a small group of people, who may or may
not be in the trade unions, to deliver. That’s why the
discussion on quality is very important. It is not about protection
per se, but there is a correlation as well between the budgets and
the working conditions that that—
|
|
[71]
Jeremy Miles: Absolutely. I don’t dispute that for a
second.
|
|
[72]
Bethan Jenkins:
Ocê. Os yw’n iawn, rydym
ni’n symud ymlaen at lywodraethu ac atebolrwydd, ac mae Dai
Lloyd yn arwain ar hyn. Diolch.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. If we can, we’ll move on to governance and
accountability, and Dai Lloyd will lead on this. Thank you.
|
|
[73]
Dai Lloyd: Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd. Beth yw’ch barn
chi ar effeithlonrwydd trefniadau llywodraethu presennol
S4C?
|
Dai
Lloyd: Thank you, Chair. What is your view on the effectiveness
of the current governance arrangements of S4C?
|
|
[74]
Mr Donovan: The current effectiveness is—. Well,
it’s purely frustrating for us that S4C can be expected to
make significant cuts on the back of a telephone call between
Westminster and the head of the BBC. That’s totally
unacceptable in a modern democracy. We have to see changes to that.
We have to be seeing that Westminster takes greater notice, and
acts upon the views and the opinions of people in Wales. It has
to—and we see this developing—take notice of what the
Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly says to Westminster about
broadcasting. It is totally unacceptable—totally
unacceptable—that the future of Wales and the way it is seen
across the world, across all its broadcasters, is done on the back
of a fag packet in London.
|
|
10:00
|
|
[75]
Dai Lloyd: Ie, cytuno. Ar gefn hynny, beth fyddech
chi’n ei weld, yn symud ymlaen i’r dyfodol,
fyddai’r set delfrydol o drefniant llywodraethu gogyfer S4C
i’r dyfodol, felly?
|
Dai
Lloyd: I agree. Following that, looking forward to the future,
what in your view would be the ideal set of governance arrangements
for S4C in the future, therefore?
|
|
[76]
Mr Donovan: The ideal set would be that the current
administration responsible for it takes more seriously its
commitment to people in Wales. May I suppose that the question
you’re fundamentally asking is: should it be devolved to the
Welsh Government?
|
|
[77]
Dai Lloyd: I was coming on to that, but carry on.
[Laughter.] Carry on; you’re on a roll, obviously.
|
|
[78]
Mr Donovan: We have difficulty with it currently. It is not
a ‘no’ and a ‘no’ forever. However, what we
are concerned about, unlike the options we were given about Brexit
and the people that voted for Brexit, we want to see what the
alternative means. That’s what we want. We want to know that,
if broadcasting is to be devolved, that it is devolved in an
appropriate manner with, certainly, assurances and a complete
understanding for proper funding going forward, because the
difficulties between us and the way decisions are made currently,
and where they are made—many people believe it’s about
editorial control, this, the news, the coverage. For us, it is
absolutely about the sort of funding that our broadcasters need,
and that funding allows them the freedom to deliver for the people
in Wales.
|
|
[79]
Dai Lloyd: Felly, ar gefn
hynny, pe bai ddim jest y pŵer dros ddarlledu yn cael ei
ddatganoli i’r lle hwn ond hefyd y cyllid i fynd efo’r
grym yna, a fuasech chi o blaid y syniad yna?
|
Dai
Lloyd: So, following on from that, if not just the power for
broadcasting was devolved to this place but also the funding to go
along with that power, would you be in favour of that idea,
then?
|
|
[80]
Mr Donovan: I’d be in favour of looking at it, but the
difficulty is that, if we look at the tensions and the difficulties
over the funding that we’ve got currently in Wales over the
settlement, and, if we are conscious and aware, as we all are, of
what’s to come in the next few years, we want to see it. We
want to see what it means. At its most basic level, respected
Members here will be faced sometimes with responding to the cries
of people working in film and television and news to increase its
funding, whilst at the same time people in the Valleys will be
saying, ‘Well, what about education?’—quite
rightly—‘What about hospitals?’ We want to be
convinced that we have a robust system that ensures an appropriate
funding mechanism for what some people might like to think is a
fluffy entertainment industry.
|
|
[81]
Dai Lloyd: Af i ddim ar
ôl hynny achos rwy’n ymwybodol o gyfyngiadau amser, ond
jest i orffen fy narn i, a allaf ofyn: pa mor bwysig ydy
annibyniaeth S4C o ran y gallu i ddarparu cynnwys Cymraeg i
gynulleidfa lle bynnag mae’r gynulleidfa yna’n byw?
Rwy’n derbyn, wrth gwrs, fod yna siaradwyr Cymraeg tu allan i
Gymru, yn naturiol, ond ar hyn o bryd S4C ydy’r unig sianel
sydd yn darparu gwasanaeth Cymraeg yn y byd. Felly, a ydych
chi’n credu bod annibyniaeth i’r corff yna yn
bwysig?
|
Dai
Lloyd: I won’t follow up on that because I am aware of
the time constraints, but I would just like to finish my section by
asking: how important is the independence of S4C in terms of its
ability to provide Welsh language content to an audience, wherever
that audience may be? I accept, of course, that there are Welsh
speakers outside of Wales, but, currently, S4C is the only channel
that provides a Welsh language service globally. So, do you believe
that independence for that body is important?
|
|
[82]
Ms Gale: Ydy, mae’n
hollbwysig. Rwy’n
credu bod yn rhaid i S4C neu
unrhyw ddarlledwr Cymraeg fod yn hollol annibynnol ar y BBC, ac ar
unrhyw Lywodraeth neu unrhyw beth; mae’n rhaid iddo fe.
Mae’n hollbwysig i’n democratiaeth ni.
|
Ms Gale:
Yes, it’s crucially important. I do think that S4C or any
Welsh language broadcaster should be entirely independent of the
BBC, and of any Government; it has to be independent. It’s
crucial to our democracy.
|
|
[83]
Dai Lloyd: Diolch yn fawr.
|
Dai
Lloyd: Thank you.
|
|
[84]
Bethan Jenkins: I haven’t indulged this at all in the
last evidence sessions, but I’m hearing time and again from
people who have come in that the decisions by the UK Government
have been made, as you said, on the back of a fag packet, that
they’ve been made over a telephone, and that the cuts have
been made by the UK Government, yet time and again it seems that
the discussion lies around the fact that, even though that’s
a really bad thing, devolving it would be something that would be
out of the question. And I think: if it’s so bad in
Westminster, why not devolve it? And, if it’s something that
you’re thinking about, why not come up with that plan?
You’re saying you’d want to see the detail, but is it
not for people in the sector to lead on that and to come up with
ideas, such as a White Paper or a discussion paper, so that we can
stop saying that it shouldn’t be there, but then not have a
rationale as to why it should—? So, I’m just wondering
if you had any thoughts on that, because I think it’s quite
disappointing to hear people say that the cuts are so bad, but then
just blindly accept that that’s the way it is, in a way. So
I’m just wondering what you have to say on that.
|
|
[85]
Mr Donovan: With respect, we have never said,
‘That’s the way it is’. There are things that the
industry can do now to change its course. The difference that S4C
could do, even within its current restraints, is starting to
happen. It’s starting to look at the quality of its output,
the type of programming, and the budgets. So, that is
happening.
|
|
[86]
What you’re expressing is a disappointment that we
haven’t come here today to say, ‘Yes, do you know,
it’s a wonderful idea and this is how we think it should
work’. That’s simply because we are uncertain of the
funding mechanism, the complex funding mechanism, between the BBC,
S4C and broadcasting in general. We’ve got members working as
permanent staff in the BBC and S4C as well as ITV. It isn’t
as simple as saying, ‘Well, we have a problem here at S4C and
the easy way to solve it is to tick that box’.
|
|
[87]
And, with respect, I think it is particularly difficult at this
very time, with the questions of funding hanging over us all, for
us—. It may well seem very easy—we’ll come here
and hand you the responsibility. I believe we’re taking the
more responsible act to say, ‘No, we want to continue working
on this but, at this moment in time, we can’t see, within the
current devolved mechanisms of funding, how handing it to the Welsh
Government—great in terms of accountability, but the funding
is the vitally important element that we would need to
review.’
|
|
[88]
Bethan Jenkins: Okay, thanks.
|
|
[89]
Ms Gale: A gaf i ddweud un peth? Os wnewch chi edrych ar
bwynt 11 o’n hymateb ni—. Mae fe’n swnio fel eich
bod chi’n gofyn i ni gynnal y sgwrs yma—
|
Ms Gale:
If I could just make one point? If you look at point 11 of our
response—. It appears that you’re asking us to have
this discussion—
|
|
[90]
Bethan Jenkins:
Nid chi ar ben eich hun—pobl
sydd wedi dod mewn o’r sector, pobl sydd yn gweithio yn
sector y diwydiannau, nid jest BECTU. Nid wyf yn rhoi fe i gyd ar
ysgwyddau chi.
|
Bethan Jenkins: Not you alone, no—people who have come
in from the sector, people who work in the industries’
sector, not just BECTU. We’re not placing all the
responsibility on your shoulders.
|
|
[91]
Ms Gale: Dyna pam roedd y sgwrs yna ddoe. Chwarae teg
i’r IWA, dyna pam roedden nhw’n cynnal cynhadledd ddoe.
Fel roedd David yn sôn, cydweithio oedd y pwynt mawr. Hefyd,
nid wy’n gwybod os ydych chi wedi clywed am rywun o’r
enw’r Athro Mariana Mazzucato. Mae hi’n ffantastig. Mae
hi’n sôn am bethau fel sut y gallwn ni weithio, sut
mae’r sector cyhoeddus yn y gorffennol wedi creu pethau fel
Google a sut y dylen nhw roi’r arian yna yn ôl er mwyn
creu pethau newydd yn y dyfodol.
|
Ms Gale:
That’s why there was that conversation yesterday. Fair play
to the IWA, that’s why they held a conference yesterday. As
David mentioned, collaboration was the major point. I don’t
know if you’ve heard of Professor Mariana Mazzucato. She is
fantastic. She talks about things such as how we can work, how the
public sector in the past has created things such as Google and how
they should then give that funding back for new innovations in the
future.
|
|
[92]
So, rydym ni’n croesawu unrhyw
drafodaeth. Yn bersonol, yn fy nghalon i, buaswn i wir eisiau i
ddarlledu a’r diwydiannau creadigol gael eu datganoli i
Gymru. Ond, eto, mae angen y sgwrs. Rydw i’n cytuno’n
hollol bod eisiau i’r diwydiant a phawb arall ddod at ei
gilydd a thrafod y ffordd ymlaen.
|
So, we
welcome any discussion. Personally, speaking from my heart, I would
want to see broadcasting and the creative industries devolved to
Wales. But, again, we need to have that conversation. I agree
entirely that the industry and everyone must come together and
discuss a way forward.
|
|
[93]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch. Rwy’n symud
ymlaen—.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you. I move on—.
|
|
[94]
Sorry, we need to move on quickly.
|
|
[95]
Mr Donovan: Excuse me, Chair. May I say I didn’t
mention the issue on levies just as an interesting aside? I
mentioned levies because they are an important possible factor to
funding difficulties that the sector has.
|
|
[96]
Ms Gale: Ac mae’n fuddsoddiad.
|
Ms Gale:
And it is an investment.
|
|
[97]
Bethan Jenkins:
Mae gyda Jeremy gwestiwn clou ar y
berthynas gyda’r BBC.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Jeremy has a quick question on the relationship with
the BBC.
|
|
[98]
Jeremy Miles:
Jest ar y cwestiwn yma o ddatganoli
darlledu, a oes unrhyw wahaniaeth o fewn BECTU, rhwng safbwynt
BECTU Cymru a BECTU ar draws Prydain? Neu a yw polisi fel hwn yn
cael ei wneud ar draws Prydain? A ydych chi’n gweld mwy o
fuddiannau iddo fe nag efallai y byddai BECTU yn gweld yn
gyffredinol?
|
Jeremy
Miles: Just on the question of devolving broadcasting, is there
any difference within BECTU in terms of BECTU Wales’s view
and BECTU throughout the UK? Or is the policy set throughout the
UK? Do you see greater benefits to it than BECTU would in
general?
|
|
[99]
Mr Donovan: No. BECTU is a democratic organisation. With the
way it’s made up, we would need to take BECTU in the UK with
us. But BECTU UK doesn’t have a veto on the aspirations of
members in Wales. What we’re saying is that we would
undertake—and we are in conversation with our members about
their aspirations about these issues of funding and devolved
responsibility. So, when we are in a position to advocate an
alternative, further than the discussions we already have with our
members, we will take that forward within the democratic structure.
However, you are entitled to believe, and I want to assure you,
that, when we come here to give evidence to you, we speak on behalf
of BECTU, on behalf of our members.
|
|
[100] Jeremy
Miles: Thank you. In terms of the relationship with the BBC,
what are your views on the main strengths of that from S4C’s
point of view?
|
|
[101] Mr
Donovan: The main strength is that it’s a settlement that
got it over continued pressure and criticism from the DCMS. I see
very little else, frankly. The difficulty is that people—.
The discussion yesterday was about holding on to what we’ve
got and how can we put a sticking plaster over a significant
difficulty for the broadcasters.
|
|
[102] We appreciate
that, to many people, the funding is now stable and through the
licence fee. The difficulty is, if I may, it also signifies
something else, though, doesn’t it? In the last 25 to 35
years, we’ve had an S4C that had a world-class animation
sector, it had nominations for Oscars, and now we’ve got an
S4C that is potentially moving 65 miles west, will not have a
presence in the capital city, and half of its staff will be working
inside the BBC—quite possibly as BBC staff, depending on
TUPE. So, what I’m alluding to is this: we will have lost
S4C. At this moment in time, it is my opinion that S4C is like
grains of sand running through your fingers, if you compare it with
the industry we had 15 years ago.
|
|
[103] So, whilst the
funding has been assured only up until 2020 from the BBC, I believe
that the BBC, because of the pressure it is under itself, going
forward, will be reviewing the level of its funding for S4C, and
that is a problem. So, therefore, the funding is a complex issue.
We can all agree that at least we have some certainty, but the
certainty of the level of funding now is causing such structural
changes that S4C may well not be a single identity that—.
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[104] Well,
interestingly, yesterday, there was an awful lot of talk about the
Catalans broadcasting in their own language, et cetera. I remember,
in the early 1990s, people coming from the Basque Country and from
Catalonia, coming to us here, visiting S4C, coming to see me and
asking, ‘The wonderful opportunities—you’ve got
this wonderful institution broadcasting in Welsh.’ Yesterday,
I sat through a whole day where we were told how successful
broadcasting in Catalan was in Spain. It’s changed,
hasn’t it? It hasn’t changed for the better. If we were
passionate and believed that S4C was a worthy representation of our
culture and language in Wales, where is it? Where will it be in two
years’ time? Where will you go in Cardiff to say, ‘This
is S4C’?
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[105] Forgive me,
I’ll answer part of my question: it’s in the hearts and
the creativity of the people of Wales. But also, when you’re
hoping to attract funding and interest from bodies all over the
world, they need to see something more.
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[106] Jeremy
Miles: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Diolch.
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[107] Bethan
Jenkins: Sorry, I shouldn’t really ask any more
questions, but I was just concerned about what you said about the
BBC issue and if that might be reflected in funding for S4C in the
future. Because if they’re TUPEd over to BBC, would that not
then be reflected in the budgets for S4C anymore? So, then, that
may decrease the budget in the long term.
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[108] Mr
Donovan: I can’t give you an assurance on that. We have
not been told yet what is to happen to the current S4C staff who
are working in S4C and are due to be transferred to the new BBC
building. There is a school of thought that would say that that
would be the subject of a TUPE transfer, but I’m not sure. In
the early days, I was rather saying, ‘Well, will you be BBC
staff or will you, by force, have to have a BBC pass?’
I’m talking about the identity. You are right to be
concerned, but I can’t give you the reassurance, because the
broadcasters haven’t told us definitively what is to happen
to the staff who are to transfer into the BBC.
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[109] Bethan
Jenkins: I think that’s something that we’ll raise
with the BBC and S4C respectively.
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[110]
Rydym ni’n symud ymlaen at
welededd, ac mae gan Neil Hamilton gwestiynau.
|
We’ll
move on to the visibility of S4C, and Neil Hamilton has some
questions.
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[111] Neil
Hamilton: We’ve talked—and it’s the context
of the backdrop to all this—about declining audiences,
following on from what Lee Waters said about the changing way in
which people access entertainment programmes in particular, and the
digital age being very different from the analogue age.
You’ve ascribed part of the reason for the declining audience
of S4C to a decline in quality of its output. S4C are very
concerned about the question of how visible they are as a channel,
given that access to their content via smart tvs is not quite as
obvious as on the old-style transmission networks and the
electronic programming guide doesn’t give them the same
prominence. Huw Marshall gave evidence to us as well, saying that
he thought there should be a big priority, on the part of S4C, on
becoming more visible on channels like YouTube and Facebook and
Apple TV and so on. Have you got any ideas on how S4C could improve
its visibility that are different from those?
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10:15
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[112] Ms Gale:
Legislation. I think, if these people are making a lot of money out
of televisions, et cetera, then they should—. Smart tvs
should automatically put S4C there on their electronic guides, et
cetera. That should be part of it. It shouldn’t cost. S4C
can’t afford to pay millions of pounds for this. It should be
there, as a right—not that I know anything much about this
area. I don’t know what you think, David. It’s not my
expertise. But it should be there and that’s it.
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[113] Neil
Hamilton: Obviously, that would have major implications in the
context of who makes the decisions about the legislation for this
area, which is, of course, not the Assembly in Cardiff. It’s
rather beyond our capacity to make the decisions that matter in
that respect.
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[114] The second issue
and what we want to discover is what your feelings are on whether
S4C has invested sufficiently in online viewing presence. Insofar
as it can control the problem of visibility itself, is this partly
down to decisions that they’ve made about their own financial
priorities?
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[115] Ms Gale:
Can I just say that when—?
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[116]
Sori, rwy’n troi i’r
Saesneg nawr. Rwy’n ei ffeindio’n anodd troi o un
i’r llall.
|
Sorry,
I’ll turn to English now. I find it difficult turning from
one to the other.
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[117] When S4C changed
its digital policy, it did so with the current funding it had. When
the BBC had its digital policy and put more stuff online, it had
significantly higher budgets So, again, I think, keeping on
expecting S4C to do more and more with less funding is going to be
its death knell, unless there’s a different type of funding
opportunities.
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[118] Neil
Hamilton: So, if there were a levy, do you think there
wouldn’t then be a need for legislation? Because they could
afford to buy a presence, which they don’t currently
have.
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[119] Mr
Donovan: No. I believe there would be a necessity for
legislation for a whole range of reasons anyway—not least
because of the editorial content and all of those arguments.
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[120] I would like to
reassure you, when we were running the critique of this very
different digital future that S4C was espousing, it wasn’t
simply because we were saying, ‘We need to protect the
past’. What we were saying was that the way in which they
were set up said that, if we hit 40 per cent, we won’t be
able to undertake what we are required to under the current
mechanism.
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[121] It was a simple
analysis of, if you’ve got a 40 per cent cut, and you are
saying the problem is this multiplicity of competition, and you
still want to do the same thing, it doesn’t add up. The
interesting thing is that they are now on 50 per cent repeats and
we are still struggling to find out how we can access these other
areas. I think it is important for a modern-day broadcaster to be
looking at all the mediums to find out about accessibility.
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[122] However,
isn’t it fundamentally true that what it should be about is
reflecting the best of Wales? Because it’s that that makes
people want to watch it, first and foremost. The format, the
mechanism for doing that, we would say, would then follow on. The
fundamental problem with S4C is that it hasn’t got enough
viewers under the old policy.
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[123]
Ms Gale: Jest i ychwanegu, rydym ni’n gwybod bod
pobl o dan 35 yn fwy tebygol o wylio pethau ar-lein ac yn ddigidol.
Felly, mae yn bwysig cael pethau yn y Gymraeg ar-lein a bod S4C yn
gweithio ar aml blatfform. Ond eto, mae eisiau
trafodaeth ar sut mae hynny’n mynd i ddigwydd a sut rydym
ni’n mynd i sicrhau bod hynny’n fforddiadwy ac yn
safonol—boed yn safonol o ran digidol, neu’n safonol o
ran darlledu’r pethau sy’n mynd i fod yn
fyd-eang.
|
Ms Gale:
Just to add, we know that people under the age of 35 are more
likely to watch online and digitally. So it is important to have
Welsh-medium content online and that S4C should work on a
multiplatform basis. But, we need a debate on how that’s
going to happen and how we’re going to ensure that
that’s affordable and of quality—be it quality in terms
of digital or in terms of broadcasting things that can be sold on a
global level.
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[124]
Bethan Jenkins:
Ocê. Rydym ni’n symud
ymlaen at gwestiynau am yr effaith economaidd a diwylliannol, ac
mae gan Hannah gwestiynau.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. We’ll move on to questions on the economic
and cultural impact, and Hannah has those questions.
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[125] Hannah
Blythyn: Thanks. In previous sessions, when we’ve talked
about the economic and cultural impact, we’ve talked about
the wider economic impact of S4C in Wales. But, before we get to
that, while you’re here today, I’d like, perhaps, to
look at the role of the workforce in that and start by asking if
you could outline the level of engagement your members or you have,
on behalf of your members, with S4C.
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[126] Mr
Donovan: Well, it’s quite difficult because of the
make-up. The majority of the workforce, excluding S4C staff, work
for independent companies and most of those independent companies,
if not all, are simply smaller companies—although we would
call them large companies—we don’t have a recognition
with. So, we are concerned about that. There is a fundamental
problem in Wales, which I see, broadly—. My opinion is that
Wales is a left-leaning country. I go to meet many of the employers
of the companies and we speak very normally and in very friendly
terms, but there is a difference. The pressure of the budgets has
meant that they do—I believe—fear any control coming
from a trade union interfering in them and their workforce.
Overall, the workforce is marked, in the main, by a number of
freelancers. Some of these five major companies that were set up
have permanent staff. We were very disappointed that, when we
wanted a level of engagement—a so-called recognition from
these larger companies—it was denied us. We believe that was
not only inappropriate but it flew in the face of the partnership
and collaboration between the unions and all parties that set up
S4C. So, we were disappointed; and we are still disappointed. If
you’ve got anything to do with it, what we want to see is an
extension of the Trade Union (Wales) Bill, which requires—if
it is to have public funding—these companies to have a
dialogue and recognition for trade unions, because there are abuses
happening to people in these companies who are working far too long
hours. Let me touch on the freelancers: we haven’t had a
recognition in the rate of pay for freelancers in the last seven or
eight years. It’s been covered up by the funding problem. S4C
did assist with TAC some years ago; then it removed the
responsibility from TAC, and now it resides again with TAC, and we
welcome the appointment of TAC as somebody that will have some
responsibility for recognition.
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[127] There are these
structural problems that have been allowed to develop. Why is it,
given the degree of partnership and assistance in terms of a whole
range of things, not least training and lifelong learning, which
come out of the Wales union learning fund through the trade unions,
that they can speak to me very cheerfully at an event, like
yesterday’s, but resist me coming into those companies to
represent members for non-legislative representation, such as
annual pay, terms and conditions and negotiations?
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[128] Hannah
Blythyn: I was going to ask you about the formal recognition,
but you answered it in your response then. I think, when we had Huw
Marshall in from S4C, he talked about the need to negotiate
different rights for content, with longer viewing windows to
reflect the use in the online era. What kind of impact do you think
that would have on your members in particular?
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[129] Mr
Donovan: Although it would be, in the main, with our sister
trade unions—as I explained earlier, we have very few rights
going forward. What we do want, though, is—. Forgive me; in
the interregnum between TAC having full responsibility, our sister
unions, because of the rights issues, were able to have a dialogue
with S4C. That didn’t exist for our members, because, as
I’ve explained, they were either employed by the small number
of larger companies or they were overwhelmingly freelance. So,
there is a difficulty there. We will keep on returning to this. It
is unacceptable. As unacceptable as the other things I say about
broadcasting in the modern Wales, it is totally unacceptable that a
trade union acting responsibly is refused recognition for
permanently employed or freelance. It should be the same. The
responsibilities on all parties will be the same. It will be a
responsibility to work in partnership and collaboratively; but do
you know what, sometimes people get abused at work and somebody has
to do something about it.
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[130] Hannah
Blythyn: Are you finding that’s becoming more of an
issue? I think you said in your written evidence that you’ve
seen more movement from less permanent employees to more casual
employees, so it’s all the more important to have those
recognitions in place.
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[131]
Ms Gale: Rydw i’n credu beth sy’n digwydd
hefyd yw, pan rydych chi’n gweithio yn y maes llawrydd,
rydych chi yn llawer mwy bregus, ac mae pobl yn ofni siarad i fyny.
Felly, mae pobl yn dweud wrthym ni, yn gyfrinachol—yn hollol
gyfrinachol—am beth sy’n digwydd iddyn nhw, ond nid
ydyn nhw am i David godi’r pwynt achos maen nhw’n ofni
na fyddan nhw’n cael gwaith yfory. Felly, y broblem
sy’n digwydd gyda gweithwyr yn gadael y BBC a gweithwyr yn
gadael S4C yw bod mwy o bobl yn llawrydd, ac mae’n creu mwy o
ofn o fewn y gweithlu, a hefyd o fewn y cwmnïau. Mae’r
rhan fwyaf o’r bobl sydd yn gweithio o fewn y cwmnïau ar
gytundebau tymor byr neu gytundebau sy’n mynd ymlaen o
flwyddyn i flwyddyn. Roedd achos lle’r oedd rhywun wedi dod
atom ni lle’r oedden nhw
wedi gweithio dros 90 awr yr wythnos hynny, ac wedi tynnu
sylw’r cyflogwr eu bod nhw’n gweithio o dan yr isafswm
tâl yr awr—national minimum wage. Nid oedden nhw
wedi cael ymateb positif iawn, ond eto, nid oeddent yn fodlon
cymryd y peth ymhellach. Felly, mae pobl yn fregus, a buaswn
i’n dweud os oes unrhyw fuddsoddiad mewn unrhyw gwmni yng
Nghymru gan Lywodraeth Cymru, dylai fod rhyw fath o gytundeb
gyda’r undeb hefyd, i wneud yn siŵr bod y gweithwyr yna
yn mynd i gael eu trin yn iawn, boed yn llawrydd neu’n
staff.
|
Ms Gale:
I think what’s also happening is that, when you work
freelance, you are far more vulnerable, and people are fearful of
speaking out. People do tell us entirely confidentially about
what’s happening to them, but they don’t want David to
raise these points because they are worried that they won’t
get any work tomorrow. So, the problem that happens with workers
leaving the BBC and S4C is that there are more people going into
that freelance sphere, which creates more fear within the industry
and within the workforce, and also within the companies. Most of
the people working within the companies are on short-term contracts
or contracts that are year-on-year rolling contracts. There was a
case where someone had approached us where they had worked over 90
hours that week, and had drawn the employer’s attention to
the fact that they were working below national minimum wage. They
didn’t get a very positive response to that, but again, they
weren’t willing to take it further. So, people are
vulnerable, and I would say that if there is any investment in any
company in Wales from the Welsh Government, then there should be
some sort of agreement with the union too, in order to ensure that
those workers are going to be treated well, be they freelance or
staff.
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[132] Bethan
Jenkins: Diolch. Mae Jeremy—
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Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you. Jeremy—
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[133] Dawn
Bowden: Can I just ask a quick question on—?
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[134] Bethan
Jenkins: Sorry, Jeremy indicated before you.
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[135] Dawn
Bowden: It’s just on that particular point.
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[136] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay, yes. Dawn.
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[137] Dawn
Bowden: Are you able to clarify whether you actually recruit
amongst the freelance as well?
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[138] Ms Gale:
Oh, yes.
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[139] Dawn
Bowden: That was the point. That was the one I was wanted to
make, yes.
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[140] Mr
Donovan: May I explain? Absolutely, and in fact, the basis of
our recognition for S4C came from S4C for this workforce—the
freelance workforce—because it was a publisher contractor. It
was the development of these previously small companies into larger
companies—five larger companies—that ended up with a
core nucleus of staff that we were denied recognition from. And it
was a stupid place, because we had recognition for freelancers.
‘Ah, but David, they aren’t freelance’. You see
the dilemma that we were placed in?
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[141] Ms
Gale: A jest i ddweud, mae
aelodau gyda ni drwy Gymru, a beth sy’n ddiddorol yw, dros y
ddwy flynedd ddiwethaf, mae’r aelodaeth wedi cynyddu 12 y
cant, ac rydw i’n gwybod bod Equity yn cynyddu hefyd, ac mae
llawer o’r aelodau newydd yn bobl ifanc sydd eisiau rhywun
sy’n mynd i fod gyda nhw trwy eu bywydau gwaith nhw, ac mae
llawer iawn—y rhan fwyaf ohonyn nhw—yn
llawrydd.
|
Ms Gale:
Just to say, we have members throughout Wales, and what’s
interesting is that over the past two years, membership has
increased by 12 per cent, and I know that Equity are also
increasing in numbers, and many of these new members are young
people who want someone who is going to be by their side throughout
their working lives, and many of them—most of them—are
freelancers.
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[142] Bethan
Jenkins: A’r cwestiwn olaf
heddiw, gan Jeremy Miles.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: And the final question today, from Jeremy Miles.
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|
[143] Jeremy
Miles: Fe wnes i ofyn i TAC wythnos diwethaf
neu’r wythnos gynt a fydden nhw’n cytuno bod aelodau
TAC, a’r rhai sydd ddim yn aelodau TAC, yn gweithio o fewn y
cytundebau gyda BECTU, Equity, ac ati, a’r ateb ges i oedd,
mwy neu lai, ‘Everything in the garden is rosy.’
A fuasech chi’n dweud bod hynny’n wir?
|
Jeremy
Miles: I asked TAC last week, or the week before, whether they
would agree that TAC members and non-TAC members are working within
the contracts with BECTU and Equity and so on, and the answer I got
was more or less, ‘Everything in the garden is rosy.’
You wouldn’t agree with that, would you?
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[144] Mr
Donovan: I definitely wouldn’t, and in answering in that
way, I could be open to criticism. If you get a silence, if
nobody’s asking you the question or bringing you problems,
it’s reasonable to think, well, everything is rosy, but it
isn’t. It’s far from it. The fear in this industry, at
all levels of that crew, is almost palpable. There are many very
experienced technicians who are afraid to approach their employer,
in the broadest sense of the terms, just to talk about their hours
of work. The nature of freelancing is so insecure that you need to
be as sure as you can that you will work for anyone going forward.
So, a great deal of my work is to counsel and speak to individuals
who are facing a problem, discussing with them how critical that
problem is, and what the options are.
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[145] It is a
disappointment that in many instances, individuals, whilst they
welcome that source of advice, don’t want to take it further
until the next worst thing happens. Now, that’s hardly a very
positive note on which to carry a very, very aspirational workforce
into the future—one that the Welsh Government has correctly
identified as one of its targets, going forward. There is a
structural problem, which has been allowed to develop, and it has
been exacerbated by the funding. We would welcome any discussion
with the Welsh Government to require these people, these employers,
to have a relationship. It is not ‘Everything in the garden
is lovely’. We know that there are problems. People
haven’t has pay rises and their hours are too long. We would
welcome, through this body, through this panel today, an approach
from TAC to discuss what is appropriate and what they mean by
‘Everything in the garden is lovely’.
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[146] Jeremy
Miles: I’m using that phrase. They didn’t use that
phrase—just to be clear.
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[147] Mr
Donovan: Thank you very much for that explanation.
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[148] Ms
Gale: A gaf i wneud un pwynt bach, bach hefyd? Mae Llywodraeth Cymru wedi gwneud
ymchwil i edrych ar amrywiaeth yn y diwydiant, ac rydym ni’n
croesawu hynny. Mae amrywiaeth a chydraddoldeb yn bwysig, bwysig i
ni fel undebau, ac rydym ni wedi bod yn eu trafod nhw ers
blynyddoedd, ac yn ymgyrchu dros hynny. Ond cyn i ni sicrhau bod
hynny’n digwydd—ac os ydym ni’n gallu cael hynny
i ddigwydd—mae’n rhaid newid diwylliant y diwydiant o
ran y ffordd y maen nhw’n cyflogi pobl, a’r ffordd y
maen nhw’n delio â phobl. Felly, nid oes pwynt dod
â—. Roeddet ti wedi dweud rhywbeth da, David, ddoe, yn
y gynhadledd.
|
Ms Gale:
May I make one very minor point, as well? The Welsh Government has
carried our research to look at the diversity in the industry, and
we do welcome that. Diversity and equality are very important for
us as unions, and we have been discussing this issue for many
years, and we’ve been campaigning for that. But before we
ensure that that takes place—and if we can have that take
place—we have to change the culture of the industry in terms
of how they employ people and the way that they treat people. So,
there’s no point—. You mentioned something, David,
yesterday in the conference.
|
|
[149] What did you say
about that elevator going in one door and out the other?
|
|
[150] Mr
Donovan: We were talking, yesterday, about a sustainable
workforce—
|
|
[151] Bethan
Jenkins: We’re running out of time now.
|
|
10:30
|
|
[152] Mr
Donovan: Okay, very quickly, then—a sustainable
workforce. That’s at odds with the notion of taking a great
deal of care and making sure that many young people get
access—but we forget about what is sustainable. Those young
people are in danger of being exploited and leaving the industry
burnt out after three or four years, leaving the rump of these
professional people increasingly ageing and leaving the industry in
desperation. We need that holistic review.
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|
[153]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch am y nodyn positif yna i
orffen. [Chwerthin.] Na;
rwy’n cymryd y pwynt yn ddifrifol. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi
am roi tystiolaeth. Roeddem wedi gobeithio ei wneud e’n
glouach, ond roedd gormod i’w ddweud. Felly, diolch yn fawr
iawn am eich tystiolaeth yma heddiw. Rwy’n gobeithio y
byddwch chi’n cymryd diddordeb yn yr hyn sydd yn digwydd.
Rydw i’n credu eich bod wedi dweud mewn ymateb i Lee Waters
eich bod yn mynd i ddanfon mwy o dystiolaeth inni ynglŷn
â sut yr ydych chi wedi defnyddio’r adroddiadau i roi
tystiolaeth i—
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Well, thank you for that positive note to finish.
[Laughter.] No; we do take the point very seriously. We
would like to thank you for giving evidence. It could have been
quicker, but there was much to be said. We accept that. We’d
like to thank you very much for your evidence today, and we hope
that you will take an interest in what is happening. I believe that
you said, in response to Lee Waters’ question, that you would
send us more evidence about how you have used the report to give
evidence to—
|
|
[154] I’ll say
it in English. The association with the content quality and the
funding.
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[155] Mr
Donovan: Yes, the funding and quality.
|
|
[156] Bethan
Jenkins: So, we look forward to having that.
|
|
[157]
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Rydym yn mynd i
gael seibiant clou o ddwy funud. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
|
Thank you very
much. We’ll have a quick break of a couple of minutes. Thank
you very much.
|
|
Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:31 a 10:39.
The meeting adjourned between 10:31 and 10:39
|
|
Dyfodol S4C—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth
6
The Future of S4C—Evidence Session 6
|
|
[158] Bethan
Jenkins:
Diolch, ac rydym ni nawr mewn sesiwn
gyhoeddus, ac ar eitem 3, sef dyfodol S4C, a sesiwn dystiolaeth 6.
Croeso i Glyn Mathias, sef aelod o bwyllgor cynghori Ofcom ar gyfer
Cymru; ac i Hywel Wiliam, sydd hefyd yn aelod o bwyllgor
cynghori Ofcom ar gyfer Cymru. Croeso yma heddiw, ac rwy’n
siŵr eich bod chi wedi bod yn gwrando ar y trafodaethau rydym
ni’n eu cael ar hyn o bryd ar ddyfodol S4C. Mae Lee Waters yn
mynd i gychwyn, gyda chwestiynau ar gefndir a pherfformiad
S4C.
|
Bethan Jenkins: Thank you, and we are now in public session,
and on item 3, on the future of S4C, and evidence session 6.
I’d like to welcome Glyn Mathias, who is a member of the
Ofcom advisory committee for Wales; and Hywel Wiliam, who is also a
member of that committee. Welcome here today, and I’m sure
that you have been listening to the discussions that we have been
having on the future of S4C. Lee Waters will now begin with
questions on the background and performance of S4C.
|
|
[159] Mr
Mathias: Can I begin with a very brief statement? Is that
possible?
|
|
[160] Bethan
Jenkins: If it’s brief, yes. We haven’t had
‘brief’ this morning yet, so we would give you an award
if you did do ‘brief’.
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|
[161] Mr
Mathias: I just wanted to say that the Welsh advisory committee
to Ofcom has raised the issue of the future of S4C, the funding of
S4C, on repeated occasions over the last decade and in particular
during the reviews of public service broadcasting by Ofcom. We have
consistently argued for better funding, more sufficient funding,
funding over a longer term for S4C, and we have repeatedly argued
for the maintenance of the independence of S4C. If I can just say,
on a personal note, that I was there in 1980 at the beginning, when
the Conservative Government did a second u-turn on the
establishment of a Welsh language channel, and I interviewed
Nicholas Edwards, the then Secretary of State, who did his best to
explain it away without mentioning Gwynfor Evans. But we are fully
appreciative that S4C is now part of the fabric of the nation, but
that does not mean it has to be treated like a sacred cow. I hope
that the review, when it comes, will look at all aspects of S4C to
ensure that it has a real future.
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[162] Bethan
Jenkins: Diolch yn fawr iawn am y
datganiad hynny.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you very much for that statement.
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[163] Lee
Waters: Thank you very much for your evidence. Just to take you
up on that opening point, Glyn Mathias, given that you have been
raising this consistently, why has Ofcom not taken a more robust
stance?
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[164] Mr
Mathias: On what in particular?
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[165] Lee
Waters: On the issue that you’ve raised.
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[166] Mr
Mathias: As part of the reviews of public service broadcasting,
Ofcom has always included S4C in its reports and on the performance
of S4C in its reports.
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[167] Lee
Waters: Have they reflected the views of the advisory committee
for Wales?
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[168] Mr
Mathias: Well, we are advisers and we always hope that they
will reflect what we say as much as they can. I can’t now
quote you word for word how much they did report of what we
said.
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[169] Lee
Waters: Did they take on board the spirit of your points?
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[170] Mr
Mathias: Yes, I think they did.
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[171] Mr
Wiliam: Rôl o wneud argymhellion sydd gan y
pwyllgor. Nid yw Ofcom yn gorfod dilyn beth rŷm ni’n ei
argymell, ond maen nhw yn bendant yn gwrando ar beth rŷm
ni’n ei ddweud.
|
Mr
Wiliam: We have a role of making recommendations as a
committee. Ofcom don’t have to follow our recommendations,
but they certainly do listen to what we say.
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[172] Lee
Waters: So, moving more generally now into the current position
of S4C, clearly one of the main problems that they have is the
diverse nature of their audience and their ability to meet all
their needs. Could you give us a snapshot of how well you think
they’re doing that and whether or not that very fact that
they have to do that, on the basis of one television channel, is a
manageable task?
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[173] Mr
Wiliam: Mae’n bwysig
ystyried beth yw rôl rheoleiddiwr fan hyn, a gallwn ni ddim
siarad am reoleiddiwr jest fel corff ymgynghorol. Mae’n
bwysig gwahaniaethu rhwng rheoleiddio ar un llaw, a llywodraethiant
a rheoli ar y llaw arall. Ni fydd yna fyth rôl gan Ofcom i
redeg gwasanaeth nac i’w reoli mewn unrhyw ffordd; yr unig
rôl fyddai i’w reoleiddio fe.
|
Mr
Wiliam: It’s important to bear in mind the role of a
regulator here, and we can’t speak on behalf of the
regulator, just as an advisory body. It’s important to
differentiate between regulation on the one hand, and governance
and management on the other. Ofcom would never have a role in
running a service or managing it in any way; its role would be in
regulating that service.
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[174]
Nawr, os ydych chi’n edrych ar
y ddeddfwriaeth, ar bapur mae gan Ofcom gyfrifoldebau helaeth iawn
o ran rheoleiddio’r gwasanaeth, ond, yn ymarferol,
mae’r rheini’n cael eu cario mas mewn ffordd sy’n
reit ysgafn ac, mewn gwirionedd, yn dibynnu llawer mwy ar y corff
ei hunan—S4C felly—i gario mas eu dyletswyddau
nhw.
|
Now, if you
look at the legislation, on paper Ofcom has broad-ranging
responsibilities in terms of regulating the service, but, on a
practical level, they are carried out with quite a light touch and
depend far more on the organisation itself, namely S4C, to carry
out its own duties.
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[175]
Rŷm ni, bob blwyddyn, yn
cynhyrchu adroddiad sy’n edrych ar y ffordd y mae cylch
gwaith darlledu gwasanaeth cyhoeddus yn cael ei ddarparu ar draws y
Deyrnas Unedig, ac mae’r adroddiad yna bob amser yn cynnwys
adroddiad ar S4C. Yn hynny, mae yna ffeithiau am yr allbwn, am y
ffordd y maen nhw wedi cadw at unrhyw gwotâu rŷm ni
wedi’u gosod ac unrhyw elfennau eraill o ran yr allbwn
rŷch chi’n gallu ei fesur. Maent yn cael eu cynnwys yn
yr adroddiad hwnnw. Ond rwy’n derbyn ei bod yn arolwg eithaf
ysgafn mewn ffordd, ond mae’n rhoi’r ffeithiau i chi o
ran y cefndir o ran allbwn. Yn sicr, o safbwynt Ofcom dros y
blynyddoedd, nid oes yna unrhyw gwestiynau sylweddol wedi codi, mor
belled ag ydw i’n ei wybod, o ran gallu S4C i wneud y gwaith
yma o ddarparu gwasanaeth mewn ffordd ddigonol.
|
We produce a
report annually that looks at the way in which the remit of public
service broadcasting is provided across the UK, and that report
always includes a report on S4C. There are some facts on the
output, on the way that they have kept to any quotas that have been
set and other elements that are measurable in terms of output.
They’re all included in that report. I do accept that
it’s quite a light-touch overview, but it does give you the
facts in terms of the output. Certainly, from the point of view of
Ofcom over the years, there have been no significant questions
raised, as far as I know, in terms of S4C’s ability to carry
out this work of providing service in an adequate way.
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[176] Lee
Waters: I understand it’s important you make the
distinction between your role as an advisory body and Ofcom’s
role as a regulator. I’m less interested in Ofcom’s
role as a regulator, and more in your role as an advisory body,
given the analysis that you have access to and your collective
experience of the industry.
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[177] Mr
Wiliam: Okay, sorry.
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|
[178] Lee
Waters: So, will you just give us your sense of the challenges
facing S4C, the changing demands of the audience and how well you
feel this kind of remit and set-up enables it to meet those?
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[179]
Mr Mathias: I think your question relates to the current
remit of Ofcom and whether or not that is sufficient. Our view, I
think along with many others, is that the remit is now out of date.
It refers, in terms of public service broadcasting, just to the
terrestrial channel. We’re now a multiplatform world, with
online and other platforms. S4C must be able, in future, to have a
far more wide-ranging remit, which enables them to tackle and
spread their programmes and the information that they provide
across all platforms.
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10:45
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[180]
Mr Wiliam: A allaf i adio at hynny? Y drafferth ar hyn o
bryd yw nad yw’r cylch gwaith yn rhoi’r cyfle mewn
ffordd i S4C arloesi tu hwnt i gyflawni gwasanaeth teledu
confensiynol. Mae hynny, erbyn hyn, yn edrych yn hen ffasiwn iawn.
Er enghraifft, rydym ni’n meddwl y dylai S4C efallai gael y
rhyddid i gynhyrchu cynnyrch na fyddai’n cael ei ddarlledu o
reidrwydd—byddai jest yn mynd ar-lein neu ar y nifer o
lwyfannau eraill neu ar lwyfannau newydd sydd heb eu datblygu eto.
Hynny yw, mae angen llawer mwy o hyblygrwydd creadigol, rwy’n
credu, ar S4C. Felly, rwy’n cytuno â Glyn bod angen
edrych yn ofalus ar y cylch gwaith ar gyfer y dyfodol, yn
bendant.
|
Mr
Wiliam: May I add to that? The difficulty at present is that
the remit doesn’t provide the opportunity in a way for S4C to
innovate beyond just meeting the conventional requirements of a
television channel. By now, that appears quite old fashioned. For
example, we feel that S4C should perhaps have the freedom to
produce content that would not necessarily be broadcast, but would
just be put online or on other platforms or on new platforms that
have yet to be developed. That is, there is a need for greater
creative flexibility, I think, for S4C. So, I would agree with Glyn
that we need to look very carefully at the remit for the future,
certainly.
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[181] Lee
Waters: Thank you. Those are all important points, but the
point I was really trying to get at is your sense of what the
current needs of the users are and how S4C meets them.
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[182]
Mr Wiliam: Mae hwnnw’n bwynt da. Er enghraifft, ar
hyn o bryd, fe allech chi ddadlau bod yna lot fawr o ailddarlledu
yn digwydd ar S4C. Mae’n hollol amlwg i fi ein bod ni’n
dod mewn i’r sefyllfa yma oherwydd prinder adnoddau a
phrinder arian a hefyd, rwy’n credu, yr ansicrwydd
ynglŷn ag ariannu S4C.
|
Mr
Wiliam: That’s a good point. For example, currently, you
could argue that there are a great deal of repeats being shown on
S4C. It’s quite obvious to me that we have been brought into
this situation because of a lack of resources and a lack of funding
and also, I think, because of the uncertainty about the funding of
S4C.
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|
[183]
Sut y gall unrhyw ddarlledwr
weithredu ar sail ddim gwybod yn llwyr beth fydd eu harian nhw o
flwyddyn i flwyddyn? Mae darlledwyr yn gorfod cynllunio ymlaen dros
gyfnodau hir iawn, cyfnodau o sawl blwyddyn. Os ŷch
chi’n comisiynu drama neu rywbeth mae’n rhaid ichi
gynllunio hynny dros gyfnod o sawl blwyddyn. Nid yw jest yn ddigon
da i gael sefyllfa lle nad ŷch chi’n gwybod beth yw eich
incwm chi o flwyddyn i flwyddyn.
|
How can any
broadcaster work on a basis where you don’t entirely know
what funding you’ll receive year on year? Broadcasters have
to plan ahead over long periods, periods of many years. If
you’re commissioning a drama, for example, you have to plan
that over a period of many years. It’s just not good enough,
I believe, to have a situation where you don’t know what your
income will be from year to year.
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[184]
Felly, mae’r fath yna o
gyfyngiadau, yn amlwg, yn ogystal â’r toriadau, wrth
gwrs, hanesyddol y mae’r gwasanaeth wedi eu wynebu dros y
blynyddoedd, yn amlwg wedi cael effaith ar yr allbwn.
|
So, that type
of restriction, in addition to the historic cuts the channel has
faced over the years, has had an impact on the output.
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|
[185] Lee
Waters: That’s also an important point, but—sorry,
I’m not expressing myself particularly well. I’m
interested in what you know about the changing needs of the users,
the viewers, and the changing nature of the marketplace and is S4C
rising to that challenge.
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|
[186] Mr
Mathias: There are two issues. One is the domestic Welsh
audience—. I’m not quite sure exactly what you’re
getting at, but there is an issue around the extent to which S4C
does provide enough programming for learners—people whose
Welsh is not 100 per cent, like mine. I think that’s
arguably—or some people argue, and I think I tend to agree,
that they could do more in that direction.
|
|
[187] There’s
also their audience across the UK and, indeed, across the world,
which they access through programmes being on other platforms and
also online. They need more commercial freedom to exploit these new
or extra audiences.
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|
[188] One of the
comparisons that is worth looking at is Channel 4. Channel 4 has a
number of portfolio channels, which are commercial operations and
not public service broadcasting. The argumentation for the ability
to have these extra commercial portfolio channels is that the
funding they produce can then go into servicing and extra funding
for the main channel.
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|
[189] S4C has a
commercial fund. Last time I saw, it was about £25 million. I
personally am not clear to what purpose they put this commercial
fund. I think, partly, they are constrained by the legal
restrictions around what they can use it for, but, if they had more
commercial freedom, they could use that commercial freedom, maybe
with another channel, maybe by expanding in different directions,
and the funding from commercial operations could then go into
helping to fund the main channel. The restrictions at the moment do
not permit them to do a lot of that.
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|
[190] Lee
Waters: Just finally from me, just in terms of the commercial
point, because S4C’s own evidence to us is they didn’t
think there was much room for further commercial
expansion—they thought the room for the market was just 2 per
cent to 3 per cent more than what they have now. So, they thought
there was a very limited commercial market for them.
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|
[191]
Mr Wiliam: Mae hwnnw’n wir o bosib o safbwynt, er
enghraifft, cael mwy o arian i hysbysebu a nawdd ac yn y blaen. Ond
rwy’n credu mai’r pwynt y mae Glyn yn ei wneud, ac fe
fyddwn i’n cytuno ag ef, yw bod yna efallai mwy o le i
ystyried dod mewn â gwasanaethau newydd a datblygu ffyrdd
newydd o ddatblygu gwasanaethau masnachol.
|
Mr
Wiliam: That is possibly true from the point of view of getting
more advertising income and sponsorship and so on. But I think the
point that Glyn is making, and I’d agree with him, is that
there is perhaps more scope to consider bringing in new services
and developing new ways of providing commercial services.
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|
[192]
Ond, i wneud hynny, mae angen
rhyddfrydoli yn eithaf eang y cyfyngiadau sydd ar S4C ar hyn o bryd
o ran eu pwerau masnachol nhw. Nid ydyn nhw’n gallu benthyg
arian, er enghraifft, ac mae problemau fel hynny yn ei wneud yn
anodd iawn iddyn nhw weithredu mewn ffordd fasnachol.
Byddai’r rhyddid sydd efallai gan Channel 4, rwy’n
credu, yn help mawr i S4C.
|
But, to do
that, you need quite wide liberalisation of the limitations on S4C
at present in terms of their commercial powers. They can’t
borrow, for example, and problems such as this make it very
difficult for them to work commercially. The freedom that Channel 4
has would be of great assistance to S4C.
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|
[193]
A allaf i wneud un pwynt arall, Lee,
ynglŷn â’r pwynt y gwnes di am y gynulleidfa?
Rŷm ni’n gwybod am ymchwil, er
enghraifft, cwmni Enders
Analysis yn Llundain, fod y nifer fawr o bobl sydd yn gwylio teledu
yn lleihau. Rŷch chi’n gallu gweld bod y ffigurau yn
dangos bod y bobl o dan 40, ac yn sicr o dan 30—mae lot yn
llai ohonyn nhw’n gwylio teledu confensiynol.
|
[194] If I can just
make one other point, Lee, on the point you made about the
audience? We know from research, for example, from Enders Analysis
in London—independent companies such as them—that the
number of people watching television is reducing. You can see that
the figures demonstrate that those under 40, and certainly under
30—far fewer of them watch conventional television these
days.
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|
[195]
Pan fyddech chi’n mynd i mewn i
edrych ar y ffigurau’n fwy gofalus, rydych chi’n gallu
gweld eu bod nhw yn gwylio cynnwys teledu, ond mewn ffyrdd
newydd—maen nhw’n mynd ar lwyfannau gwahanol ac
maen nhw’n defnyddio gwasanaethau fel S4C ar alw, er
enghraifft, ac mae gwasanaethau fel yna yn tyfu. Er ei fod yn tyfu o base isel, rych
chi’n gallu gweld y newid mawr sy’n digwydd a nifer y
bobl sydd yn nawr yn mynd i BBC iPlayer i weld rhaglenni S4C a
hefyd S4C ar-lein fel arwyddion o sut y mae cynulleidfaoedd yn
newid eu harferion a’u ffordd nhw o wylio cynnwys
teledu.
|
When you
actually dig into those figures, they do watch television content,
but in different ways—they’re on various platforms and
they use services such as S4C on demand, and services like that are
growing. Although it’s growing from quite a small base, you
can see the huge change in the number of people going to BBC
iPlayer to watch S4C’s output and S4C online, or Clic, as
signs that audiences are changing their practices and how they
actually watch television.
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|
[196]
Bethan Jenkins:
Rwy’n credu ein bod ni wedi
cael ateb ynglŷn â’r cylch gwaith statudol, ond a
oes unrhyw beth ychwanegol i ti ei ofyn, Dawn?
|
Bethan
Jenkins: I think we’ve had an answer on the statutory
remit, but is there anything that you’d like to add,
Dawn?
|
|
[197] Dawn
Bowden: No, that’s fine, thank you.
|
|
[198] Bethan
Jenkins: Grêt, diolch yn
fawr. Rŷm ni’n symud ymlaen at
gyllid—rŷm ni wedi cychwyn
ar gyllid ta beth. Suzy.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Okay, thank you. We’ll move on to funding, as
we’ve started on that topic. Suzy.
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|
[199]
Suzy Davies: I’d like to ask you a little bit more about
this funding, because what you’re saying about Channel 4, and
the difference between it and S4C and its ability to raise
commercial revenue, I think is particularly interesting and is
under-explored at the moment. Obviously, the current remit limits
S4C in what it can do, but the change in the remit is an
opportunity to completely change that.
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|
[200]
One of the issues that we’ve looked
at is the intellectual property rights—of course, the
content—which sit primarily with production companies at the
moment. That’s felt to be under-exploited and we’ve had
evidence from S4C themselves that perhaps they could come into some
sort of partnership to help release the economic potential of some
of the content that S4C commissions. Do you think that that would
fit into a new funding model for S4C? Is it worth exploring? How
pluralistic should the funding model for S4C be in the future with
its potential new remit?
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|
[201]
Mr
Wiliam: Mae’n werth meddwl yn eang—mae’n werth
ystyried arloesi a bod yn radical fan hyn. Rwy’n credu bod
yna resymau pam roedd y model ariannu wedi newid o safbwynt y
cynhyrchwyr annibynnol, achos, ar y pryd, pan wnaeth Ofcom edrych
ar hyn yn wreiddiol, roedd yn amlwg fod y pŵer comisiynu i gyd
gyda’r darlledwyr. Fel rhan o’r broses o wneud tir mwy
teg, o safbwynt y cynhyrchwyr annibynnol, fe wnaeth Ofcom ystyried
y pŵer prynu a oedd gan y darlledwyr a sut oedd rhai, felly,
yn rhoi mwy o bŵer yn nwylo’r cynhyrchwyr annibynnol
drwy roi’r hawl iddyn nhw ddal ymlaen i gynnwys eu rhaglenni
nhw a jest rhoi trwydded i’r darlledwyr ddarlledu am gyfnod
arbennig.
|
Mr Wiliam: It’s worth thinking broadly—it’s
worth considering innovation and being radical here. I think that
there are reasons why the funding model changed in terms of the
independent producers, because, at the time, when Ofcom looked at
this initially, it was obvious that all of the commissioning power
lay with the broadcasters. As part of the process of making it
fairer for the independent producers, Ofcom did consider the buying
power that the broadcasters had and how they could put more power
in the hands of the independent producers by giving them the right
to hold on to the content of their programmes and then giving a
licence to the broadcasters for a specified period of
time.
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|
[202]
Mae’r
cytundebau’n fwy cymhleth. Mae yna gytundebau sydd yn
rhoi’r hawl i’r darlledwyr gymryd mantais o’r
drwydded yma dros dymor byr ac wedyn bod y peth yn mynd yn ôl
at y cynhyrchwyr annibynnol ar ôl y cyfnod hwnnw. Mae’r
rhyddid gyda nhw, wedyn, yn fasnachol, i drio datblygu’r
cynnwys yna mewn ffyrdd gwahanol. Er enghraifft, mae rhai
cwmnïau annibynnol wedi bod yn rhoi cynnwys ar-lein i ddechrau
ac arbrofi gydag hynny, gyda chynyrchiadau fel ‘Dim
Byd’, er enghraifft, gan Cwmni Da, lle’r oedden
nhw’n gallu edrych ar hwnnw fel rhywbeth ar-lein i ddechrau
ac wedyn ei weld yn esblygu i fod yn rhaglen deledu yn
hwyrach—a’r ffordd arall rownd, wrth gwrs. Felly, y
bwriad mewn gwirionedd oedd creu tirwedd fwy teg a mwy gwastad o
safbwynt y cynhyrchwyr annibynnol.
|
The agreements are more complex. There are agreements
that give broadcasters the right to take advantage of this licence
over the short term and then it reverts to the independent
producers after that period of time. They then have the freedom
commercially to try to develop that content in different ways. For
example, some independent companies have been putting content
online initially and have started experimenting with that, with
productions like ‘Dim Byd’, for example, by Cwmni Da,
where they put that online to start with and then saw it develop
into a television programme later—and that’s happening
the other way around, of course. The intention was to make a fairer
playing field in terms of the independent producers.
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|
[203]
Suzy Davies: Yes, I completely accept that, but we’ve also
had evidence that any new remit is an opportunity to help engender
the growth of lots of new production companies, which, by their
very nature, would be small and inexperienced to start with. So, it
is a question of how people can work together to get the best out
of the commercial value of anything that might be either on the
digital platforms or on the television. More generally about this
pluralistic model of financing, are you concerned or are you
delighted by the present set-up, for example—the Government,
the licence fee and the commercial input to S4C’s
budget?
|
|
[204]
Mr Mathias: Are you talking about the current governance and
regulation of S4C—?
|
|
[205]
Suzy Davies: No—the actual financial model at the moment and
how it’s financed. Are there any risks to keeping it as it
is, or is it pretty sound?
|
|
[206]
Mr
Wiliam: Mae yna blwraliaeth yn y ffordd y mae S4C yn cael ei ariannu,
wrth gwrs—hynny yw, mae’r swm sy’n dod o’r
Llywodraeth drwy’r DCMS ac wedyn y swm drwy’r ffi
drwydded, er enghraifft.
|
Mr Wiliam: There
is plurality in the way that S4C is funded, of course—there
is funding provided through the DCMS and then there’s that
through the licence fee as well.
|
|
[207]
Roedd yn dda i
weld yn y cytundeb fframwaith newydd sydd wedi bod mewn lle nawr ar
gyfer y BBC, ac sydd yn mynd ochr yn ochr â’r siartr
newydd, fod cymal 39 o’r cytundeb yna yn gosod allan y
berthynas bosib a fydd rhwng S4C a’r BBC. Yn hwnnw, maen
nhw’n sôn am ddyfodol cyfraniad y ffi drwydded i S4C,
sydd, fel rŷch chi’n gwybod, wedi’i amddiffyn nes
bod 2022. Ond mae’n mynd yn bellach ac yn dweud, yn dibynnu
ar yr adolygiad, y bydd beth bynnag fydd canlyniad yr adolygiad
hwnnw hefyd yn cael ei adlewyrchu yn y fframwaith nes bod 2028.
Wrth gwrs, rŷm ni’n croesawu hynny—mae
hynny’n beth da, rwy’n credu, o ran
amrywiaeth.
|
It was good to see in the new framework agreement,
which has now been in place for the BBC and that runs alongside the
new charter, that clause 39 of that agreement sets out the possible
relationship between S4C and the BBC. In that, they do talk about
the future of the licence fee contribution for S4C, which, as you
know, is ring-fenced until 2022. But it goes further and says that,
depending on the review, whatever is the outcome of that review
will also be reflected in the framework until 2028. Of course, we
welcome that—that is positive in terms of
plurality.
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|
[208]
Rwy’n credu
ei fod yn bwysig iawn, wrth symud ymlaen, fod yna lawer mwy o
sicrwydd ynglŷn â’r ffordd y mae S4C yn cael ei
ariannu o ran y fformiwla, ac o ran y ffordd y maen nhw’n
pennu’r arian. Hynny yw,
beth yw ystyr ariannu digonol? Mae hwn yn gwestiwn—.
Mae’n gyfrifoldeb penodol ar yr Ysgrifennydd Gwladol, ond
beth y byddwn i’n hoffi ei weld yw ein bod ni’n
cyrraedd y pwynt lle mae yna fformiwla bendant a chlir yn cael ei
sefydlu, sydd yn rhoi sicrwydd, sydd yn hirdymor, ac efallai sydd y
tu hwnt wedyn i gael ei hymyrryd â hi yn wleidyddol mewn
termau byr amser, felly.
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I think, in moving forward, it's very important that
there’s a great deal more assurance in terms of the way S4C
is funded, in terms of the formula and the way they decide on the
funding. What is the meaning of adequate funding? This is a
question—. There’s a specific responsibility on the
Secretary of State, but what I would like to see is that we reach a
point where there is a clear formula in place, which provides
assurance, is long term, and can’t face any political
interference in the short term.
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[209] Suzy
Davies: Okay, thanks. Yes, I thought your point on the funding
cycle was quite interesting as well. Thank you.
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[210]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch. Rydym ni yn symud ymlaen
i’r llywodraethu ac atebolrwydd nawr, byddwch chi’n
falch o glywed, ac mae Dai Lloyd yn arwain ar hyn.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you. We will move on to governance and
accountability now, you’ll be glad to hear, and Dai Lloyd
will lead on this.
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[211]
Dai Lloyd: Diolch, Cadeirydd. A oes gyda chi farn, felly,
ar effeithiolrwydd trefniadau llywodraethu presennol S4C, cyn i ni
fynd ymlaen i feddwl am y dyfodol? Beth yw’ch barn chi
ynglŷn ag effeithiolrwydd trefniadau llywodraethu presennol
S4C?
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Dai
Lloyd: Thank you, Chair. Do you have a view, therefore, on the
efficiency of the current governance arrangements of S4C, before we
move on to think of the future? What is your view on the
effectiveness of the current governance arrangements of S4C?
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[212] Mr
Mathias: Well, I think, although governance and regulation are
separate issues, they are linked. In my view, and I’ve
believed this for a very long time indeed, no broadcaster should be
self-regulating. I’ve always believed in external regulation
of broadcasting companies, and I never believed the special
pleading from the BBC when they resisted it for so long. The same
applies to S4C, as far as I’m concerned—it should be
transparently and overtly externally regulated. That clearly means
that the S4C Authority, in its current role, would not continue, if
the basic regulatory role is from, for example, Ofcom—I would
say that, wouldn’t I? But, since Ofcom now regulates every
other broadcaster in the United Kingdom, it makes clear sense for
Ofcom to regulate S4C. That clearly means that the position of the
S4C Authority would have to be examined very, very closely
indeed.
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[213] What follows
from that is that we’ll need, therefore, to look at what
alternative forms of regulation there might be from Ofcom. Again, I
would encourage you to look at Channel 4, where there is an annual
review of Channel 4’s performance, and Channel 4 has to be
accountable to Ofcom for delivering against the remit that it has
been given by Ofcom—relatively light touch, but I’ve
sat through those; it’s not easy. In my view, that would
probably be the most sensible model for S4C.
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[214]
Dai Lloyd: Diolch yn fawr.
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[215] Bethan
Jenkins: Sorry, just on this, Hywel Wiliam has already said
that you’ve got that light-touch approach, so what would be
new in any new set-up?
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[216] Mr
Mathias: Although, technically, under the legislation, Ofcom
has greater powers of intervening in S4C than they did under the
old regime with the BBC, in practice that doesn’t happen, and
it’s entirely a legalistic point in terms of the Act. In
practice, it’s the S4C Authority that is the current
regulator for S4C.
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[217]
Mr Wiliam: I symud y pwynt ymlaen efallai—rwy’n
gweld beth rydych chi’n ei ddweud—mewn ffordd, bydd
e’n fater, rwy’n credu, i’r Llywodraeth a’r
Senedd yn San Steffan i edrych ar, efallai, dau fodel gwahanol,
mewn ffordd, ar gyfer dyfodol rheoleiddio S4C. Un fyddai cymryd
sefyllfa lle rydych chi’n mynd lawr tuag at y model sydd gyda
sianel pedwar, Channel 4, lle mae ganddo chi system o drwydded gan
Ofcom sy’n gosod allan amodau, neu fodel sy’n mynd i
fod efallai’n fwy agos i sefyllfa fydd yn y BBC ar ôl
Ebrill, lle mae ganddo chi oblygiadau statudol yn bodoli’n
barod—ac rwyf wedi dweud bod y rhain yn helaeth iawn mewn
achos S4C—a’ch bod chi’n adeiladu fframwaith fwy
tebyg i’r ffordd y bydd y BBC yn cael ei reoleiddio gan
Ofcom, a fydd wedi’i seilio’n fwy ar bartneriaeth a
chytundeb ynglŷn â beth fydd cylch gwaith newydd S4C, ac
wedyn mesur y ffordd y maen nhw wedi gallu gwneud y cylch gwaith
yna am gyfnod blynyddol gan y rheoleiddiwr, felly.
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Mr
Wiliam: To move the point forward—I understand your
point—in a way, it will be a matter for the Government and
Parliament in Westminster to look at two different models for the
regulatory future of S4C. One would be taking a situation where
you’re moving towards a model that you have with Channel 4,
where you have an Ofcom licence that sets out the terms, or a model
that is closer to the situation within the BBC post-April, where
you have statutory obligations—as I’ve said, these are
very broad in terms of S4C—and that you build a framework
that is more similar to the regulation of the BBC through Ofcom,
which will be more based on partnership and agreement in terms of
what the new remit of S4C would be, and then measure the way in
which they have been able to deliver on that remit annually, in
terms of the regulator.
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[218]
Bethan Jenkins:
Sori, Dai.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Sorry, Dai.
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[219]
Dai Lloyd: Ie, popeth yn iawn— rydych chi wedi, o
leiaf, lleihau un o’r cwestiynau roeddwn yn mynd i’w
gofyn. Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd, rydym ni’n meddwl ar yr un
linell, ac ar yr un dudalen o’r llyfr emynau fanna yn gyfan
gwbl. [Chwerthin.] Reit. Yn nhermau’r byd newydd
arwrol yma, a gweld rôl, felly, i Ofcom yn y system
lywodraethu newydd yma, a allwch chi gadarnhau, petai hynny’n
dod o gwmpas, bod y pŵer a’r capasiti gan Ofcom i
gyflawni beth rydych chi newydd sôn amdano fe yn nhermau
S4C?
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Dai
Lloyd: That’s fine—you have removed one of the
questions I was going to ask, Chair. I think we were thinking along
the same lines, and on the same page of the hymn book, as it were.
[Laughter.] Right. So, in terms of this brave new world, and
seeing a role for Ofcom in this new governance system, could you
confirm, if this were to come about, that the power and the
capacity reside within Ofcom to be able to fulfil what you’ve
just talked about in terms of S4C?
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[220]
Mr Wiliam: Mae’n gyfuniad. Mae yna bwerau helaeth yn
bodoli’n barod. Ond, yn sicr, ar ôl canlyniad yr
adolygiad, byddai’n rhaid edrych eto ar ddeddfwriaeth
bellach, rydw i’n credu.
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Mr
Wiliam: It’s a combination. There are broad-ranging
powers in existence already. But, certainly, with the result of the
review, we would have to look at further legislation, I
believe.
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[221] Mr
Mathias: As I understand it, the structure of S4C is
established in legislation in the Communications Act 2003. So, any
change to the structure of regulation and of governance of S4C
would rely on legislation to implement it.
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11:00
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[222] Dai
Lloyd: Ocê. Symud ymlaen i
faterion ychydig bach yn fwy cyffredinol, pa mor bwysig yn eich tyb
chi ydy annibyniaeth S4C o ran ei gallu i ddarparu gwasanaeth yn y
Gymraeg, o gofio taw dyma’r unig sianel sy’n darparu
gwasanaethau yn yr iaith Gymraeg drwy’r holl fyd? Pa mor
allweddol bwysig, yn eich tyb chi, ydy annibyniaeth S4C?
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Dai
Lloyd: Okay. Moving on to slightly more general issues, how
important in your view is the independence of S4C in terms of its
ability to provide a service through the medium of Welsh, bearing
in mind that this is the only channel that provides Welsh language
services throughout the whole wide world? How crucial, in your
view, is the independence of S4C?
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[223] Mr
Mathias: It’s absolutely vital. We have always argued for
the continued independence of S4C, and what is encouraging is that,
in the partnership framework agreement with the BBC, the BBC do
undertake to preserve the independence—they acknowledge the
independence of S4C. My own view is that that’s not enough.
The dominance of funding from the BBC clearly leaves the potential
for the BBC to use its greater power to lever things out of S4C
that they might not want to concede. I’m sure they
don’t intend to do that, but the sheer size of BBC funding in
relation to the DCMS funding clearly makes that a possibility. My
own view is that any new system of regulation—for the sake of
argument, it is Ofcom—that that new form of regulation should
have in it an obligation to preserve the independence of S4C.
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[224] Dai
Lloyd: Diolch yn fawr.
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[225] Lee
Waters: Can I just come in very briefly to play devil’s
advocate on that point? It’s a point I’ve put to
others—why is independence in itself so important?
Couldn’t you argue that so long as the view is that Welsh
speakers and potential Welsh speakers get engaging services, does
it really matter where they come from?
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[226] Mr
Mathias: I think there’s a political imperative here. You
may be right in purely broadcasting terms, but there’s a
political imperative. You have to assure Welsh speakers in Wales
that they will continue to receive the kind of service that they
currently receive, and an acknowledgement of the continued
independence of S4C is a way of doing that.
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[227] Lee
Waters: Okay, thank you.
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[228] Bethan
Jenkins: Diolch yn fawr
iawn.
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Bethan Jenkins: Thank you very much.
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[229] Dai
Lloyd: Roedd gen i un cwestiwn
bach arall, os y caf i, Cadeirydd.
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Dai
Lloyd: I just had one other question, if I may, Chair.
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[230]
Bethan Jenkins:
Sori, nid oeddwn i’n sylweddoli
fod gennych chi gwestiwn arall.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Sorry, I didn’t realise that we’d skipped
a question.
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[231]
Dai Lloyd: I feddwl ein bod ni’n dal ar yr un dudalen
yn y llyfr emynau yna.
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Dai
Lloyd: To think that we’re still on the same page of that
hymn book.
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[232]
Bethan Jenkins:
Dim nawr. [Chwerthin.] Caria ymlaen.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Perhaps not now. [Laughter.] Carry on.
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[233]
Dai Lloyd: A oes gennych farn ynglŷn â lle
dylai’r cyfrifoldeb dros S4C lechu—yn Llundain, fel y
mae ar hyn o bryd, ynteu yn y lle hynafol bendigedig yma?
[Chwerthin.]
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Dai
Lloyd: Do you have a view, therefore, about where the
responsibility for S4C should lie—should it be in London, as
it is currently, or should it be in this wonderful ancient place?
[Laughter.]
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[234] Mr
Mathias: I think you tempt us into a political statement about
devolution of broadcasting powers to Cardiff.
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[235] Bethan
Jenkins: That would be a first for Ofcom.
[Laughter.]
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[236] Mr
Mathias: I note that this was in the Silk commission—this
particular point—but as an advisory committee I don’t
think we’re going to express a view on that.
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[237] Dawn
Bowden: Nice try, Dai. [Laughter.]
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[238]
Bethan Jenkins:
Rwy’n credu ein bod ni wedi
trafod y materion yn ymwneud â’r berthynas gyda’r
BBC, felly rydym yn symud ymlaen at welededd, ac mae Hannah yn
arwain ar hynny.
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Bethan
Jenkins: I think we’ve discussed the issues in relation
to the relationship with the BBC, so we’ll move on to
visibility, and Hannah will lead on this.
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[239] Hannah
Blythyn: I thought I was leading on visibility.
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[240] Bethan
Jenkins: Yes.
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[241] Hannah
Blythyn: It’s because I didn’t have my headphones
on. Sorry—ignore that. [Laughter.] I think at the
outset my colleague, Lee Waters, was referring to the changing
needs, and the way that people consume content has changed over the
last few years, with more people consuming, looking and watching
online rather than in more traditional formats. I think public
service broadcasters like S4C face particular challenges with the
rise of smart tvs, which give prominence to the likes of Netflix
and Amazon—you know, if you go on to iPlayer, you’ve
got to know where S4C is positioned on that and scroll through it.
Do you have any views on how that could potentially be improved? We
had BECTU in here previously, and they said that it needed to have
legislation, because there is no level playing field in terms of
the amount of money you’d need to throw at the makers of the
smart tvs to get that prominence, so I just thought that I’d
throw that in there as well.
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[242] Mr
Mathias: I think there are three broad points here. Let’s
deal first with EPGs, the electronic programme guides. There have
been some complaints from S4C in the past that they haven’t
achieved sufficient prominence on some platforms. I’m not
quite sure they’re so concerned about it by this time, but
there has been a problem in the past. The problem is here that
Ofcom does not have sufficiently clear powers to deal with the
platforms over EPGs. They have to have EPGs—the
platforms—but Ofcom cannot order them to place channels in
particular orders. There has been the opportunity to change that in
the current Digital Economy Bill going through Parliament—in
fact, I think it was debated in the House of Lords quite
recently—but, as I understand it, the Government is not
intending to do anything about that. So, the position will remain
as it is.
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[243] On smart tvs,
here there is primarily a problem of jurisdiction. If your smart tv
is made in Korea, we can’t tell them how to make it. Since
they’re imported into the European Union, the only way you
can stop them coming in is through import regulations, which have
to be agreed, for the time being, on a Europe-wide basis. So, at
the moment, there is nothing we can do about smart tvs. I think
that is the biggest danger. You’re absolutely right:
it’s a huge danger. I’ve been to many houses where the
EPG is simply not on the front page anywhere; it’s buried
somewhere two pages down. It is a serious issue, but it
doesn’t just affect S4C, let’s be absolutely clear: it
affects every public service broadcaster. The visibility of the
public service broadcaster is going to be diminished successively
over the years to come.
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[244]
Mr Wiliam: Mae’n werth ychwanegu hefyd, wrth gwrs,
fod gallu corfforaeth fel S4C i ddatblygu apiau ar gyfer setiau
teledu clyfar yn gyfyngedig, achos eto mae arian yn brin. Efallai y
bydd yna gyfleoedd masnachol yn y maes yna yn y dyfodol, ond ar hyn
o bryd mae’n anodd iawn i S4C ddatblygu fersiwn gwahanol o
bob ap ar gyfer pob gwneuthurwr setiau clyfar sydd yn
bodoli.
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Mr
Wiliam: It is worth adding as well that the ability of an
organisation such as S4C to develop apps for smart television sets
is limited because, again, funding is limited. There may be
commercial opportunities in that area in future, but currently
it’s very difficult for S4C to develop an app for every
manufacturer of smart tvs in existence.
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[245]
Un mantais sydd gan S4C yw eu bod nhw
wedi gallu cael lle ar iPlayer y BBC. Mae hynny yn tueddu i fod ar
bob set a phob llwyfan. So, mae hynny wedi bod yn ffordd o roi
amlygrwydd i wasanaeth S4C, trwy’r iPlayer, sy’n beth
da. Ond wrth gwrs nid oes yna ddim incwm masnachol i S4C o wneud
hynny.
|
But one
advantage that S4C does have is that they have been able to get a
place on the BBC’s iPlayer, and that tends to be available on
all platforms. So that does give some visibility to S4C’s
programmes, which is of course a good thing. But there is no
commercial advantage to S4C from doing that.
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[246]
Un cwestiwn y byddwn i yn codi o
safbwynt amlygrwydd S4C yn y cyd-destun yna yw: os ydych
chi’n ystyried newidiadau a all ddigwydd i BBC Cymru cyn bo
hir, gyda mwy o arian yn dod i wneud rhaglenni, er enghraifft,
rhaglenni drama, maen nhw’n sôn hefyd am fwy, efallai,
o gyfrifoldeb ynglŷn â’r iPlayer yng Nghymru.
Nawr, pe bai hynny’n digwydd, rwy’n credu y byddai lle
wedyn ar dudalen flaen yr iPlayer i roi mwy o amlygrwydd i raglenni
S4C. Rydw i yn credu y byddai hynny yn beth gwerthfawr iawn
i’w wneud. Ond fel mae’n sefyll, wrth gwrs, mae’n
dda, felly, i weld bod yr iPlayer o leiaf yn gallu mynd ar lot o
lwyfannau efallai y byddai S4C ar ei ben ei hun yn methu fforddio
gwneud.
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One question
that does arise from the visibility of S4C in that context is: if
you consider the changes that could happen with BBC Wales soon,
with more money coming in to make programmes, for example, drama,
there is also talk of greater responsibility for the iPlayer in
Wales. Now if that were to happen, I think there would be a place
on the front page of the iPlayer to give greater prominence to
S4C’s programmes, and I think that would be a valuable step.
But as it stands, of course, it’s good to see that that
iPlayer is at least available on many platforms that S4C alone,
perhaps, could not afford to be present on.
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[247]
Ond rydw i yn cytuno â Glyn yn
fwy athronyddol, yn fwy cyffredinol, pan ŷch chi’n
ystyried beth yw pwrpas y canllaw electronig, yr EPG, sef ei fod
e’n ffordd arall o roi mantais i ddarlledwyr gwasanaethau
cyhoeddus dros ddarlledwyr masnachol yn y byd cystadleuol sydd
ohoni. Os yw’r defnydd o’r canllaw electronig yn
lleihau yn sylweddol, a phobl yn mynd yn syth i apiau, bydd
hynny’n creu cwestiwn mawr ynglŷn ag i ba raddau y mae
modd cynnal darlledu gwasanaeth cyhoeddus yn gyffredinol, nid jest
S4C.
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But I would
agree with Glyn in terms of the broader, philosophical question,
when you consider what the purpose of the EPG is, in that
it’s another way of giving an advantage to public service
broadcasters over commercial broadcasters in the competitive world
that exists. If the use of the EPG reduces significantly, and
people go immediately to apps, that will create this question of to
what extent we can continue to maintain public service
broadcasting, and not just in terms of S4C.
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[248]
Bethan Jenkins:
Mae gan Jeremy Miles
gwestiwn.
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Bethan Jenkins: Jeremy Miles has a question.
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[249] Jeremy
Miles: Actually, my question is about the economic impact, so I
might have to wait, Chair.
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[250] Bethan
Jenkins: Suzy.
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[251]
Suzy Davies: Glyn Mathias, you did say that this question of EPG
prominence didn’t just affect S4C; it affects all kinds of
channels. Are you able to say when Ofcom last reviewed the
prominence provisions of the EPG code? Because it does have the
ability to do that, and there’s no plan to review it in the
immediate future. So, do you happen to know when it was last
done?
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[252]
Mr Mathias: I don’t. I know that they have had to attempt
an adjudication when there was a dispute between programme channels
and platforms, but their power is very limited in what they can
enforce. I can’t answer your specific question.
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[253]
Suzy Davies: That’s fine. I accept that. Thank
you.
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[254]
Bethan Jenkins:
Hannah. Sorry.
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[255]
Lee Waters: I just understood from your written evidence that you
had taken a view, but the Government had decided they didn’t
want to act on it.
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[256]
Bethan Jenkins:
That was from Ofcom. Not from the
advisory panel.
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[257]
Lee Waters: Oh, I apologise. So Ofcom has taken a view, but the
Government has taken a policy view it doesn’t want to
interfere with EPGs.
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[258]
Mr Mathias: As I understand it, the policy position of Ofcom is
that they would like to have their powers strengthened in relation
to EPGs, but the Government has not moved forward by giving them
sufficient powers to do so.
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[259]
Lee Waters: Thank you.
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[260]
Bethan Jenkins:
Thank you for that clarification. Back to
Hannah.
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[261]
Hannah Blythyn:
Thank you, Chair. Just a very quick
follow-up question. So, I think S4C are of the impression that they
probably need to invest more in their online viewing presence;
would you share that view?
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[262]
Mr
Wiliam: Maen nhw wedi buddsoddi yn helaeth yn barod o fewn y lle sydd
ganddyn nhw o safbwynt ariannol. Maen nhw wedi trio arloesi, hefyd;
trio lot o arbrofi gyda gwasanaethau newydd a rhai pethau sydd ddim
hyd yn oed wedi’u brandio gydag S4C—o ran gwasanaeth
Pump, er enghraifft, nid oes yna ddim brand S4C ar hwnnw. Rŷch
chi’n gallu gweld bod y gwasanaethau yma yn tyfu o niferoedd
bach ac mae elfen o lwyddiant amboutu nhw. Rydw i’n credu, o
beth rydw i’n gallu’i weld o S4C, y bydden nhw’n
hoffi gwneud mwy o arbrofi a mwy o arloesi pe bai ganddyn
nhw’r rhyddid a’r pwerau i wneud hynny. Yn sicr,
byddai’n wych i weld S4C yn gallu mynd ar fwy a mwy o
lwyfannau, a fel ti’n dweud, maen nhw wedi trio lle maen
nhw’n gallu i wneud hynny.
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Mr Wiliam: They
have invested extensively already within the financial envelop they
have, and they’ve tried to innovate as well. They’ve
experimented with new services, and some things where they
haven’t even been branded as S4C—the Pump service, for
example, there is no S4C brand there. You can see that these
services are growing in terms of small numbers, but there is an
element of success there. I think, from what I can see of S4C, they
would like to undertake more experimentation and innovation, if
they had the freedom and the powers to do that. It would be great
to see S4C being able to be placed on more and more platforms and,
as you’ve said, where possible, they’ve tried to do
that.
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[263]
Bethan Jenkins:
Jeremy—datblygiadau
economaidd.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Jeremy on economic developments.
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[264] Jeremy
Miles: Diolch. I’ll take a step back. For many years, ITV
and BBC commissioned and produced most of their own content
in-house. Obviously, the landscape changed in 2003 and that’s
been different ever since. But they were, from their perspective,
successful models in that period. What are your thoughts on whether
S4C should adopt that sort of model where it produces more of its
content in-house, rather than commissioning that from independent
production companies?
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[265] Mr
Mathias: I think the basic answer to that is you can’t go
backwards. The BBC, for instance, is moving to the gradual
establishment of BBC Studios, by which process BBC Studios will
have to compete with bids from independent companies, and I cannot
see any conceivable way in which S4C can move back into an in-house
production system.
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[266] Jeremy
Miles: Well, that happened in the States, actually, because
they abolished the rules that we have since 2003, and they allowed
more integration because of the market distortion they said it
caused there. So, it is possible to do that. The argument is, I
think, that the intervention happened to create a market. If S4C is
the only purchaser of Welsh-language broadcast content, arguably,
there isn’t a functioning market there anyway in Wales for
that content, so it is a slightly different situation. Would there
be no benefits from S4C’s point of view from taking that
step?
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|
[267] Mr
Mathias: I’ll answer very, very quickly, but I would say
that S4C has generated a market for Welsh-language programming by
independent companies in Wales, which has been of huge benefit to
the creative economy of Wales. I can’t see any argument for
moving backwards from that.
|
|
[268] Jeremy
Miles: I can absolutely see it from the point of view of the
production sector; I understand the economics of that. I’m
just asking from the point of view of the sustainability of the
model of S4C coming under significant financial pressure. Is this
not something that should be considered?
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|
[269]
Mr Wiliam: Rŷm ni’n cymryd y farn bod dim pwynt
inni ystyried y model yma mewn gwirionedd. Os ŷch chi’n
meddwl amboutu’r ffordd y daeth S4C i fodoli, yr hinsawdd pan
grëwyd S4C ac wrth gwrs Channel 4 ar yr un amser, roedd y
syniad yma o ddarlledwyr oedd jest yn gyhoeddwyr—nid oedden
nhw’n cynhyrchu. Roedd hwnnw’r un model gyda Channel 4
hefyd. Wrth gwrs, pan ddechreuodd S4C, nid oedd braidd dim
cwmnïoedd annibynnol yn bodoli yng Nghymru—dim ond rhyw
dri chwmni annibynnol oedd, rwy’n credu—ond o fewn
blwyddyn neu ddwy, fe dyfodd y sector yn anferth. Gallwch chi
ddweud bod S4C wedi cyfrannu’n eithaf sylfaenol, wir, i dwf y
sector yng Nghymru a, gyda hynny, wedi rhoi’r cyfle i wariant
cyhoeddus fynd yn bellach, felly, i greu buddiannau masnachol
hefyd.
|
Mr
Wiliam: We’re of the opinion that, no, there’s no
point considering this model, if truth be told. If you think about
the way in which S4C came into existence, and the climate when it
was created, and of course Channel 4 was created simultaneously,
there was this idea of broadcasters that were just publishers,
rather than producers. That was the same model with Channel 4, too.
When S4C was established, there were hardly any independent
companies in Wales—I think there were only some three in
existence—but, in a year or two, that sector grew
significantly. You can say that S4C contributed a great deal to the
growth of that sector in Wales and, with that, gave an opportunity
for public funding to go further to create commercial benefits
too.
|
|
[270]
Jeremy Miles:
A ydych chi’n credu bod y
buddiannau economaidd yna wedi cael eu gwasgaru’n gytbwys ar
draws Cymru?
|
Jeremy
Miles: Do you believe that those economic benefits have been
spread out equitably throughout Wales?
|
|
[271]
Mr Wiliam: Wel, mae adroddiadau blynyddol diweddaraf S4C yn
dangos hyn. Os ŷch chi’n edrych ar y canrannau o’r
nifer o gwmnïoedd ar draws Cymru lle maen nhw’n cael eu
comisiynu, mae’n reit wastad ar draws gorllewin, gogledd a
de-ddwyrain Cymru. Hefyd, wrth gwrs, mae’r budd economaidd
sy’n dilyn o hynny wedi bod yn weddol o wastad. Mae yna
enghreifftiau da yn ddiweddar lle mae S4C wedi gwneud astudiaethau.
Os ydw i’n cymryd cyfres fel Y Gwyll, er enghraifft,
lle gwnaethon nhw wneud astudiaeth o beth oedd effaith economaidd
Y Gwyll ar ardal Aberystwyth—
|
Mr
Wiliam: Well, the latest annual reports of S4C do demonstrate
this. If you look at the percentages in terms of the number of
companies across Wales where they are commissioned, then it’s
quite balanced across west, north and south-east Wales. Of course,
the economic benefits deriving from that are equally balanced too.
There are some good examples recently where S4C has carried out
studies. If you take Hinterland/Y Gwyll, for example, where
they carried out a study of the economic impact of
Hinterland on Aberystwyth—
|
|
[272]
Jeremy Miles:
Wel, mae’r enghraifft yn mynd i
fod yn enghraifft ddealladwy ac yn enghraifft dda, ond, fel y
cyfryw, nid dyna’r cynnwys typical mae S4C yn
ei—
|
Jeremy
Miles: Well, that example is going to be an understandable and
good example, yes, but generally speaking, that’s not the
typical content that S4C—
|
|
[273]
Mr Wiliam: Na, ond mae yna astudiaethau eraill hefyd
sy’n dangos impact ariannol S4C. Mae Llywodraeth Cymru wedi
gwneud un ac mae S4C wedi gwneud sawl astudiaeth drwy asiantaethau
annibynnol, rhai economaidd, sydd yn dangos gwerth—o bob
£1 mae S4C yn ei gwario mae £2 yn mynd
nôl i’r economi, so mae eithaf lot o gryfder yn y
dadansoddiad hwnnw.
|
Mr
Wiliam: No, but there are other studies that show the financial
impact of S4C. The Welsh Government has carried out a study and S4C
has carried out a number of studies through independent agencies,
economic agencies, that show its value—per £1 spent by
S4C, there is £2 created in the economy, so there is some
strength in that analysis.
|
|
[274]
Jeremy Miles:
Diolch.
|
Jeremy
Miles: Thank you.
|
|
[275]
Bethan Jenkins:
Mae Suzy Davies eisiau dod i mewn ar
y pwynt yma’n benodol. A wyt ti eisiau dod
nôl wedyn, Jeremy?
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Suzy Davies wants to come in on this specific point.
Do you want to come back in later, Jeremy?
|
|
[276]
Jeremy Miles:
Na.
|
Jeremy Miles: No.
|
|
[277] Suzy
Davies: Thanks ever so much. Just to go back to that question
of the market, obviously, the nature of the remit of S4C will
change as a result of this review. Is it fair to say any more that
the market should just be for Welsh speakers, or should it be for
making Welsh-language content for a wider market?
|
|
[278]
Mr Wiliam: Yn bendant. Rwy’n cytuno. Mae tystiolaeth
yn dangos bod gwylwyr gan S4C tu allan i Gymru ac, fel rŷch
chi’n dweud, ei fod e efallai’n hurt, felly, i
gyfyngu’r cylch gwaith dim ond i wylwyr yng Nghymru lle mae
yna gymaint o gyfle i S4C i ddarlledu i a darparu rhaglenni
i’r Deyrnas Unedig ac yn rhyngwladol, fel mae
llwyddiannau’r cyfresi diweddaraf wedi dangos. Roeddwn i, er
enghraifft, mewn seremoni wobrwyo lan ym Manceinion peth amser
yn ôl lle’r oedd yna gwmni lleol ym Manceinion
wedi ennill gwobr RTS am gynhyrchu rhaglen plant ar gyfer
S4C—rhaglen am gi oedd e, fel mae’n digwydd. Roedd
e’n anhygoel. Roeddech chi’n gallu gweld y budd
economaidd yn digwydd o’ch blaen chi yn fanna.
|
Mr
Wiliam: Certainly, I agree. The evidence shows that S4C has
viewers outside of Wales and, as you say, it therefore is not wise
to be restricting the remit just to viewers in Wales, when there is
such an opportunity for S4C to broadcast and to provide programmes
to the UK and internationally, as the success of the most recent
programmes has shown. For example, I was at an awards ceremony in
Manchester recently where a local company in Manchester had won an
RTS award for producing a children’s programme for
S4C—it was about a dog, as it happens. It was incredible. You
could see the economic benefits happening right in front of you
there.
|
|
[279] Suzy
Davies: That potentially changes the balance of its
funding—potentially.
|
|
11:15
|
|
[280]
Mr Wiliam: Yn bendant. Mae yna lot o le, felly, i arloesi a
datblygu, rwy’n credu.
|
Mr
Wiliam: Yes. There’s a great deal of scope to innovate
and develop, I think.
|
|
[281] Suzy
Davies: Diolch. Thank you, Chair.
|
|
[282] Bethan
Jenkins: Lee.
|
|
[283] Lee
Waters: Just finally, I want to bring you back to Glyn
Mathias’s opening statement about the need to ensure that
there are no sacred cows in this debate around the future of S4C,
which I think is very wise. I just wonder if you have any
particular cows you think we should consider for slaughter, as we
think about the future direction of this inquiry.
|
|
[284]
Mr Wiliam: Mae un cwestiwn penodol rŷm ni’n moyn
codi, ac mae’n gwestiwn o amrywiaeth a sut mae monitro
amrywiaeth o safbwynt yr aelodau o staff sy’n gweithio
i’r cwmnïau annibynnol a’r darlledwyr, a hefyd yr
amrywiaeth ar y sgrin. Mae
Ofcom wedi dechrau gwneud gwaith i fonitro hyn yn reit helaeth ar
draws y Deyrnas Unedig, ac mae Creative Diversity
Network—corff sydd wedi cael ei greu’n wirfoddol gan
ddarlledwyr i hyrwyddo amrywiaeth—wedi gwneud lot o waith ac
wedi datblygu project newydd o fonitro, o’r enw prosiect
Diamond. Mae S4C yn aelod o
CDN, ond am wahanol resymau, nid yw S4C yn aelod ar hyn o bryd, neu
ddim wedi cytuno bod yn rhan o broject Diamond, lle byddai
ffurflenni penodol a ffordd benodol a chyson ar draws y darlledwyr
i gyd i roi mewnbwn ar amrywiaeth y gweithlu a’r bobl sydd ar
sgrin.
|
Mr
Wiliam: There’s one specific question that we want to
raise, and that is the question of diversity and how we monitor
diversity in terms of the staff members who work for the
independent companies and for the broadcasters, and also the
diversity available on screen. Ofcom has started to undertake work
to monitor this to quite a broad extent throughout the UK, and
Creative Diversity Network, the body that has been created
voluntarily by broadcasters to promote diversity, has done a great
deal of work, and it has developed a new monitoring project called
project Diamond. S4C is a member of CDN, but for various reasons,
S4C isn’t currently a member, or rather hasn’t agreed
to be part of project Diamond, where there will be specific forms
and a specific and consistent way across all broadcasters to give
input on diversity within the workforce and on screen.
|
|
[285]
Rŷm ni’n credu ei fod yn
bwysig iawn i edrych ar hwn ar frys. Rŷm ni’n gwybod bod
lot o waith yn cael ei wneud gan Ofcom hefyd a rŷm ni’n
poeni, efallai, fod S4C wedi gadael ei hun yn agored, o bosib, i
bobl ddweud, ‘Wel, ble mae’ch tystiolaeth chi amboutu
beth rŷch chi’n ei wneud i hyrwyddo amrywiaeth ar draws
eich gweithlu?’
|
We think that
it is important to look at this urgently. We know that a lot of
work is being done by Ofcom as well, and we are concerned that S4C
has left itself open, perhaps, for people to say, ‘Well,
where is your evidence about what you’re doing to promote
diversity through your workforce?’
|
|
[286] Lee
Waters: Glyn, did you have any sacred cows?
|
|
[287] Mr
Mathias: Well, my sacred cow is the one I referred to earlier,
which is that no broadcaster should be self-regulating. I think
that’s No.1 priority and a lot of things will follow from
that.
|
|
[288] Lee
Waters: That’s a land grab rather than a sacred cow
slaughter. [Laughter.]
|
|
[289] Mr
Mathias: Well, Ofcom is the only game in town on regulation of
broadcasting.
|
|
[290] Lee
Waters: Perhaps we should have more plurality.
|
|
[291]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi am roi
tystiolaeth heddiw. Os oes unrhyw beth gennych chi i’w
ychwanegu, plîs teimlwch eich bod yn gallu ysgrifennu atom ar
unrhyw adeg. Rydw i’n gobeithio y byddwch chi’n
gwylio’r hyn sy’n digwydd gyda gweddill ein sesiynau,
ond diolch yn fawr iawn i chi am ddod mewn yma heddiw.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you very much for your evidence today. If
there’s anything that you’d like to add, then feel free
to write to us at any time. I do hope that you will take an
interest in the rest of our evidence sessions, but thank you for
your attendance today.
|
|
[292]
Mr Wiliam: Diolch yn fawr iawn.
|
Mr
Wiliam: Thank you very much.
|
|
11:17
|
|
Papurau
i’w Nodi
Papers to Note
|
|
[293]
Bethan Jenkins:
Rydym yn symud yn syth ymlaen, os
gallwn, at eitem 4: dyfodol S4C a sesiwn dystiolaeth 7. Tra ein bod
yn aros am y tystion, rydym yn symud at eitem 5, sef papurau
i’w nodi.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: We’ll move on immediately to item 4: the future
of S4C and evidence session 7. Whilst we await our witnesses, we
will move to item 5, which is papers to note.
|
|
[294]
Mae yna lot o bapurau yma ac nid wyf
yn bwriadu mynd trwyddyn nhw i gyd. Yr unig un y byddwn i, yn
bersonol, yn hoffi edrych arno yw’r ohebiaeth, nid gen i, ond
gan Bethan Jenkins, pennaeth cerddoriaeth Ysgol Lewis Pengam,
ynglŷn ag ariannu addysg gerddoriaeth a mynediad ati. Roeddwn
i jest eisiau argymell, os yn bosib, ymweld â’r ysgol,
achos maen nhw wedi dweud eu bod nhw’n edrych i mewn i
gerddoriaeth boblogaidd, ac efallai byddai hynny’n ein helpu
ni o ran y cylch gwaith. A oes unrhyw faterion eraill gan Aelodau
yn codi o’r ohebiaeth? Unrhyw fater arall?
|
There are a
number of papers here and I don’t intend to list them all.
The only one I would personally like to look at is correspondence,
not from me, but from Bethan Jenkins, the head of music at Lewis
School Pengam, in terms of funding and access to music education. I
just wanted to suggest, if possible, that we should visit the
school, because they have said that they’re looking into
popular music, and that would, perhaps, help us in terms of our
remit. Are there any other issues on those papers to note? Any
other issues?
|
|
[295] Lee
Waters: In terms of the visit, maybe it wouldn’t need all
of us to go, maybe we could do a rapporteur visit for that.
|
|
[296] Bethan
Jenkins: Yes, that’s fine.
|
|
[297] Lee
Waters: I thought ITV’s letter to us was quite
significant and more fulsome than the other written evidence that
they’ve provided. Actually, it’s worth reflecting on,
because it does provide quite a stark rejoinder to our report and
it may be worth some further challenge.
|
|
[298] Bethan
Jenkins: Do you have a suggestion in terms of where we take it?
Because we will have a debate on it, obviously, and the Government
will respond in due course.
|
|
[299] Lee
Waters: I have nothing specific in mind, but I think it is such
a fundamental challenge to our recommendations, I think it’s
worth just reflecting on what we do with it.
|
|
[300] Bethan
Jenkins: We’ll reflect in private session afterwards,
then. Okay. Thanks very much.
|
|
11:19
|
|
Dyfodol
S4C—Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 7
The Future of S4C—Evidence Session 7
|
|
[301]
Bethan Jenkins:
Symudwn yn ôl, felly, at y
sesiwn dystiolaeth—os rydw i’n gallu ei ffeindio yn fy
mhapurau—sesiwn dystiolaeth 7. Diolch yn fawr iawn i Ron
Jones, cadeirydd gweithredol Grŵp Tinopolis, am ddod i mewn
atom heddiw, a hefyd i Nia Thomas, sef rheolwr gyfarwyddwr Boom
Cymru. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Mae’n siŵr eich bod wedi bod
yn edrych ar y trafodaethau ac yn gweld yr hyn rydym ni wedi bod yn
ei drafod o ran S4C a’i dyfodol. Tybed a allech chi, yn yr
achos cyntaf, esbonio i ni beth rŷch chi’n credu
sy’n dda am yr hyn y mae S4C yn ei wneud ar hyn o bryd? A
ydyn nhw’n diwallu anghenion y cynulleidfaoedd ac a ydyn
nhw’n ymateb i’r hyn y mae’r cynulleidfaoedd
eisiau’i weld yn ddigonol? Sut fyddech chi eisiau gweld
unrhyw newidiadau’n digwydd? Diolch.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: We’ll return, therefore, to our evidence
session—if I can find the relevant paper—evidence
session 7. I’d like to thank Ron Jones, the executive
chairman of the Tinopolis Group, for joining us, and Nia Thomas,
who is managing director of Boom Cymru. So, thank you very much.
I’m sure you will have listened to our discussion in terms of
S4C and its future. I wonder whether you could initially explain to
us what you believe is positive in terms of what S4C is doing at
the moment. Is it meeting the needs of its audience and is it
responding to what audiences want to see sufficiently? How would
you want to see any possible changes happening? Thank
you.
|
|
[302]
Mr Jones: Os caf i ddechrau, a gaf i ddweud, Gadeirydd,
cyn cychwyn, fel mater o esboniad, rydw i, wrth gwrs, yn gadeirydd
panel sector creadigol Cymru, ond nid yw darlledu, fel y cyfryw, o
fewn remit y panel hwnnw? Felly, nid ydw i’n siarad
gyda chefnogaeth y panel, ond, wrth gwrs, rŷm ni yn edrych ar
effaith economaidd darlledu yng Nghymru, felly rwyf ychydig yn fwy
llwyd fy natur ar y materion yna. Byddaf yn gallu ateb y cwestiynau
yna, efallai, gyda rhywfaint o safbwynt y Llywodraeth o leiaf yng
nghefn fy meddwl i.
|
Mr
Jones: If I may begin, may I say, Chair, before beginning, as
an explanation, of course, that I am the chairman of the creative
sector’s panel in Wales, but broadcasting, as such,
doesn’t fall within the remit of that panel? So, I’m
not speaking with the support of the panel, but, of course, we are
looking at the economic impact of broadcasting in Wales, so
I’m slightly more grey in terms of those areas. In terms of
the answers that I will give, I will be thinking somewhat of the
Government’s views on this.
|
|
[303]
Fel rŷch chi wedi gweld
o’r papur rydw i wedi cynnig i’r pwyllgor, rwyf yn
credu bod rhaid inni edrych o’r newydd ar S4C. Nid yw hynny i
wneud, a dweud y gwir, gydag unrhyw fath o asesiad beirniadol
o’r gorffennol. Rwy’n credu bod S4C wedi gwasanaethu yn
ddilys, yn onest ac yn gymharol lwyddiannus—oes arall ym myd
cynnwys, ac mewn oes arall hefyd mae’r berthynas rhwng
darlledu cyhoeddus a’r gynulleidfa. Beth rwy’n credu
sydd wedi newid yw natur cynnwys bellach yn y byd—cynnwys
sydd yn gweithio ar fideo, audio a hefyd ar brint, ac
mae’n rhaid meddwl o’r newydd am beth oedd prif bwrpas
S4C, ac roedd hynny i ddelio gyda’r methiant yn y farchnad ar
gyfer darlledu. Ond bellach mae gyda ni’r balans yma rhwng
methiant yn y farchnad ar draws holl gynnwys Cymraeg ei iaith, ac
mae gyda ni Lywodraeth bellach sydd â strategaeth glir, ac
rwy’n credu bod gyda ni boblogaeth sydd â dealltwriaeth
glir o’r angen i greu Cymru sydd yn wirioneddol ddwyieithog,
a thrwy S4C, fel sylfaen i’r newidiadau yna, rwy’n
credu y gallwn ni adeiladu rhywbeth o’r newydd.
|
As you can see
from the paper that I have produced for the committee, I do believe
that we do need to look afresh at S4C. That really doesn’t
have anything to do with any kind of critical assessment of
what’s happening, I think that S4C has served validly,
honestly, and relatively successfully in another era in terms of
content, and in another era in relation to public service
broadcasting and the audience. What I think has changed is the
nature of content in the world that is available in video, audio
and in print, and we have to think afresh about what the chief aim
of S4C is, which was to deal with a market failure in the area of
broadcasting. But now we have this balance between a failure in the
market across all Welsh language content, and we have a Government
now that has a clear strategy and I think that we have a population
that has a strong understanding of the need to create a Wales that
is truly bilingual, and through S4C, as a foundation for those
changes, I think we can build something afresh.
|
|
[304]
Yn nyddiau cynnar S4C, roedd
hi’n amlwg nad oedd yna lawer o broblem yn diffinio beth oedd
y gymuned Gymraeg: roedd e’n ddaearyddol yn weddol glir,
roedd e’n amlwg bod yr iaith yn encilio mewn rhai o’i
ardaloedd mwyaf cryf, ond roeddwn ni’n gwybod pwy oeddem
ni’n gwasanaethu. Bellach, mae’r gymuned ar wasgar. Mae
cymunedau traddodiadol yn cael eu chwalu, ac mae cymunedau newydd o
ddiddordebau a gwahanol oedrannau yn cael eu creu, ac rwy’n
credu, er mwyn gwasanaethu’r math yna o gynulleidfa, mewn byd
sydd yn mynd drwy gyfnod chwyldroadol yn nhermau'r cyfryngau, fod
yna ffyrdd newydd o wneud hyn. Mae’n sialens i bawb yn y
sector darlledu cyhoeddus, ond rwy’n credu ei fod yn arbennig
o bwysig ein bod ni’n ffeindio’r ffordd newydd yma
o’i wneud e yn yr iaith Gymraeg, ac rwy’n hyderus y
gallwn ni wneud hynny. Rwy’n credu bod yna broblemau
ymarferol yn hytrach na deallusol yn ein hwynebu ni, ond
rwy’n hyderus iawn y gallwn ni greu, nid yn unig diwydiant
cryf yn y sector yma, ond rhywbeth sy’n rhan o ddiwylliant
syn cryfhau yn ogystal.
|
In the early
days of S4C, it was evident that there weren’t many problems
in terms of defining what the Welsh-speaking community was: it was
geographically clear, and it was evident that the Welsh language
was in retreat in some of its strongholds, but we knew who we were
serving. Now, that community is spread out. The traditional
communities are diminishing, and there are new communities of
interest and different age groups are developing, and I think, in
terms of serving that type of audience, in a world that is
undergoing a revolutionary period in terms of the media, there are
new ways of doing this. It’s a challenge for everyone who is
involved in the public broadcasting sector, but I think that
it’s exceptionally important that we find this new way of
operating through the medium of Welsh, and I’m confident that
we can do so. I believe that there are practical problems rather
than intellectual problems facing us, but I do believe—and I
am confident in this—that we can create, not just a strong
industry in this sector, but something that is part of a culture
that is also strengthening.
|
|
[305]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch. Nia Thomas.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you. Nia Thomas.
|
|
[306]
Ms Thomas: Wel, rydw i’n cytuno â phopeth, yn
amlwg, mae Ron wedi dweud. Jest nodyn i ddweud bod Boom Cymru wedi
bod yn cynhyrchu cynnwys i S4C ers bron i 25 mlynedd erbyn hyn, ac
rydw i’n falch iawn i fedru cael y cyfle i siarad ar ran S4C
heddiw achos rŷm ni hefyd yn edrych ymlaen at y cyfle i
gynhyrchu cynnwys am 25 mlynedd arall yn y dyfodol. Ond beth
mae’n rhaid cario ymlaen i sicrhau yw bod S4C yn ddarlledwr
cyhoeddus o’r safon uchaf. Mae eisiau bod S4C yn parhau i
hybu a sicrhau ffyniant yr iaith Gymraeg, a hirhoedledd yr iaith
Gymraeg, a hefyd i barhau i fod yn gorff hanfodol i ddatblygiad
talent yn yr iaith Gymraeg, ac mae’r dalent hynny yn amlwg yn
gweithio’n galed iawn i gynhyrchu’r cynnwys mwyaf
safonol y gallan nhw.
|
Ms
Thomas: Well, I agree with everything that Ron has said. I just
wanted to note that Boom Cymru has been producing content for S4C
for some 25 years now, and I’m very pleased to have the
opportunity to speak on behalf of S4C today because we’re
looking forward for the opportunity to produce content for another
25 years into the future. But what we must continue to ensure is
that S4C is a public broadcaster of the highest quality. S4C wants
to continue to promote the Welsh language, and safeguard the Welsh
language, and also continue to be a crucial body in terms of the
development of talent through the medium of Welsh, and that talent
clearly is working hard to produce the highest quality content that
it can.
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[307]
Rydw i’n meddwl bod S4C wedi
ymateb yn sylweddol o dda i’r toriadau anghymesur sydd wedi
dod gerbron dros y blynyddoedd diwethaf. Mae eu ffigurau gwylwyr
nhw ar i fyny—mae eu gwylwyr nhw nawr yr uchaf y maen nhw
wedi bod ers naw mlynedd. Mae’r trawiad ar yr economi yn
hanfodol a gall hynny ddim cael ei esgeuluso mewn unrhyw fodd. A
hefyd, mae ei gyfraniad i—nid ydw i byth yn gallu dweud y
gair yma—blwraliaeth yn sylweddol, felly mae’n bwysig
bod hynny’n cael ei gymryd i ystyriaeth.
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I think S4C has
responded well to the disproportionate cuts that it has faced over
the past few years. Their viewing figures are
increasing—it’s the highest now that it’s been
for nine years. The economic impact is a crucial issue and that
shouldn’t be ignored in any way whatsoever. It also
contributes to plurality—I can never say the word—but
it does make a significant contribution in that regard and
it’s important that that’s taken into account.
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[308]
Beth sydd angen ei wneud nawr, yn
amlwg, yw arfogi S4C i ymateb i’r cymal nesaf o ddarlledu.
Mae’r 30 mlynedd nesaf yma yn mynd i fod yn sialens, ond nid
ydw i’n meddwl y dylem ni fod yn panicio. Mae newidiadau
gerbron, ond fe fyddan nhw’n dod i mewn yn araf deg. Mae
eisiau i ni bwyllo, ac fel y dywedais i, mae angen i S4C arfogi ei
hunan i wneud yn siŵr ei bod yn diwallu anghenion y gwylwyr
a’r genhedlaeth nesaf o wylwyr am y 30 mlynedd
nesaf.
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What we need to
do now, clearly, is to equip S4C to respond to the next phase of
broadcasting and the next 30 years are going to be challenging, but
I don’t think that we should panic. The changes are facing us
and they will be introduced gradually, but we need to take a step
back. As I said, S4C needs to prepare itself and equip itself to
ensure that it meets the needs of its audience and the next
generation of audience for the next 30 years.
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[309]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch. Mae’r cwestiynau nawr
ar y cylch gwaith statudol ac mae Dawn Bowden yn mynd i arwain ar
hyn. Diolch.
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Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you. We now have questions on the statutory
remit of S4C and Dawn Bowden will lead on this.
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[310] Dawn
Bowden: Thank you, Chair. First of all, perhaps I could ask
you, Ron, to expand on the evidence that you gave. You’ve
touched on it briefly in your introduction but in your evidence you
talked about the review—it gives us the opportunity to look
at a new, enhanced body for the digital age and moving towards
more, sort of, digital platforms. I think you talk about, you
know—television alone is not going to be enough going
forward. Do you want to say a little bit more about that?
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[311] Mr Jones: By way of a very limited
background to it, I think we sometimes get terribly caught up in
discussions about devolution of powers and responsibilities and
which governance structures we need to look at at broadcasting. But
I think those are largely illusory, because whatever aspect of
public life we’re now involved in, no-one has complete
sovereignty. It’s about working with different national
bodies, treaties, national Governments for Wales and for the UK and
so on.
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[312] So, I try to
look through those and look at what I think is the real challenge
for us going forward. It really is about, ‘How can the Welsh
language find its place in a very different media
environment?’ I think we have to look at, ‘What is the
content that Welsh speakers need to consume? What is the content
they want to consume?’ And the balance there is between that
which is—the examples best to use are used by the BBC. They
justify Strictly Come Dancing because it’s a part of a
package that makes public service broadcasting attractive. In the
case of doing that in Welsh, it’s very likely that in the
future we will not be able to compete with the Strictly Come
Dancing of this world or the American Ninja Warrior or
whatever else. But we will be able to compete by offering a
tailored proposition that fits a particular niche in people’s
lives, and that’ll be about Wales, it’ll be in
Welsh—but that won’t necessarily be television. It
could well be radio, it could well be ideas that come entirely from
a new generation of producers involved in matters digital. It could
come from our strong print background. But I think unless we
co-ordinate those in such a way as to make it available to people,
we will get lost in the great ocean of media out there.
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[313] So, I think by
having a body that concentrates on the whole of media available to
Wales, we can do a number of things. First of all, we can package
media in such a way that we balance between that which people want
to watch, listen, read to with that which society needs them to be
aware of, needs to be involved in. It’s the balance between
that which people want and that which society needs them to be
involved in that is at the heart of public service broadcasting.
And if we look at that in the new environment, then we need almost
to be agnostic about platforms. We need to look at the content
first—what’s of interest? And then we need to have
institutions that are able to manage, over time, the movement
between one platform and another. So, we don’t really think
in terms of traditional television alone.
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11:30
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[314] Now, I’ve
heard some witnesses here talk about the death of television and so
on. Nothing could be more wrong, in my view. If you look at some of
the best research being done in the United States, which is way
ahead of us in terms of the migration of content, actually the
consumption of traditional television has increased markedly.
It’s just that it’s increased on a number of
distribution platforms. One of the leading people talking about
this in the United States is actually a guy called Marcus Liassides
who is now based in Salt Lake City but previously lived here in
south Wales. If you follow Marcus’s comments on what’s
happening, you’ll realise that television is far from dead,
it’s just changing its form. It’s changing its
distribution platforms and that’s really why I think we need
very different structures to accommodate.
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[315] There’s no
point now having content commissioned, encouraged, sold and
marketed by a range of bodies around Wales. Really, what are we
trying to do? We are trying to find something that works for the
whole of Wales and works in a way where this Government and this
Assembly feels it has direct responsibility and involvement and is
able to offer some degree of strategic direction, in the interest
of the sort of society we’re trying to build. That’s
why public service broadcasting, although it’s not devolved,
is increasingly going to have to be a matter of interest for this
body. It’s at the heart, really, of the communication between
this Government, this Assembly, and the people of Wales.
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[316] Dawn
Bowden: Sure. Do you agree with that, Nia?
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[317] Ms
Thomas: Yes, to a degree, I do agree. I think, to have a joint
strategy—. With regard in particular to ensuring the success
and future of the Welsh language, I think having a joint strategy
between various bodies—that that is key to their
remit—is a good thing. S4C has a place and a role to play
with regard to ensuring that content is available digitally in the
Welsh language. So, if other bodies need that content to be
produced, then it makes sense for there to be a joined-up thinking
and a joined-up approach to it.
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[318] Dawn
Bowden: You’ve also talked about the need to maximise the
commercial potential, haven’t you?
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[319] Ms
Thomas: Yes. S4C has done quite a lot to try and increase its
commercial revenues. Naturally, it’s a different market. The
flexibility and the options when it comes to adding revenues,
obviously, are much lower. It’s not as fortunate as, for
example, Channel 4, when it comes to what opportunities it may have
and what ventures it may invest in. So, it is limited but, having
said that, they have, I think, done good work in this area.
They’ve invested in content. Y Gwyll is a really good
example of using their commercial reserves to invest in content
that has sold and travelled well across the world. So, I do believe
that, although they are doing what they can, if the requirement to
do more commercially maybe formed a more integral part of their
remit, then that might help.
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[320] Dawn
Bowden: That leads me on to my final question, really, which is
about what both of you were saying—you appear to be saying
that the current remit has its constraints. So, you would be
looking to go beyond the current constraints of the remit. One of
the things that we’ve heard—well, one of the things
that we know is that, within the current remit, it’s about
providing a service ‘wholly or mainly’ in Wales and so
on. But we’ve actually heard evidence saying that a lot of
people trying to or wanting to access S4C and Welsh language
programming now are actually outside of Wales. So, how far do you
think the current remit constrains S4C from doing the kind of
things that you’re talking about?
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[321] Ms
Thomas: I think it constrains it in the fact that it says it
has to be producing programmes for audiences ‘in
Wales’. Whether that is adaptable in its current
form—you know, I think it should be. S4C is obviously trying
to reach the diaspora—45 per cent of its viewers now are
based outside Wales. They have been piloting a useful scheme over
the past two years where they’ve asked producers to clear
their content internationally—where they can, where there are
no limits to doing so, or financial constraints to doing
so—so that they can show their content on a wider scale than
just in the UK as well. They are showing it internationally,
online. They are making these changes and making these moves
towards that direction.
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[322] Mr
Jones: What I don’t think we can do is mix up the
need to service, let’s call them the diaspora, and somehow
assume that that is a huge new commercial opportunity. Welsh
language content will suffer a permanent market issue. In that
sense, it’s no different to a lot of other countries with
much stronger languages than we have. So, I think we have to set
aside the commercial side. But there is a Welsh speaking community
in the most unbelievably distant places. I think, accidentally, we
are servicing them now. What I think we need to do is to make them
feel more part of the community of S4C, and we can do that
reasonably subtly.
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[323] I remember, some
years ago, talking to Maggie Brown of The Guardian, a
leading media commentator, and being amazed at Maggie’s
knowledge of S4C, only to find that mam, who was born in north
Wales, was living with Maggie in London. You come across these
connections all the time. I think by explicitly going out there and
engaging with them—. I spend a lot of time in the United
States on business and I’m constantly meeting Welsh people,
whether it’s through Ninnau, the Welsh newspaper out
there, or people who’ve managed to get virtual private
network access to S4C in Wales and so on. They’re part of our
community. We shouldn’t waste any opportunity to keep them
involved with an interest in Wales. It has more than just a
feel-good factor, it’s about recognising that there is a real
connection, both emotional and historical, to these people. They
want to be part of what’s happening in Wales today.
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[324] Dawn
Bowden: Absolutely. Thank you. Diolch.
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[325]
Bethan Jenkins:
Rydym ni wedi cyffwrdd ar gyllid ond
rydym ni’n mynd i’w drafod ymhellach nawr. Suzy Davies.
Diolch.
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Bethan
Jenkins: We have touched on funding, but we will discuss it in
further detail now. Suzy Davies. Thank you.
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[326] Suzy
Davies: I was very interested in your comments on the forward
look on how to reach Welsh speakers in different ways, rather than
through television. But whether we’re talking about S4C plus
plus plus, if you like, or just S4C 2.0, who should pay for it and
how?
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[327] Mr Jones:
I don’t think it matters who pays for it but, I think,
clearly, we’re heading in the direction of there being
natural paymasters for elements of what it does. Now that we have
the BBC as the funder—effectively, that doesn’t offend
me, but I do think it needs to be an agreed top-slice, just to take
away any responsibility the BBC has for influencing funding. But,
then again, I think there are other things that an S4C of the
future might do that are more properly paid for by elements of the
Welsh Government.
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[328] There’s a
huge deficit, in my view, for quality audiovisual material for our
schools in Welsh. It seems to me that sensible discussions there
about how some of the good content, now produced largely by
Nia’s company for kids, could be tailored differently
to have direct influence within the curriculum and so on. If that
requires funding, that’s fine. Again, Welsh language
publications are things that are funded largely within Wales. Some
of the arts council’s remit impacts very strongly on some of
these cultural issues.
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[329] I think we can
have sensible discussions about that. I’m not offended by the
idea of a body that is funded differently, with different
accountabilities and different legal responsibilities, going
forward. It’s no more complex than most modern businesses
are, with—
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[330] Suzy
Davies: It wasn’t really a devolution question, it was
just a plurality question, really.
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[331] Mr
Jones: Yes, absolutely.
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[332] Ms
Thomas: I agree with Ron. It doesn’t matter necessarily
where the funding comes from. It’s the quality of the funding
that matters. I think, from the perspective of a producer, or
representing a company that has a number of people producing
content in the company, what’s important is that the content
budget is as protected as possible, but that the content is
adaptable and available on other platforms, should that be
possible.
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[333] The other thing
that’s important is the stability and visibility of the
funding. Those are key. At the end of the day, S4C’s content
budgets are low—they’re comparatively low—and
there needs to be some care and consideration around that. What the
DCMS says is the funding should ensure S4C provides a first-class
service to meet the needs of the Welsh language audience, and it
needs to invest in high-quality programming. I believe that Welsh
speakers should have the same right as English speakers to have
high-quality programming. That’s why I believe the content
budgets should be as protected as possible.
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[334] Suzy
Davies: Can I just ask—
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[335] Mr Jones:
I think there’s one area that is changing as a result of the
latest BBC charter—and some of the ancillary papers one can
look at in terms of governance and so on, which are, I think, key
to this body’s involvement. Clearly, whilst we don’t
have a fundamental change in the way that the BBC is governed, the
new requirement of accountability to Wales and the involvement of
DCMS and the Welsh Government, for example, in the appointment of
the BBC director for Wales, do indicate, I think, an acceptance
that the way in which funding was organised during the time of the
big cuts in the early days of the Conservative Government
wasn’t satisfactory, because you effectively had people who
didn’t fully understand the questions that were required to
be asked, and came up with a result that, whether it was right or
wrong, was ill-informed. That is the point. You can’t come to
good funding decisions if you don’t know what you’re
talking about, which I suspect is where DCMS was at that time.
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[336] Suzy
Davies: I’m not necessarily going to disagree with you on
that, funnily enough. What I didn’t hear in your responses
was a sense of the role for improved commercial performance in
that. I’d like to know how—. Because I accept what you
say about content—content has to be good to be sellable and
watchable. I’m just wondering what responsibility you think
actually the producers have to improve the profitability of
S4C.
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[337] Mr Jones:
That’s a slightly difficult question to answer. Let me put it
this way, I don’t think S4C is about profitability. S4C is
about spending the money it has as wisely as it can to deliver the
best possible product.
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[338] Suzy
Davies: It would be quite good if it got more from its own
activities, though.
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[339] Mr Jones:
Let me step back from that initial remark then to say that the only
way we are going to improve the commercial value of S4C content is
by a successful implementation of what’s a cross-party policy
to increase the number of Welsh speakers and to make Welsh a more
relevant language inside Wales. The idea that we can take Welsh
language content commissioned by S4C and sell it around the world
is pure hubris. Hinterland is one of ours, right, but if I
was to be totally honest about the gestation of Hinterland,
we’ve been trying to come up with a drama project that had
that sort of global reach for 20 years.
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[340]
Suzy Davies: Can I just intervene there? I think S4C’s drama
is of the highest quality. I think it’s been a real shame
over the 20-odd years that it hasn’t managed to market that
to different countries.
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[341]
Mr Jones: It doesn’t travel well, for all sorts of
reasons.
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[342]
Bethan Jenkins:
Why doesn’t it travel as well as,
say, the Nordic countries at the moment? Lots of their crime dramas
are successful. Why can’t we do that? If we can with
Hinterland, then surely—
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[343]
Mr Jones: Na, rwy’n credu y gallwn ni
ei wneud o bryd i’w gilydd, Cadeirydd, ond beth na allwn ni
ei wneud yw gofyn i S4C greu business model cynaliadwy
sy’n ddibynnol ar y math yna o weithgaredd. Mae pethau fel
Y Gwyll yn mynd i werthu yn rhyngwladol, ac yn llwyddiannus
iawn, a bydd rhaglenni eraill yn gallu gwneud hynny’n
ogystal. Ond, rwy’n credu bod rhoi’r pwysau ar S4C
a’r cyfrifoldeb i rywsut fod yn ddarlledwr rhyngwladol yn fwy
nag y gall yr iaith Gymraeg ei gynnal.
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Mr Jones: No, I
think we can do it from time to time, Chair, but what we
can’t do is ask S4C to create a sustainable business model
that’s dependent on that kind of activity. Things like Y
Gwyll/Hinterland will sell internationally, and successfully
so, and other programmes will also be able to do that. But I think
that putting the pressure on S4C and the responsibility of somehow
being an international broadcaster is more than the Welsh language
can sustain.
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11:45
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[344] Ms
Thomas: Just for your information, 35 Diwrnod, which is
being broadcast on S4C at the moment, is actually going to be
launched at MIPTV next week as a product that, hopefully, will
sell. All I will say is, we have to be realistic about how well
that project will sell, because drama is an incredibly crowded
market. I have to go back to what Ron said about the gestation
period of Y Gwyll and the amount of time and effort and,
basically, banging on doors that keep shutting in your faces when
it comes to raising the appropriate finance to make content that is
of the highest production value and for it to be appealing to the
wider market—it’s difficult. It’s not going to
just come from a budget from S4C and a budget from BBC. There has
to be input from distributors, and those distributors need to like
the product, because they are being courted by a number of drama
producers all over the world asking for gap finance. So, it
isn’t easy. It’s incredibly challenging.
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[345] What I would say
is that S4C, in their new programmes strategy, are trying to
encourage—. And we, as producers, have been working hard for
a number of years to try and come up with content or ideas that do
have wider appeal than just the Welsh language market. Formats, in
particular, are areas that we are now focused on, and have been
focused on—trying to come up with formats that can travel,
whether they’re in Welsh or whether they’re in another
language. So, it is happening, but it isn’t as easy as it
might sound.
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[346]
Suzy Davies: I don’t think it’s easy, but I needed you
to tell us how difficult it was.
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[347]
Ms Thomas: Okay. Well, hopefully, that answered your
question.
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[348]
Mr Jones: My concern is that, because of public and political
pressure to somehow appear global, S4C will take its eye off what
it really needs to do, which is to satisfy a Welsh audience and a
Welsh-speaking audience. The programming requirements are very
different. I work with the officials and Government here, as some
of you will know, on bringing in some of the international drama
that you will now find all across Wales. When you look at both the
budgets and the time those projects take, it’s a very
different world to the one that S4C inhabits, or even the BBC
inhabits, increasingly. I’d like to think that we are
suggesting to S4C that they do what they can in this field, but not
to make it a priority. I take issue with them, for example, on the
pursuit of formats. Formats have tremendous value overseas, but
maybe formats aren’t what our viewers need in Wales. Perhaps
they’re looking for something different. So, an honest
conversation around that, I think, is required.
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[349]
Suzy Davies: Okay, thank you.
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[350]
Bethan Jenkins:
Mae angen inni symud ymlaen, sori, at
lywodraethu ac atebolrwydd. Lee Waters.
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Bethan
Jenkins: We will move on because we need to, and we’ll
move on to governance and accountability. Lee Waters.
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[351] Lee
Waters: Diolch. Thank you both for your written evidence. You
both say, in slightly different ways, that you think the current
governance arrangements should not persist. I’m just
wondering how you think they should look at the end of the review
period.
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[352] Ms
Thomas: I think that, given that S4C will now be the only
broadcaster that won’t be governed by Ofcom, it makes sense
for S4C to be regulated by Ofcom. With regard to the current
composition of the S4C authority, I think there is room for certain
tweaks to that setup. Without wanting to sound as if I would wish
to replicate anything that the BBC is doing in S4C as an
institution, I think that it could make sense for S4C to have a
similar board—or the composition of its board could be
similar to the BBC unitary board, in that it has an independent
chair, it has executives from S4C present on the board and a number
of non-execs appointed jointly, or whether half of them are
appointed by the Welsh Government and half of them by the DCMS.
That’s a conversation that could be had as well. Those are my
views.
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[353] Lee
Waters: Okay. Thank you.
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[354] Mr Jones:
I wouldn’t disagree with much of what Nia said, but
I’ll take a slightly different approach. S4C, at the moment,
regardless of the governance arrangements, has a degree of
independence that, shortly, will be unique in public service
broadcasting in the sense that it will not operate under any form
of Ofcom-monitored service licence. Now, I think one of the biggest
dangers we face over the next 12 months in terms of broadcasting in
the UK, and particularly in Wales, is how we determine what the
service licence for Wales is going to be for the BBC. And, unless
we’re very careful, that service licence will be fairly mushy
and the linkage between what Wales needs, how it’s impacted
and what it costs will just disappear.
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[355] But when you
think philosophically about it, the idea of a service licence
properly produced and monitored by Ofcom and also by politicians
like yourselves, is the ideal position to be in. I’d like to
see a situation where a service licence for S4C is arrived at
where, clearly, Ofcom are available to monitor, but the contents of
the service licence would be very open to discussion and
intervention by this Assembly and this Government, and therefore
monitored much more closely. I think the idea of giving large
amounts of public money to a public service broadcaster now and
saying, ‘Go away and be independent’ is no longer
appropriate. I think that’s particularly the case because of
the need for accountability, but I think it’s also the case
because we require our public service broadcasters to do specific
things for us, and I don’t have any difficulty with
tightening the independence somewhat for the public good, which is
really what we’re talking about.
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[356] But this idea of
service licences has not worked in the past, because they’ve
been improperly drafted, in my view; they’ve not been tight
enough on our broadcasters. But there is an opportunity here now to
engage S4C in a new link with this place in a way that I think
would benefit it long term.
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[357] Lee
Waters: You also make some really interesting suggestions in
your written evidence about the additional roles that S4C might
absorb from different bodies—the arts council and the Welsh
Books Council, for example. Clearly, there are commercial
opportunities from the model that you suggest that the private
sector would be in a position to exploit, but how do you see those
types of responsibilities working within an Ofcom-governed
environment?
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[358] Mr Jones:
Well, I don’t, is the honest answer. I think there is almost
a reluctance to accept that organisations these days are actually
very sophisticated, and if I look at it from the commercial
viewpoint, looking at my own company, we operate across a whole
range of countries, we have different governance arrangements, we
have contracts with different broadcasters, some of which require
us to keep individual accounts, so they’re cost auditable,
and those complexities are just the normal complexities of business
life.
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[359] I don’t
see any reason why a public body that has responsibilities where
it’s accountable to DCMS, Ofcom, the BBC and the education
department inside Government here can’t actually still have
integrity in terms of the delivery, whilst at the same time having
a degree of co-ordination of strategy, which makes sure that we are
all heading in the right direction. And that’s why
politicians are elected—to provide the glue that allows that
to happen. In the good old days, Willie Whitelaw always used to say
that good chaps can always sort things out. We’re past that
now. Now, we need definite governance arrangements to be in place,
but I don’t think they’re difficult.
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[360] Lee
Waters: So, we should embrace the mess, in a sense. But
there’s a mess that you don’t think we should embrace,
which is the new BBC board model, where you think that the Welsh
appointee, whenever they are eventually appointed, is put in a
position of serving too many masters.
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[361] Mr Jones:
No—I’m fascinated, actually, by the new governance
arrangements for the BBC because, for the first time, they’ve
chosen to define the roles of the individual directors of the board
of the BBC, and it’s potentially great if we can make sure
that they’re observed, because you now have directors
appointed by the board of the BBC and you have directors appointed
by DCMS in consultation with the Government here, and the
responsibility of the directors is now individual in the sense that
not only must they operate as a corporate body, but each individual
director has the responsibility to act according to their own
judgment. When you remember that that judgment has to be exercised
by the national director for Wales, alongside its accountability
and reporting to this place, then actually, that position is now a
position of real power, because that individual cannot be sacked by
the BBC. That person appointed to be the national director for
Wales can only be sacked by the Minister. We know that
‘Minister’ now means the Minister of DCMS in
consultation with this place. So, here are subtle changes in
governance that, if properly used and monitored, I think could be
very useful.
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[362] Lee
Waters: So, how do you think they should be used and
monitored?
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[363] Mr Jones:
Well, I’d like to see a discussion, in advance of the new
governance arrangements of the BBC becoming solidified, where there
is an understanding about just how the accountability of that
individual to this place is to be described and monitored. I think
it requires conversations to be had.
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[364] Lee
Waters: Could I, as we have you here, ask a separate question
briefly about your role in the creative sectors panel and how this
has emerged? Correct me if I’m wrong, because it’s a
sketchy understanding. You were chair of a broadcasting panel that
then was dissolved. Is that right?
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[365] Mr Jones:
The broadcasting panel was a task and finish group.
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[366] Lee
Waters: Right; and it’s finished.
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[367] Mr Jones:
It’s finished.
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[368] Lee
Waters: Without publishing anything.
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[369] Mr Jones:
We produced a lengthy paper for the First Minister, which he would
use to inform policy, but—
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[370] Lee
Waters: It never saw the light of day.
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[371] Mr Jones:
It’s not been published.
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[372] Lee
Waters: Right. Do you know why that is?
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[373] Mr Jones:
No, I don’t.
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[374] Lee
Waters: Okay. In terms of your involvement on the creative
sectors panel, that doesn’t touch on broadcasting at all per
se other than in terms of exports and economic—
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[375] Mr Jones:
It specifically excludes broadcasting, and it’s really
centred around, quite simply, the economic and commercial benefits
we can bring to Wales across the creative industries. As you know,
over the last several years, we’ve concentrated on
international drama where, thanks to some brilliant officials,
we’ve been very successful.
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[376] Lee
Waters: But you did have a role vis-à-vis S4C in terms
of the Egin project, where you—
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[377] Mr Jones:
We were asked to provide advice on that issue, yes.
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[378] Lee
Waters: And your advice wasn’t taken.
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[379] Mr Jones:
Our advice was not on the move of S4C to Carmarthen. Our advice was
offered on the viability of the Egin project. We looked—this
is the panel and the officials—at the business plan for the
Egin project, and we were not satisfied it provided value for
money—value for public money. We fed that into the Minister.
The Minister later concluded that a lower offer should be made,
based on normal Welsh Government investment criteria, and
that’s the beginning of the end of our involvement.
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[380] Lee
Waters: Are you satisfied with the outcome of that?
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[381] Mr Jones:
The outcome was not for me to be satisfied or not with. It’s
a political judgment based around a whole range of assessments;
bearing in mind we were only looking at the economic side, and we
specifically, in our advice to the Minister, excluded anything to
do with social benefits, educational benefits and linguistic
benefits.
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[382] Lee
Waters: I’m interested in your view on the outcome.
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[383] Mr Jones:
I think the outcome is one that I hope leads to success.
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[384] Lee
Waters: Thank you.
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[385] Bethan
Jenkins: That’s a politician’s answer.
[Laughter.] We’ll move on to visibility quickly, but I
think we have addressed it a lot. Hannah.
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[386] Hannah
Blythyn: Yes, just moving on, you talked about the challenges
faced in the digital age. I just want to refer perhaps to a couple
of things in your written paper—the written paper from Boom.
When S4C were in—Huw Marshall said they hadn’t invested
enough in their online presence. I think, in your paper, you say
that it’s important that S4C has the freedom to be able to
develop this as part of its remit. I wondered if you could just
expand on that to us.
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[387] Mr Jones:
Which aspect on it in particular?
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[388] Hannah
Blythyn: I think you said it was important that S4C has the
freedom to develop its digital presence and means of promoting
itself.
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12:00
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[389] Mr Jones:
I think that one was actually quite a simplistic comment, because
it refers only to the remit they have at the moment. My wider view
on it is that they need to be platform ubiquitous, really. They
need to be able to produce content and then decide on how
it’s provided to people at large. And if you take an example
of a particularly successful exercise in Wales over the last 30
years, which is the papurau bro: the papurau bro, for
example, are an entry point to communities, so why wouldn’t
we produce a digital strategy that encompasses dragging those
communities into our content? I spoke earlier about Ninnau,
which is the Welsh language newspaper in North America. Why
wouldn’t we try and produce a digital strategy that
encompasses that, so that there’s outreach for our
programmes, and at the same time, potentially, adding some
commercial value to those papers? Because hopefully they’d
increase their circulation and the local adverts would double in
size. Minuscule sums of money from our viewpoint, but hugely
successful and important at that sort of level.
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|
[390] Ms
Thomas: I agree. I think S4C could play quite an integral role
in perhaps creating a new digital infrastructure for the Welsh
language, and for normalising the Welsh language on multiple
platforms—particularly on the social media sites.
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[391] Mr Jones:
One slightly more revolutionary aspect of that, which you might
want to consider, is that as this whole engagement between people
and other people and communities and Government and public services
works, at some stage there will need to be a very clear strategy
for Wales in terms of how it engages with its citizens for the
provision of public services. We know about things like the
well-being project, which is going to be initiated down in
Llanelli. Part of it will be: how do we engage, in health and care
terms, with people digitally? As we need, as a country, to make
people aware of what’s happening and to have news and current
affairs—all this sort of thing—put in front of them in
a very diverse media world, the concept of some sort of digital
passport for Wales, which encompasses their engagement with public
bodies but also elements of the news and information that they
presently get from the BBC, papurau bro, newspapers,
television and so on, will be part of the challenge. How do we
create that community called Wales in this digital age? And this
place will have its own requirements. Changes in the benefit
arrangements for Wales, a couple of years ago: we did not in
Wales—they didn’t in England either, but we
didn’t in Wales—have a way of engaging with our people
to make sure that they were aware of what the changes were and how
it impacted their lives. So, it’s all part of a general need
for ways of talking to people as public bodies, as well as
providing them with entertainment and news and all that sort of
stuff.
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|
[392] Bethan
Jenkins: Sori—fe wnes i
anghofio am y berthynas â’r BBC. Dai Lloyd, a wyt ti
eisiau gofyn cwestiynau?
|
Bethan
Jenkins: I’m sorry—I forgot about the relationship
with the BBC. Dai Lloyd. Do you want to ask questions?
|
|
[393] Dai
Lloyd: Rydw i’n credu bod y
rhan fwyaf o’r cwestiynau wedi cael eu gofyn, yn
sylfaenol.
|
Dai
Lloyd: I think that most of the questions have been asked.
|
|
[394] Bethan
Jenkins:
Ocê. Fe wna i symud ymlaen,
felly. Mae yna fwy o gwestiynau ynglŷn â’r effaith
economaidd, ac mae Neil Hamilton am arwain. Diolch.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. We’ll move on, therefore. We have further
questions on the economic impact, and Neil Hamilton will lead on
this. Thank you.
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[395] Neil
Hamilton: I take the points you’ve made already about how
S4C shouldn’t really be seen in terms of potential
profitability. It’s an impossibility to think in those terms,
given the scale of its likely market and that it’s restricted
by the number of Welsh speakers. But you’ve been talking
about other ways in which S4C could develop funding streams;
it’s an interesting idea you had about using its production
facilities to make programmes for schools and things like that. To
what extent do you think you could flesh out the potential for S4C
to become, at least partly, independently funded rather than just
on a drip feed from the BBC and DCMS? Is there a scope for S4C
having a greater economic impact within Wales than just being
dependent on public funds—directly I mean, as opposed to
creating services that have an economic or commercial value that
could be provided by other—
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[396] Mr Jones:
The honest answer, I think, is ‘no’. Let me answer it
partly by referring not to Wales but to Scotland. We have quite a
large operation in Scotland. I work with the Scottish Government,
I’m familiar with the media there. With a larger population
and with probably a more vibrant non-television media economy than
we have here—particularly out of Aberdeen and so
on—they are coming to the realisation they’re in
exactly the same position as we are. So, you know, you have people
as diverse as ‘The Scotsman’ group, Glasgow Herald
group and D.C. Thomson group in the north trying to get together to
get any sort of synergies of cost savings as they realise that the
scale of the media threat externally effectively takes them away
from being great profit generators to being very different. Glasgow
Herald, a good newspaper—incidentally, they do a lot of work
with the Scottish education department, which we partner them
on—are cutting back all the time on their journalists as so
much of the media spend, generally, gets into areas outside their
geographical control and remit. So, that’s one of the things
about getting the service licence for S4C—it would allow us
to, allow you guys, to monitor how effectively they’re doing,
but also having the understanding of Wales that is realistic in
terms of what they can achieve. You can’t make money out of
job advertising in Scotland now. The digital platforms have taken
the money away from the old providers. It’s a very different
environment out there now, I think.
|
|
[397] Neil
Hamilton: Yes, I see that. If S4C were to produce more of its
own content, do you think that would be disastrous from the point
of view of other independent production companies in Wales?
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[398] Mr Jones:
Completely. [Laughter.]
|
|
[399] Ms
Thomas: You’re asking the wrong person.
|
|
[400] Mr Jones:
I think it clearly would be very damaging. But, you know, in our
case, S4C is probably 5 per cent of our total revenues, so
it’s relatively small, but the Welsh operation would suffer
enormously. Let me answer the question slightly differently. The
BBC, over the last 15 years, has been dragged screaming out into
the marketplace to the extent that it now has to provide all of its
programmes to be exposed to the market in terms of who can produce
it best and who can produce it cheaper. The independent sector is
beating them hands-down across a whole range of genres and
programmes. The reason for that is partly because large
organisations, however well they’re managed, tend to become
sclerotic and I think a body that had control of both commissioning
and production would, within a relatively small number of years,
become quite self-satisfied. We can’t, because we compete
against one another all the time, and I think it’s that
element of competition that is itself the justification for not
going with an in-house approach.
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|
[401] In the good old
days of ITV, where they did have in-house production, each region
was allocated and set a number of hours, so it was a protected
market. Once that disappeared, they too began to suffer from the
effect of real competition in the marketplace. I think competition
is healthy—some we win, some we lose. It’s all very
sad, really.
|
|
[402] Bethan
Jenkins: Nia.
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|
[403] Ms
Thomas: Again, I couldn’t agree more. I don’t see
the logic of S4C producing its own content. I don’t see how
it will create any more income to be perfectly honest with you. It
flies in the face of the direction of travel with regard to what
the Communications Act 2003, et cetera, has been putting in place
and what has been put in place over the years. It could, in my
view, have an effect of distorting the market. What you’ve
got to think about as well is how much would setting up an in-house
department at S4C cost them. They don’t have the necessary
expertise to do it. It could have an impact on prurality—I
told you I couldn’t say that word.
|
|
[404] Bethan
Jenkins: We know what you mean. [Laughter.]
|
|
[405] Ms
Thomas: Plurality. The fact that Welsh
companies—independents—are located across the whole of
Wales is obviously going to mean that there’s a benefit to
various parts of the Welsh economy by having the indies producing
content. If you were to look at something like BBC Studios and the
fact that obviously now the BBC is going to be putting out most of
its content to tender in the next 11 years, they are going to have
to come up with a formula that’s going to protect themselves
from perhaps appearing as if they’re favouring BBC Studios
over favouring the independent sector. So, how does S4C possibly
start putting something like that into place? It just does not make
any logical sense. I just can’t see how it could be
potentially beneficial.
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|
[406] Neil
Hamilton: No, there is an indelible potential conflict of
interest in the two roles of commissioner and producer; I fully
understand and agree with you on that. One of S4C’s gripes is
in respect of broadcasting rights, if the rights rest with the
production companies but they’re not being exercised and the
content is just parked and they would like to use it. What’s
your view of that?
|
|
[407] Mr Jones:
I actually take a view that is probably at odds with everyone in my
industry, which is that, in the case of Welsh language programming,
I would prefer not only that S4C kept the rights—with one
exception, which I’ll go on to—but that the right to
use and reuse that content ought to be freely available to anyone
else that can bring it to the attention of potential viewers.
Content paid for by the public purse ought to be there to be shown
to people, not protected. The only exception I’d make
is—I’ll use a real-life example, which is
Hinterland/Y Gwyll. They didn’t pay for that. All they
did was pay for the Welsh language version broadcast rights. In
that situation, clearly, they can’t have all the rights, they
can only have the rights they paid for, because other investors, my
own company and others as well, are involved. But, with that one
exception, why shouldn’t things paid for by the public purse
be freely available? It seems, to me, to be a nonsense.
|
|
[408] Bethan
Jenkins: Nia.
|
|
[409] Ms
Thomas: I think that—I do actually feel like I’ve
agreed with everything you’ve said. The fact of the matter is
that, where the content isn’t exploited by the producer,
there should be a conversation between the producer and S4C
regarding how that content might be exploited. I don’t
particularly think that content sitting on a shelf doing nothing is
good for S4C or the Welsh language, when it could actually be
performing or being viewed. So, I think that producers—and I
can speak on behalf of our company; we would be very happy to have
that conversation on a case-by-case basis about how we
might—
|
|
[410] Bethan
Jenkins: You’re not having it at the moment? Why is there
not that conversation already happening?
|
|
[411] Ms
Thomas: There are obviously limitations by way of the
Communications Act 2003. What we need to make sure doesn’t
happen is that there is a blanket policy that Welsh
producers’ content is not owned by them, whereas, obviously,
producers producing across the border, they own their own content.
That’s never going to change. Well, it might change, but I
can’t see—there’s going to be a lot of fighting
for those rights to remain as they are. So, I think that, rather
than it being a blanket policy that it’s different here in
Wales for Welsh producers, I think it should be a conversation on a
case-by-case basis. I don’t think that S4C’s asking for
more than that, to be honest with you. As I said, it is a case of
co-operation and talking to each other regarding what can be done.
And it is happening—
|
|
[412]
12:15
|
|
[413] Bethan
Jenkins: That’s what I meant. Is that happening? If
you’re saying that it needs to happen, is it actually
happening, because, obviously, if it’s not being exploited,
it can be, and why isn’t it, if it can be?
|
|
[414] Ms
Thomas: I think that, those conversations, they’re not
necessarily happening in great detail at the moment, but what has
been happening, as I referred to earlier, is the fact that we have,
jointly, and on S4C’s request, and I don’t think this
is a bad thing, been clearing our content for
international—oh, what’s the word—distribution,
sorry, and that content has been shown on S4C’s gwylio
app internationally, which means it hasn’t just been limited
to the UK. So, what has happened there is we have co-operated with
them to clear the footage. You could argue that that’s not
something that we should be doing, if you looked at the
Communications Act—the rights should be a certain set of
rights and that should be it. But we are, therefore, working with
them to clear our rights more internationally, so that we can
distribute it wider than is currently being done. So, there is
co-operation in that respect.
|
|
[415] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay.
|
|
[416]
Mr Jones: Newidiwyd y rheolau oherwydd roedd darlledwyr
Prydeinig yn camddefnyddio’u pŵer yn y farchnad. Ond nid
ydw i’n credu mai dyna’r sefyllfa yng Nghymru, ac nid
wyf yn licio’r defnydd o’r gair
‘exploited’. Mae e’n cynnig rhyw fath o
fantais masnachol, ac nid wyf yn credu dyna fel mae Cymru’n
gweithio. Pan fyddem ni’n edrych ar y trysor mae’r
llyfrgell genedlaethol wedi ei ddatblygu dros y blynyddoedd, sydd
ar gael i’r cyhoedd, ac ar gael i’w ailgylchu a’i
ddefnyddio, pa les yw e i’r iaith Gymraeg ein bod ni’n
cadw’r hawliau yma a stopio pobl rhag defnyddio nhw mewn
ffyrdd newydd, gyda dychymyg sydd yn apelio i bobl? Dim ond bod
nhw’n cadw o fewn rhyw fath o reolau call o ran camddefnydd a
chyfraith ac yn y blaen, rwy’n relaxed am y
peth.
|
Mr
Jones: The rules were changed because British broadcasters were
abusing their power within the market. But I don’t think that
that’s the situation in Wales, and I don’t like the use
of the word ‘exploited’. It suggests some sort of
commercial advantage, and I don’t think that’s how
Wales works. When we look at the treasure and the wealth of
material that the national library has developed over the years,
which is available to the public, and available to be recycled and
reused, then what benefit is it to the Welsh language that we
should retain these rights and preclude people from using them in
new, innovative ways, with imagination that could appeal to people?
As long as they remain within some sort of rules on misuse and
within the law, then I don’t see a problem.
|
|
[417]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Rydym ni’n
wedi mynd dros amser.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you very much. We have gone over time.
|
|
[418] Lee Waters: Can I—
|
|
[419]
Bethan Jenkins:
Os yw e’n fras iawn.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Very briefly.
|
|
[420] Lee
Waters: Just to pick up on the principle you mentioned of that,
when public money is being spent, certain standards should be
assumed to be taking place, we took evidence earlier this morning
from BECTU, who made the point that, of the private sector
suppliers to S4C, trade unions were not recognised and I just
wondered why that was.
|
|
[421] Mr Jones:
Would you like me to go first? In our case, our relationship with
BECTU is long and acrid, on the basis that, when I first set up the
company, BECTU blacked us for five years, on the basis that we
would not employ people made redundant by HTV. And I was committed
then and now to an arrangement whereby I recruited my own staff,
trained them to our high standard, and made them part of the
industry. So, whilst I think a lot of our members, a lot of my
colleagues, are union members—the National Union of
Journalists and BECTU particularly, my record of dealing with them
shows them not to be partners that I can trust in commercial
negotiations.
|
|
[422] Ms
Thomas: The difficulty for us as companies is that we
can’t ask our members of staff whether they are members of
BECTU or any other trade unions. We’re not aware of who are
members of what. There is obviously the agreement between TAC, the
Independent Producers Alliance, and BECTU, which is operated and
adhered to in as much as it can be. So, I don’t quite
understand where BECTU is coming from when it comes to making
statements—
|
|
[423] Bethan
Jenkins: If you could perhaps send us a note on your
relationship with the unions and where that stands in your
negotiations, because we’ve run out of time. If that’s
possible—if there’s any outstanding concerns,
or—.
|
|
[424] Ms
Thomas: I don’t have any concerns, but we can follow up
with that, if you’d like.
|
|
[425] Bethan
Jenkins: Well, if you can talk to the clerking team,
perhaps.
|
|
[426]
Ocê. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi
am ddod mewn i roi tystiolaeth yma heddiw, ac rydym ni’n
gwerthfawrogi’r amser rydych chi wedi ei roi i ddod mewn, ac
rwy’n gobeithio y byddwch yn edrych ar yr hyn y mae’r
pwyllgor yn ei wneud gyda’r ymchwiliad fel mae e’n
datblygu. Os oes unrhyw sylwadau ychwanegol, nid dim ond ar y mater
hwnnw, ond materion nad ydym wedi gallu eu trafod heddiw,
plîs ysgrifennwch ato ni, neu e-bostiwch ni. Diolch yn fawr
iawn.
|
Okay. Thank you
very much for your evidence today. We do appreciate the time that
you’ve given to us, and I hope you will take an interest in
what the committee is doing with its inquiry, as it develops. If
you do have any additional comments, not only on that final issue,
but other issues that we may not have covered today, then please do
write to us or e-mail us. Thank you very much.
|
|
[427]
Mr Jones: Diolch yn fawr, Bethan.
|
Mr
Jones: Thank you very much, Bethan.
|
|
[428]
Ms Thomas: Diolch yn fawr.
|
Ms
Thomas: Thank you.
|
|
12:20
|
|
Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu
Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o’r Cyfarfod ar Gyfer Eitem 7
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 to Resolve to Exclude the Public
from the Meeting for Item 7
|
|
Cynnig:
|
Motion:
|
|
bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y
cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(vi).
|
that the committee resolves
to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting in
accordance with Standing Order 17.42(vi).
|
|
Cynigiwyd y cynnig.
Motion moved.
|
|
[429]
Bethan Jenkins:
Rydym ni’n symud at eitem 6, a
chynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i wahardd y cyhoedd o’r
sesiwn. A yw pawb yn hapus gyda hynny? Bodlon. Diolch yn fawr
iawn.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: We move to item 6, and a motion under Standing Order
17.42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the
meeting. Is everyone content with that? Content. Thank you very
much.
|
|
Derbyniwyd y cynnig.
Motion agreed.
|
|
Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am
12:20.
The public part of the meeting ended at
12:20.
|
