Culture Politick

Here is this week’s news:

Creative Industries

Royal Television Society

In his speech to the RTS last night Ben Bradshaw renewed the government’s arguments with the BBC, which he said had reached the limits of its natural expansion. He criticised the BBC Trust (it has long been our policy to abolish it), saying its dual role of ‘regulator and cheerleader’ was not sustainable in the long term. He hinted that the governance structure should be changed in the next review of the BBC charter, although that is not due for renewal until the end of 2016. He said there ought to be more scrutiny of BBC star and exec salaries and called for NAO-auditing, also both our policies. Read his full speech which, in a shock development, is already on the DCMS website, HERE.

Meanwhile, Jeremy, who speaks at the RTS today has said that the British media industry has been damaged by a ‘cowardly’ government whose dithering has achieved precisely nothing: ‘It is hard to find a sector that has suffered from so much dithering, so many u-turns and such a relentless conveyor belt of reviews and consultations that have ultimately led no where. This is no way to nurture any industry – let alone the communications sector that last year, according to Ofcom, generated revenues of £51bn.’ More HERE and HERE.

Mark Thompson, who spoke at the RTS this afternoon, has defended the BBC against both James Murdoch and Ben Bradshaw, saying that: The BBC exists in part to make the arts universally available, Sky does not.  Private space focuses on the minority who already have a taste for the arts, public space reaches out across the population. In combative mode, he said that the BBC: ‘will never erect a pay zone around our news… [and will]… fight tooth and nail to preserve our broad public remit – from Strictly to the Poetry Season.’ Full speech HERE.‘

Digital Piracy Round-Up

Lily Allen has hit out at the Featured Artists Coalition for condoning peer to peer file sharing. She says file-sharing is not fair, and she thinks music piracy is really mean, it makes it: ‘harder and harder for new acts to emerge…: I think music piracy is having a dangerous effect on British music, but some really rich and successful artists like Nick Mason from Pink Floyd and Ed O’Brien from Radiohead don’t seem to think so.’ She also turned her fire on record labels, pointing out that: You don’t start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your arse off to repay. When you manage to get a contract, all those pretty videos and posters advertising your album have to be paid for and as the artist, you have to pay for them. I’ve only just finished paying off all the money I owe my record company. I’m lucky that I’ve been successful and managed to pay it back, but not everyone’s so lucky.’ More HERE.

Bjorn Ulvaeus, songwriter and one quarter of ABBA has pointed out that the argument for the right to file share of: ‘ “Why don’t [artists] go on tour and sing for their supper?”… shows a staggering ignorance of the fact that the people who write the songs are, more often than not, not performers. They are producers and songwriters, full stop.’ He also says it was easy to explain to his youngest daughter why downloading free music was wrong, that he is a fan of services like Spotify, but they along are not the answer:  ‘internet service providers and technology companies can, and should, take steps to deal with piracy.’ For Bjorn, saying thank you for the music is clearly not enough, more HERE.

Jeremy has pointed out that Lord Mandelson has ‘gone for the soundbite’ and that he has not sufficiently thought through a complex problem. Jeremy stressed that we recognise that illegal file-sharing is a serious problem requiring ‘some legislative back-up’ to industry-led approaches. Jeremy also argued that the problem could be reduced significantly through industry initiatives, such as measures to encourage parents to block access to certain sites, and called for an updated intellectual property framework. Despite the FT’s headline, which somewhat mis-represented Jeremy’s views, we are happy for technical measures to be considered. More HERE.

Meanwhile UK Music has released a statement clarifying its stance on file-sharing. The Times suggests that it has been forced to drop any mention of cutting off internet connections to ensure unity across the industry, following the FAC criticism for Lord Mandelson’s plans as ‘grossly disproportionate’. More HERE and read the statement HERE.

BBC

The DCMS interim report on the public’s attitudes to using some license fee money for regional news provision is out, HERE. It says that ‘initial findings reveal a high level of public support for a number of key elements in Digital Britain’: 73% think it is either fairly or very important to have a choice of TV channels for regional news, 65% think a small part of the licence fee should be used to support regional news on another channel with most of the money still going to the BBC the contrasts with 24% who think the licence fee should be used only for the BBC.

Which is interesting, as BBC Trust research says that: ‘around half of those asked would prefer the licence fee to be lowered by £5.50, compared to just six per cent who wanted additional money to be spent on regional news on other channels’ HERE.

It’s almost as if research ends up providing whatever conclusion is most convenient to whichever body commissioned said research.

Meanwhile the BBC Trust has announced changes to BBC Worldwide Governance as part of its review of the BBC’s commercial activities HERE. The Trust has also announced their conclusions on sponsorship of on-air BBC events confirming that commercial sponsorship will not be allowed HERE

Channel 4

Putting an end to speculation, Andy Duncan has confirmed he is to stand down as chief executive of Channel 4 at the end of the year, more HERE. C4 chairman Luke Johnson, himself leaving at the start of next year, said today that the next chief executive had to have a ‘profound understanding of the digital universe’. More HERE.

Product Placement

In a record week for Government adoption of our policies (this is the fourth), and following yet another U-turn, product placement is to be allowed on British television for the first time. More HERE. Now all we need is for the Government to scrap their plans for the hated broadband tax for a full range of sensible Tory media policies to be operating.

Contract Rights Renewal

The Competition Commission has decided to keep the CRR mechanism, which places restrictions on how much ITV can charge advertisers, while adding that ‘some variations’ on the CRR regime ‘might be justified’ more HERE. We agree with Enders Analysis’ view that ‘this decision does nothing to ease the deflationary pressures now gripping the TV advertising medium, where CRR works hand in hand with the requirement on the commercial PSB channels to sell 100% of their advertising inventories. The current goings on underline the dichotomy between competition and public broadcasting policy objectives.’

Video Games

Happy birthday to ELSPA who are celebrating their 20^th birthday more HERE.

Meanwhile Singapore is raising its profile in games and its government is giving lots of support. More HERE.

Fashion

Ahead of London Fashion Week next week, the Fashion Revolution exhibition, drawn from photographer Nick Knight’s influential website SHOWStudio, has opened at Somerset House, the new venue for LFW. More HERE and HERE.

Film

The BFI have announced the schedule for the London Film Festival HERE .

Arts and Heritage

Tate

The Tate’s annual report is out today, more HERE. It shows that it is defying the recession thanks to an astonishing series of gifts and bequests, including £64 million of gifts from artists and collectors, as well as bequests. More HERE.

Music

The Soundsurf 09 Tour, a new initiative encouraging young people to engage with music making, supported by Gibson Guitar, Pure Solo, UK Music, Hard Rock Café and The British Music Experience is running this week, travelling to Folkestone, London, Cardiff and Manchester, more HERE.

Churches

David Cameron was out cycling at the weekend in support of the Historic Churches Trust, more HERE It was a terrific day for events across the country

Visual Art

A study from the University of Rome suggests that viewing works of art engages both the mind and heart. But whether a museum visit is primarily an intellectual or an emotional activity depends upon the type of art on display, and the era in which it was created more HERE.

Where we’ve been and who we’ve seen

Shepard’s Bush, Dulwich and West Norwood Libraries, Natural History Museum Darwin Centre, Future of Culture, Tourism and Sport Conference, ITN, The September Issue, the Radio Advertising Awards, Ofcom, UK Council for Child Internet Safety, Ashmolean, the Museum of Natural History, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Press Association, RTS Cambridge, our Arts and Creative Industries Networking event kindly hosted by DDB advertising agency.

Ed Vaizey

Shadow Arts Minister

Jeremy Hunt

Shadow Culture Secretary