Oral evidence: Broadcasting in Wales, HC 45029 February 2016
Oral evidence, 29 February 2016.
Witnesses
Professor Laura McAllister, Chair, Sport Wales, and Sarah Powell, Chief Executive Officer, Sport Wales, gave evidence.
Chair
Good afternoon, Professor McAllister. It is nice to see you again. Ms Powell, thank you for coming along this afternoon. I will ask Liz Saville Roberts to start, unless there is anything you want to say to begin with. Feel free to embellish your answer, if you want to start off with something. We are a pretty friendly bunch.
Liz Saville Roberts (Translation)
We do our best. We understand that in November last year the BBC announced that they would be making cuts of £35 million from the sports budget in the face of the need for further efficiency savings. Does that concern you, generally speaking, and particularly in the context of Wales?
Professor McAllister
Diolch yn fawr iawn. In many respects, the financial situation with regard to sports broadcasting concerns us greatly, not just as it affects BBC Wales but as it affects the other media outlets. Aside from the terms of your inquiry, which I know is on broadcasting, the broadcast media in regard to sport is also affected by the print media, which has big coverage of sport. We are concerned from a number of points. First, because we believe that sport is a unique opportunity for the broadcast media to reflect Wales back to its population. It is part of our DNA. We are right in the middle of a Six Nations campaign, with three wins over France this weekend—the women, the under-20s and the men’s team—and we are 13 weeks away from the European football championships, where Wales will take part for the first time in 58 years. We know what that means to the nation, and being able to report that back to us through the broadcast media is fundamental. Alongside that, we believe that sport allows us to sell Wales to the world, because we are an incredibly successful sporting nation. We punch above our weight on the sporting stage in a sense that often we don’t in other sectors, so it is fundamental to us that the broadcast media allows us that opportunity to reflect the diversity of provision and to sell Wales to the world. It is not just about major events, although I have quoted two really important ones—I could have named others: the world half-marathon championships, which are coming to Cardiff in a month’s time; the Ashes; the FA cup; and the rugby world cup—it is about our successes in grassroots sports participation, too, where once again we are leading the way in the UK. If you take children’s and young people’s participation in sport, in Wales we have seen a 50% increase since 2011, whereas the trends across the United Kingdom are flatlining or have declined, yet if we don’t have distinct and bespoke coverage of Welsh sport through the Welsh media, there is a danger that the English story dominates and that people read across as that being our situation in Wales and Scotland, too.
Chris Davies
Professor McAllister, I fully agree with everything that you just said. Can I go off on a slight tangent? With what you have said, and based on the fact that you are Professor of Governance at Liverpool School of Management, do you feel that there is still a lot more room for the BBC to cut the management structure behind the scenes, rather than cutting sport and cutting programmes in front of camera?
Professor McAllister
I can answer that from an academic standpoint, certainly not from my position as chair of Sport Wales. The ongoing review of governance at the BBC is a good and positive thing. We would wish, certainly from a sporting perspective, to protect the frontline of sports broadcasting while that governance review is ongoing. If that involves issues, and I appreciate that they are tough issues, of management costs and so on, all of us as public organisations would want the front-line provision for the public to be protected as far as possible. It was with great regret that we heard last week about the decommissioning of the “Sport Wales” programme on BBC Wales, for the very simple reason that that gave a unique platform to less well-served sports, particularly women’s sport, which is a really important consideration for us. There are quite stubborn differentials between girls’ and boys’ participation in sport and men’s and women’s participation in sport. If we are serious about that, we really need to be able to offer an innovative platform such as the “Sport Wales” programme, which has trailed people like Jade Jones in taekwondo, Nicole Cooke and Becky James in cycling, and Frankie Jones in gymnastics. Without that, we have a real fear that broadcast coverage will be dominated by football and rugby, and by men’s football and men’s rugby. That is a real concern for us.
Chris Davies
A good answer. I think there is a yes in there somewhere, and I will leave it at that. Do you think that the increase in the availability of sport on TV has damaged live attendance at events? What effect does that have on sport?
Professor McAllister
I don’t think it has. There will always be a market for live spectator attendance at sporting events. That is a really important consideration because the atmosphere and engagement among spectators when they go to an event is clearly very important, particularly for children. I took my daughter to see the Wales women’s game at the Gnoll in Neath yesterday, and I was of course delighted to see us beat France. The atmosphere among the children was very excitable, as you can imagine, and you got a real sense that they were seeing and feeling something in the flesh that is very different from watching it on television. The two dimensions sit side by side. It is really important to have good-quality coverage of professional and amateur sport across the different media, but I hope that that does not undermine some of the really important spectator engagement that we see, such as the really significant Commonwealth games attendance in Glasgow in 2014 and the wonderful attendance at the Paralympics and Olympics in London. We have set the bar so high for Paralympic sport that it is now a real challenge to Brazil and Rio to maintain that in August and September.
Carolyn Harris
Last week, BBC Wales announced plans to re-prioritise investment in digital sports coverage by creating seven new digital roles and closing 12 others. Given the competition from their rivals rights, do you believe that it is the right decision for the BBC to concentrate so heavily on digital and online sports coverage?
Professor McAllister
You are alluding to the decision to decommission “Sport Wales” and move some of the resource into digital provision. It is a conversation we are having with BBC Wales that I would like to continue. I would like to dig a little deeper into whether that really will deliver on the diversity agenda in particular, because the benefits of having a television programme dedicated to less well-served sport were the reasons I mentioned a moment ago: it allowed us to uncover the back stories to people like Frankie Jones, a gymnast who won six medals at the Commonwealth games. We know that there is a real connection between the kind of role model that someone like Frankie Jones offers and young children taking part in sport. We saw a huge growth in participation in gymnastics among girls and boys after the Commonwealth games, when Frankie Jones was such a success and promoted in such a way. Can that be replicated on a digital or online platform? In truth, we remain to be convinced. The conversations that Sarah, as chief exec, will be having with her colleagues at BBC Wales will really test this, because we do need to have a more granular discussion about whether those digital positions will create a new digital platform of the kind that “Sport Wales” offered, or whether it will simply be dispersed across the online provision. If you take a look at BBC Wales’ online provision on virtually any day of the week, you will see that it’s still dominated by men’s sport and by rugby and football. You have to dig quite deeply to get to any story that isn’t about men’s professional sport. That is our concern: that we might miss out on the opportunities to sell a more diverse offer.
Chair
We are picking on you a bit, Professor McAllister.
Sarah Powell
May I come in here? As Laura mentioned, the key things for us are prominence and regularity. The “Sport Wales” show gave us the opportunity to have a regular slot to demonstrate the breadth and diversity of sport in Wales. We are at real risk of losing the visibility, particularly of female and disability sport. If you think about disability sport, we have absolutely led the way in Wales, right from Chris Hallam many years ago to Tanni Grey-Thompson and, now, to the likes of Aled Siôn Davies. If they do not have that regular platform in everybody’s front room, we are going to miss a real opportunity to inspire the next generation. It’s not just the success that they have every four years but the back stories that are so important. That is how people engage: “They came from your school; they came from your community.” They see Jade Jones from Flint. You can respond to that, so that platform for everybody is vital for us.
Carolyn Harris
One of the big issues for me is that I do not feel that Welsh culture is portrayed in drama or anything adequately. I am with you: I believe that this move is going to take away from the uniqueness of Welsh sport. With a digital platform, people will be specific as to what they are looking for, whereas if it was generic, all sports would get equal opportunities. That would be my concern.
Professor McAllister
The other issue that we are hoping to investigate with BBC Wales is how this will be measured in terms of reach and so on. For a public service broadcaster, we do not believe that the success of every single output can be measured just by the number of viewers, listeners or clicks on a website, because if that were to be the case, clearly Six Nations rugby and the international men’s football team would dominate everything. For a public service broadcaster, it is really important that the whole range of sport and the nation’s interests are reflected. That is different from a commercial provider. Those are the kinds of conversation that we wish to continue with BBC Wales.
Carolyn Harris
Good.
Chair
I almost think there is an inquiry here for the Committee at some point.
Carolyn Harris
Yes, definitely. Well said, Chair.
Chair
I’ll just play devil’s advocate with you. I totally share your objectives, and as a father of two daughters, I want them doing sport as well. I just wonder, because we have had conversations in the past in another capacity, whether the money is best spent getting things on to the television or getting things down to the local clubs, wherever they may be. We have discussed the point that there seems to be a certain amount of money at the top for things like football and rugby. It does not seem to filter down to the small clubs in the villages, does it? This is probably a little bit far from the BBC.
Professor McAllister
It is, but if you look at the way in which we spend our budget and the way in which we prioritise, we have a very simple vision for sport, which we brand as “Uniting a proud sporting nation”. Within that, we talk about “Every Child Hooked on Sport for Life”, which is something we have discussed in the past—it is really fundamental—and then Wales as “A Nation of Champions”. The two things are equally significant to us. All our budgets and all our spend goes on ensuring that there is infrastructure for children to take part and, if they are good enough, to continue in order to become a champion, but of course everyone can’t be a champion and that’s not the point, really. We believe that the broadcast media—not just the BBC in fairness, but all outlets—should reflect the community sport side as well. Without our coaches, we would not be able to run sport, for example.
Chair
That takes me nicely back, because the Government have a list of protected sports events for the UK that must be kept free to air. Do you think we need a list like that for Wales?
Professor McAllister
We have been very fortunate in feeding into that list from a Welsh perspective. When the list has been discussed via DCMS and our colleagues in UK Sport and the other home nation sports councils, we have been able to feed into it and offer our advice alongside BBC Wales. There are some events that matter more to us in Wales than elsewhere.
Chair
The Six Nations.
Professor McAllister
Absolutely. We have talked about the unique deal that BBC Wales has struck with ITV over coverage of the Six Nations, and I think they are to be praised for so doing, as they are for sharing the coverage of Wales’s Euro 2016 football matches this summer, because those are very important events. The Commonwealth games have a real resonance in Wales, not least because we judge our elite sporting success on how successful our Welsh athletes are in the four-year cycles of games, so were there to be any threat to the BBC’s coverage of the Commonwealth games, that would resonate more strongly in Scotland and Wales than in England. It is an area where we are keeping a very keen, watchful eye to ensure that that features as prominently as it currently does.
Chris Davies
My question has been eaten up nicely, but I cannot resist an opportunity. On the protected sports, how do you evaluate where fishing, hurling, the minority sports and women’s editions of those come in the pecking order to receive viewing time?
Sarah Powell
Very different from the viewing time, but we would look at breadth and diversity. We do an equality impact assessment on all of our funding, so we would look at the impact across those different strands. We would also look at the potential that they have to engage more young people. For example, netball is very prominent for us because of the engagement with women and girls. We would also look at the demographics across Wales: who is playing it where, and how we can engage different people in different areas. That is not necessarily linked with viewing, but there is a plus with digital that provides us with much greater opportunity to do more local stories. Where there are particular interests—in north Wales, taekwondo, off the back of Jade Jones—we can target something specifically at north Wales to encourage more people to get involved in taekwondo.
Professor McAllister
Our priority at all times has to be to encourage people to become more active, and that starts with children and young people. The overlap between what we do and the health agenda is phenomenal, and I have to say pretty unrecognised in the health sector, which is a disappointment to us, because we feel that exercise and physical activity are a more powerful prescription than virtually anything else that the health sector can do. We have a very small budget compared with NHS budgets, and we need to move that sector to understanding how prevention through exercise can be a fundamental part of everything we do. That happens through schools in the first instance.
Chris Davies
You rightly pick on children. As somebody who, like David, has two children—two little girls of eight and six—I completely understand, but we also have an ageing population. You mentioned that different types of sport are vital to keep our senior citizens healthy, whether that is physically healthy or mentally active. How are you addressing that with funds becoming less?
Professor McAllister
It is really significant for us. There is no point in investing huge amounts of money in children if there is not an infrastructure for continuing that through adult life. When we talk about generational change, which is what we are trying to instigate, it is right and proper that we start with the younger-stage children. We recently released our active adults survey, which, in contrast to what is going on elsewhere in the UK, has seen another increase in adults taking part. We saw a big leap post-London 2012 in the number of adults doing sport in Wales, and now we have seen a further—much smaller, admittedly—increase, but it is still on an upward trajectory, which again counters some of the trends elsewhere in the UK. If I can return to the broadcasting theme, my biggest disappointment, and one of the areas where I have had the most robust discussions with network BBC, is that they often take an England figure and present a story in a way that suggests it applies to the whole of the United Kingdom, such as a fall in participation among children and adults in England, suggesting that that is a Welsh and Scottish trend, too. I get very annoyed at that because the investments that we make have shown that we have seen progress, whereas some of our colleagues across the UK have not. It is incumbent on network BBC as well to see where in the new world of post-devolution politics things can be done differently in Scotland and Wales, generating better results, too, in some cases.
Sarah Powell
May I follow up on that? On the more active adult story and the loss of Sport Wales and the platform that it gave to the much wider stories of parkrun, you have seen a huge growth in people out running on Saturday mornings. You have probably seen many more people cycling off the back of the Tour de France and the success of Geraint Thomas. There are those wider stories around walking football, and if we do not have the platform outside of the elite success, we cannot demonstrate that sport is for all and not just for those who may be seen as elitist.
Liz Saville Roberts (Translation)
To come in on that, Laura, you mentioned that there was a problem in terms of reflecting what is happening in Wales and that priority is given to what takes place in England. We have raised that as part of our inquiry on governance in the BBC and it appears that there will be no Welsh representative, although Wales does have a Welsh trustee at the moment. Do you have anything to say about how we can ensure that the interests of Wales are properly represented at that high level through the BBC?
Professor McAllister
You make a good point. With my academic hat on, I followed some of the discussions around proposed changes to the governance of the BBC that you took up with your previous witnesses. I feel very strongly that whatever changes are made, there needs to be a very clear representation of Wales around the highest decision-making tables of the Trust and in every management sense, because—this has been one of my biggest frustrations—despite a very good, positive relationship between ourselves and BBC Wales, we have yet to really penetrate network coverage of sport, whether that is the grassroots we talked about a moment ago or the elite side when it comes to the BBC’s network coverage. That is really fundamental. Nobody could accuse us of not having shouted loud enough, because I can think of numerous meetings where I have been very clear with the BBC’s director of sport over my disappointment at the lack of coverage of a Welsh perspective of sport, but unfortunately that has not generated fantastic returns. In that context I think it is really important that the BBC’s governance structure going forward gives the right level of influence and voice to Welsh representation.
Chair
We will have to be quite quick now.
Carolyn Harris
I will ask a quick question about pay per view sports. I could give you chapter and verse on what I think about it, but do you feel that it is exclusive and that it does not help participation with grassroots?
Professor McAllister
I think there is a place for pay per view, inevitably because of broadcast rights and so on, but it is really our responsibility to make sure that in its entirety there is a proper portfolio of coverage and as much of it as possible is free to air. We know that the demographic of pay per view is different and we know that that will pose some challenges to effective access and so on, so our priority is to make sure that all of the critical areas of sport that we have talked about this afternoon are provided as free to air because that gives us an opportunity to make those kind of connections between fabulous success on the international stage and encouraging the next generation to take part.
Liz Saville Roberts (Translation)
A quick question. Is S4C disadvantaged when it comes to broadcasting sport as it broadcasts in standard definition rather than high definition?
Professor McAllister
In an ideal world I think high definition is a real asset and where it has worked well for S4C it has been a fantastic provision. Incidentally, I do not think it is just about that area of S4C’s provision. In fairness to the station, they have been very good at providing some of the magazine-type programmes about sport—you will you know yourself programmes like “Clwb”—on a weekend where they will feature women’s sport, disabled sport and so-called minority sports which are often not minority because big numbers take part in sports like athletics, cycling running and so on. All credit to S4C that they have adopted a very expansive approach to coverage of our national sports, including of course the Welsh premier league and Welsh international women’s football alongside the men’s game, but I think high definition as a quality is a fundamental asset and it is one that we would like to be protected, but we appreciate the financial constraints that the station is under in terms of making those choices as well.
Chair
Excellent. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Please take our best wishes in the very important work you do. As you know, I am very keen on encouraging sport, so I think we might come back and talk to you again sometime. Thank you very much indeed. Oral evidence: Broadcasting in Wales, HC 450 4