電視頻道之死 提早到來？
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2014/3/28
2014-03-20 Web
only 作者：經濟學人
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| 圖片來源：天下雜誌 |
BBC總經理霍爾（Tony Hall）決定停播瞄準年輕觀眾的BBC3，他的老闆們並不喜歡這個決定，但他表示自己得將眼光望向未來。他認為BBC不但得節省大量支出，還得預測電視觀眾的未來習慣。
霍爾相信，各界預測的電視大變革，亦即電視頻道之死，可能會比許多專家的預測更早到來。他推測，下一步變革即將來臨，促使觀眾加速移往線上；這對BBC來說是個大問題，因為BBC的收入大多來自電視授權費。
在目前國會的任期之中，BBC的預算並未提高，任務卻增加許多。BBC每年得節省1億英鎊，但霍爾處理得相當不錯；就連BBC3的員工都承認，全球最大的公共電視台終於交入能人之手。
霍爾上任之時，BBC深陷於醜聞風暴。上任後，他不斷強調BBC再也不會忘記其存在目的即為服務觀眾，更減低了紅利和薪資，有助取得公司內部對支出裁減的支持。霍爾是公共服務精神和責任的強力捍衛者，他相信BBC必須提供高品質節目，而且這些節目還得足夠受觀眾喜愛。
不過，霍爾依舊有可能無法達成目標，亦即改善BBC，但又不要大幅改變BBC。首先，他得繼續裁減支出；有人預測BBC4或是部分當地電台可能也得關閉，那不致帶來災難性影響，卻也都會傷害觸及每位民眾這樣的希望，進而減少民眾對電視授權金的支持。
正如霍爾所言，更大的威脅在於線上觀賞，以及民眾不再透過電視頻道觀賞節目。BBC的線上iPlayer觀賞者，要是不看時況電視，就不必支付電視權利金。以iPlayer收取權利金的技術門檻極高，因為如此，霍爾才在近期的演說中，以觀眾移往線上的速度緩慢，強調電視權利金仍有大好未來。他的兩種說法不可能同時成立。
如果霍爾真的在思考電視觀賞革命，BBC還得作出其他改變。自從HBO推出《黑道家族》，電視公司就知道高品質戲劇在抓住觀眾和建立品牌上的重要性。而在線上世界這種競爭激烈無比的地方，那也更加重要，Netflix和Amazon大筆投資節目正是因為如此。霍爾承諾再投資3000萬英鎊於戲劇，此舉十分精明。BBC相當受敬重，但在這方面，它得更努力才行。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist
Newspaper Limited 2014
The Economist
Bagehot
The kindest
cut
By The Economist
From CommonWealth
Magazine
Published: March
20, 2014
Mar 15th 2014 |
From the print edition
Lord Hall is
trimming the BBC intelligently. That will not be enough.
IN HIS
scrupulously modest office in Broadcasting House, the vast, art-deco
headquarters of the BBC, Tony Hall looks relaxed for a man who has just taken a
pair of shears to a national treasure. At least, that is how many of the
public-service broadcaster's 20,000 employees view his decision to take the
youth television channel BBC3 off air. Lord Hall, an avuncular 63-year-old,
wearing a courteous half-smile and a media man's black suit, has just been to
see its bosses. How did that go?
"They were
unhappy—we've never closed anything before," he says. "But I also
need to think about what is going to happen to our audience over the next
three, five, ten years…" And he goes on, describing a strategy that is
designed, he claims, not only to save money—as he must, by the truckload—but
also to anticipate the TV-viewing habits of the future.
Lord Hall thinks
the big predicted change in television, the demise of the channel, may happen
far sooner than pundits predict. Data suggest only 2% of viewers are watching programmes
exclusively online, where BBC3 is now heading. Yet tablet-savvy youngsters seem
hardly to notice channels or schedules, picking and mixing content from the
BBC's two children's channels. A step change is looming, he suspects, which
will rapidly accelerate the switch to online viewing: a big problem for an
outfit mostly paid for by a licence fee on television ownership. "My sense
is that, although the data say that we're canoeing down a canyon, around the
corner could be the most enormous waterfall."
This is a
momentous idea—which also lends a reassuring intellectual ballast to the
cost-cutting Lord Hall has embarked upon. Over the life of this parliament, the
BBC's £3.6 billion ($5.8 billion) budget has been held flat, even as its
commitments have multiplied, the coalition government having transferred
responsibility for the World Service from the Foreign Office to it. An outfit
unaccustomed to penury still needs to save £100m a year. The signs are that
Lord Hall is coping well, however. Even aggrieved BBC3 staffers concede that,
after a dreadful couple of years, the world's biggest public-service
broadcaster is in good hands.
Lord Hall is
certainly building from a low base. When he switched from the Royal Opera House
a year ago, the BBC was reeling from multiple scandals. The biggest stemmed
from the revelation that Jimmy Savile, a recently deceased BBC presenter, was a
prolific paedophile and, what is more, that a BBC exposé of his alleged crimes
had been quashed. Over-eager to compensate for the Savile debacle, a BBC
programme then hinted that an elderly Tory politician, Lord McAlpine, was
another child abuser—which wasn't true. Inept handling of this blunder forced
out Lord Hall's predecessor, George Entwistle—eased by a fat pay-off as, it transpired,
was customary for departing BBC bosses. Seedy, inept and captured by fat cats:
one of Britain's hitherto revered institutions seemed hardly better than an
investment bank.
To hear Lord Hall
refer to that grim time, you might think the BBC's very existence had been in
doubt. His speeches are peppered with commitments to "never again
forget" that the broadcaster exists to serve its viewers. He has also cut
the size of pay-offs and salaries—which helps to secure internal support for
spending cuts. So does his generally unthreatening posture. A BBC veteran, Lord
Hall is a staunch defender of its public-service ethos and
responsibilities—which are to produce a blend of high-quality programming, as
private firms might not, with enough popular content to justify the universal
licence fee.
Polls suggest
public support for that—over half of Britons are content with the licence fee.
Far fewer want the BBC to pay for itself through advertising or subscription,
and it is easy to see why. The broadcaster shows a lot of pap, especially on
BBC3. No one should mourn the threat to "Snog Marry Avoid?" But it
also produces vast quantities of fairly impartial news. Rival broadcasters
gripe: by one estimate the BBC accounts for over 80% of TV news viewing. But
none rivals the BBC's reputation.
Snog, marry, who
cares?
Yet Lord Hall's
mission, to improve the BBC but not much change it, could come unstuck. To
begin with, he is going to have to carry on cutting. "I hope we can avoid
more channel closures," he says. "But I can't rule anything
out." There is speculation that BBC4 or some local radio stations may have
to go. Neither step would be cataclysmic; both would erode the hope of reaching
everyone, a process that BBC3's demise has begun. That could reduce support for
the licence fee as Lord Hall prepares to renegotiate it in 2017. Loading the
BBC with extra duties could have the same effect: if the unpopularity of
Britain's foreign aid budget is a guide, licence-fee payers are not keen to
fund the Somali Service.
A bigger threat,
as Lord Hall suggests, is the rapid rise of online viewing and the demise of
the channel as a way of watching programmes. Viewers of the BBC's online
iPlayer are not charged a licence fee unless they watch live TV; the Beeb says
they could be. Yet the technological barriers are daunting, which is why Lord
Hall, in a recent speech, cited the slow pace of viewers' migration online to
argue that the licence fee has a strong future. He cannot be right both ways.
If Lord Hall is
truly overseeing a revolution in television-watching, the BBC will also have to
change in another way. Ever since HBO launched "The Sopranos", TV
companies have understood the importance of high-class dramas for hooking
viewers and building a brand. AMC, once an obscure American cable channel, did
it with "Mad Men". "Downton Abbey" helped restore the
fortunes of ITV, the BBC's commercial rival. In an online world where
everything competes against everything this is all the more vital, which is why
Netflix and Amazon are pouring money into shows. To compete, Lord Hall has
promised another £30m for drama, which is shrewd. The BBC is respected, even
loved. But in this regard it needs to become more remarkable.
©The Economist
Newspaper Limited 2014
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