Abstract
Amid so much change in the media, what is the role of government in safeguarding the future of the industry?
Last summer, when many of our towns and cities went up in flames, nobody could ignore the fractured nature of society. We have found multiple ways to divide ourselves from one another over recent decades, and it feels at times that we’ve lost the ability to understand one another. When people are working harder than ever before, but can’t make ends meet, when their contribution is not seen or valued, when politicians display a violent indifference to the things that matter, a decent high street, transport, a viable football club, it is no wonder that people lose trust, trust in our leaders, trust in our democratic institutions and trust in each other.
That’s when news and information become critical. Not the sort of news and information that helps to polarise and divide, but trust in news that builds a shared understanding of the world. We know that people rate traditional news sources high on trust, accuracy and impartiality. We also know that news sourced via social media is rated significantly lower, and I think we’re all aware of the darker side of social media, where facts are disputed and division is sown.
I’ve always believed in the power of media, because it is in my blood. My mum was one of the only female editors at Granada TV in 1989, running a busy newsroom on the day that Hillsborough happened. I remember as a 10-year-old sitting in the newsroom with my sister until late into the night as the horrific scenes unfolded, watching her make the call for the cameramen to keep filming rather than aid the rescue effort. That footage would later become critical in achieving justice for the 97, revealing evidence of a cover-up and improving safety in stands at football grounds.
I watched my stepdad make the call to commission Who Bombed Birmingham? and persist with the programme over several months, despite intense opposition. That documentary didn’t just go on to ensure the release of the Birmingham Six. It exposed a miscarriage of justice that would send shockwaves through the country and lead to major reforms to the criminal justice system that persist to this day. It’s in these moments that great journalism shines a light into the darkest parts of our country, holds up a mirror to those in power, and reasserts the power of the people.
I can think of no better recent example of this than last summer, as our towns and cities were set ablaze by violent thugs. It was local media on the ground who countered mis- and disinformation in real time. And they told the real story, the story of our communities, who came together to defend all of us, in all of our diversity, and led the community fightback.
Our media is, in short, too important to fail. But we appreciate as a government that businesses have a bottom line and have been operating in the toughest of environments. Seventy-one per cent of UK adults consume online news in some capacity, twice as many as a decade ago, and that includes some 88 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds. Just one in 10 pick up a print newspaper, compared to more than half of over-75s. And for Gen Z, internet influencers are considered almost as trustworthy as traditional media.
Print advertising is down by a third, but online advertising has more than doubled. Broadcast viewing is down by a quarter, but on-demand viewing is soaring, and the advent of AI, with its enormous potential to support creativity, comes with fresh challenges around copyright, authorship and fair compensation. The consequences of this can be stark and they can be uneven. Take, for example, the dramatic shift in TV commissioning patterns that have seen the UK become a world leader in high end, at the same time that smaller producers have seen the value of their commissions fall by a third and too many talented creatives left out of work.
We’re living through a revolution, but just as with the invention of the printing press and every revolution since, we don’t run from it, we adapt again, and we learn how to become stronger for it, in a new age. And at a crucial point in our history, governments have always proactively partnered with industry to forge a new path forward, like the Annan Committee in 1974, a landmark review into the future of broadcasting that my dad was a member of. It led to the creation of Channel Four, a recognition that the country had changed, with working classes, women and minority communities crying out to be heard in this new society and a nation that needed to define itself once again.
We’re in a similar period of transition now, and transitions need to be managed. Our job as a government is to create the framework for rigorous journalism in an evolving news landscape. We’ve already acted in the last year to fix the foundations, implementing the Online Safety Act to keep users safe while protecting press and media freedom, recognising the value and importance of recognised news publisher content. New digital markets and regimes allow challenge to market dominance that negatively impacts business. The National Committee for the Safety of Journalists brings industry and government together to protect journalists and allow you to speak truth to power.
AI and copyright needs careful consideration
The industry has been clear about the need for fair competition. We’ve already acted to protect the sustainability of the sector, implementing the Media Act, delivering a new, more sustainable settlement for our public service broadcasters, so they can continue to invest in high quality original UK content, as well as a level playing field for our radio stations. We’ve listened to concerns about less healthy food advertising restrictions and acted to support clarity and common sense. We’ve increased funding for community radio stations this year to £1million to help support hyperlocal stations that represent and unite their communities. We’re providing clarity on foreign state ownership of newspaper enterprises, a tough and crucially workable regime to protect our newspapers from foreign interference, while ensuring sustainable investment so that our papers can thrive, and making changes to the media ownership regime to protect news in all its forms from influences that could risk our plural and trusted media.
AI has been the subject of so much debate, across the world. We are determined to find a way forward that works for the creative industry, as well as the tech industries. Creators are the innovators, fundamental to our economic success in the future. My colleague Peter Kyle and I are working to find a better solution. The issue of AI and copyright needs to be properly considered and enforceable legislation drafted with the inclusion, involvement and experience of both creatives and technologists.
As soon as the Data Bill is passed by Parliament, Peter and I will begin round-tables with representatives from across the creative industries to develop legislation, with both houses of Parliament given time to consider it before we proceed. We approach with no preferred option. During the consultation we heard that what works for one part of the creative industries doesn’t work for another. In this international landscape, there are no easy solutions, but this government is determined to find a solution with transparency and trust as its foundation. We are a Labour government, and the principle that people must be paid for their work is foundational. If it doesn’t work for the creative industries, it will not work for us.
People are at the heart of this industry, and so we’ve also acted to support the people at the heart of this sector, supporting the launch of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) to tackle head-on the issues of workplace culture that have plagued our creative industries for too long and denied us a chance to harness the full range of talent that exists in our country. I’ve been particularly pleased to see the BBC’s recent announcement that it will no longer commission companies that are not signed up to the CIISA standards. That is what leadership looks like. I’m publishing updated online safety guidance to support journalists to report in the public interest without fear.
But as the sector evolves, so must we, and we want a vibrant and sustainable media ecosystem with PSBs, streamers, indies, radio, TV, press, thriving across the UK, and not just individually, but collaborating together to invest in the skills, infrastructure and co-productions that we need, with a regulatory framework that incentivises inward investment that creates opportunities for businesses, both big and small, and for UK talent to be showcased across the world.
We will build on Ofcom’s Public Service Media Review by taking action to ensure our public service broadcasters can continue to do what they do best long into the future. We will publish a Local Media Strategy to ensure that people in every town, city and village can access trust in news that reflects their lives better, helping them to hold local public services to account. We are committed to the biggest devolution of power out of Westminster and Whitehall in a generation, which will make local news and local media the most important that it has ever been.
We will launch the BBC Charter Review later this year to support a BBC that is empowered to continue to deliver a vital public service funded in a sustainable way. A BBC that can maintain the trust and support of the public in difficult times, support the wider ecosystem, and that is set up to drive growth in every part of the United Kingdom.
My commitment is to an open and collaborative partnership with government. We need more collaboration especially between our public service broadcasters, to tackle these great social and economic challenges, working together in a number of areas, particularly tackling mis- and disinformation and promoting high quality news by investing in journalism arms, partnering more – rather than competing with or undercutting – local news publishers, improving media literacy by helping consumers find and recognise accurate and impartial news reporting, supporting initiatives like BBC Verify and the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The industry needs to come together to promote high-quality children’s content. We want our young people to grow up to see the high-quality content that will educate and inform and equip them for the world. We want to inspire young people who see themselves and their opportunities in creative content, bringing untold benefit to the industry in inspiring future generations of content-makers. We make great children’s content in the United Kingdom, but we don’t collectively promote it enough.
Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not
Working together will also help creative thinking about alternative ways to monetise content and move to where people are developing more shared platforms and operations, like Freely and Radio Player, to help manage costs that make it easier for audiences to access content.
The industry needs to take seriously the need to shift resources, opportunities and commissioning power to every nation and region. There is a principle that will run through our industrial strategy like a thread: economic growth, good jobs, skills and opportunities. Not just in one part of the country, but in every single nation and region, across our towns, villages and cities. So we need the industry to step up and do more, not just paying lip service to the need for regional and national content, but really embedding itself in those communities to make sure that those voices are heard, those stories are told. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
In a world where trust is at a premium, it’s easy to draw divisions: broadcasters versus streamers, online versus print, local versus national, big versus small. But we have to reject that way of thinking. Because despite all the talk of challenges, and there are many, the fundamentals of our media sectors are strong. They have great talent and infrastructure, and I hope that we can work together to create a great policy framework too, so that the media sector can continue to be the custodian of our national life and usher this country into the coming decade.
This country has been through difficult times, buffeted by global forces and decision-making at home, and we need to take this moment to recover our sense of self-confidence. When it comes to the creative industries, whether it’s film, TV, fashion, music, arts, culture, we are really good at this stuff. We light up the world with the content that we’re able to make and produce and we change lives here, at home, and overseas. Recently, I was in India and then Japan, and I couldn’t fail to be impressed by the esteem in which British media and creatives are held. Millions of people around the world watch big-budget dramas like Doctor Who and Bridgerton, but they also watch a slew of other fantastic shows and formats, from Planet Earth to Come Dine With Me and everything in between. They read our news, they watch our adverts, they listen to our podcasts.
What that does is not just project the UK to the rest of the world, but it connects people in an increasingly fragmented, divided and polarised world. So many of the people I spoke to wanted to come and make things in the UK, with the UK, we are a cultural powerhouse. No one will be a more passionate advocate for our sectors than me or our ministerial colleagues at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
We’ve been drifting too long, but now is the time to chart a new course, a media that is fiercely independent, that creates and produces some of the best content in the world. That draws on the talent that exists in every corner of our country to shape, define and give voice to our national story, and provide those moments that bring us together in shared experience at a time when so much of our consumption is fractured and polarising. As we look to this new era and a new country, let nobody say that it falls to anybody else. It falls to us.
Footnotes
Lisa Nandy is culture secretary. This is an edited version of her keynote speech at the Deloitte and Enders Analysis’ Media & Telecoms 2025 & Beyond Conference in London in June.