Broadcasting regulator Ofcom has approved plans for a new BBC channel that could see the creation of 80 new journalism jobs – despite fears that it may cause staff retention issues for newspaper publishers.
Broadcasting regulator Ofcom today gave final approval to BBC plans for a new TV channel for Scotland, following a ‘competition assessment’ into the possible market impact.
The BBC has previously said it intends to recruit 80 new journalists to staff the new channel, which is expected to begin broadcasting in February 2019.
But in evidence to the Ofcom review, regional publishers including Newsquest voiced fears that the plans might cause staff retention issues and called for limits on the extent to which the channel might be allowed to expand in future.
In a report published today setting out its decision, Ofcom states: “Stakeholders involved in Scottish print journalism including the Scottish Newspaper Society, the Scottish Daily Mail, Newsquest Media Group, and the News Media Association expressed concerns about the ability of newspapers to attract and retain staff in light of the BBC’s proposal.
“The SNS noted that one publisher has already reported a job offer being rejected on the basis of a better offer coming in from the BBC to join the new channel’s news team.
“Stakeholders also noted the risk that the channel or the BBC’s associated online output might change substantially after launch.
“To prevent this, some stakeholders (including the NMA and Newsquest Media) suggested Ofcom impose certain conditions (such as limits on scheduling and progra mme expenditure) on the BBC to prevent the channel and its associated online content expanding beyond the bounds of what was approved by Ofcom.”
However Ofcom went on: “We do not consider that the BBC’s proposal to create 80 additional journalism posts to support its news coverage on the new BBC Scotland channel, of which around half are focused on news-gathering, poses a significant threat to the ability of Scottish newspapers to attract or retainjournalists.
On the issue of future expansion, Ofcom said that while it did not feel it necessary to attach specific limits to the plan, the BBC board would need to consider the wider effects of any further expansion.
In a tweet following the announcement of the decision, Newsquest chief executive Henry Faure Walker said: “Very concerned about @ofcom decision to let @BBCScotland expand empire further with 80 Scottish journalists. Undermines strong independent news publishers. #workwithusnotagainst.”
He told HTFP: “Frustrating that the great traction we have now achieved through the likes of HeraldScotland.com, which has a successful pay wall and has built a huge engaged audience around quality Scottish news content, could be undermined by this BBC expansion.”
The BBCs Scotland director Donalda MacKinnon said she was “delighted” with the news.
In an email to staff she wrote: “This is excellent news and provides us with the springboard to continue planning, with confidence, for launch which is scheduled for February 2019.”
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It might be interesting for HTFP to chart just how many jobs have gone from the Herald, Evening Times and Sunday Herald over the last few years – long before the new BBC channel was even mooted. At last count it was almost 50 in the last three years…
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Oh dear, how sad, never mind….Perhaps Henry could take a closer look at what NQ pay their staff!
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In other words, publishers are kicking off because the BBC may nick all their best staff. I always thought this was the sort of situation where the free market came into play.
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There’s a simple solution for the newspapers affected – treat your staff properly.
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…but it can hardly be described as a free market if the biggest player in that market is taxpayer funded. New journalist jobs are always welcome but personally I think HFW and Newsquest have a point. Comments to the effect that NQ should be paying its staff the equivalent of BBC rates are just silly. We know that isn’t possible for newspapers in the current climate. More pertinently, neither would it be possible for the BBC if, like newspapers, it was funded mainly by advertising.
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Oh the irony .. Newsquest’s Faure Walker worrying about losing staff after dumping hundreds himself…
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I think Paul “publisher of HoldTheFrontPage” Linford should not dismiss peoples comments about NQ perhaps paying its staff and treating its staff better as “silly”. It’s hardly a revelation that NQ has closed down a large number of newspapers across the country while still making profits for US parent company Gannett – https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/roll-call-of-newspaper-closures-and-job-losses/
All these closures and pay freezes (and there’s been years and years of pay freezes by NQ across the country) came well before BBC Scotland came along. In addition, just treating staff better is often enough to keep them in the firm and taking into account how many NUJ chapel have had to set up in NQ offices over the last decade should indicate how NQ do not give much consideration to its staff.
Pointing a finger at the BBC and screeching “no fair” is far sillier than looking at the root cause of why stressed, poorly paid, poorly treated journalists are quick to jump ship…
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Free market, Mr Linford, in the sense that whoever’s got the readies calls the tune. Where those readies come from, be they taxpayers’ money or from some other source, is hardly relevant (not that I hold any brief for the BBC). I’ve got no sympathy, either, with some of the bigger companies who were quite ready to let the BBC fund local journalism while quietly getting rid of staff, yet squeal like stuck pigs when the BBC decides to create another 80 jobs which might further decimate their staff further than they themselves already have.
If you’re in a job and somebody else offers you more money to work for them, then you’d be a mug not to take it, especially in a climate where so few journalists are trying to do the work of so many.
That’s the law of the jungle, otherwise known as the free market.
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Oh dear Mr Linford, Henry a mate is he? Hit a raw nerve somewhere I think. Take a look a the top of your page to see what’s happening at CN Group. If NQ aren’t making the readies then it’s their own fault, for getting rid of experienced journalists across the board. Their products are a shadow of what was produced only a decade ago. Readers and advertisers have voted with their feet. I’m no great fan of the BBC’s funding model but when it’s the only game in town worth playing then there should be no surprise that journalists will prefer to work there.
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Since HTFP cut the initial part of my comment, I’ll restate it for the benefit of Mr Linford.
It’s hard to have any sympathy for NQ in Glasgow when they’ve spent the last decade or so making increasingly baffling and unsuccessful moves in terms of staff reductions, management appointments and strategic approaches that have done nothing but gut their core products into barely read shells of themselves, and created a web offering with the world’s most porous paywall and no content behind it.
The problems at Renfield Street date LONG before the announcement of a new BBC channel, which represents yet another convenient figleaf for NQ management to hide behind.
Paul Linford claiming it’s unrealistic for NQ to pay BBC wages is perfectly fair, but paying even a decent wage shouldn’t be beyond them. Yet when you have the former organiser of the NUJ in Scotland encouraging staff at other papers to work for NQ for peanuts to try and get the National off the ground, it underlines what a mess the company is.
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