"Platforms Will Push Back": Forcing Public Service Media Onto The Online World

(Image by Antonello Sticca)

What has the BBC ever done for me? That was the question posed by Romesh Ranganathan in a promotional video the corporation put out in July. Packed with celebrities, the advert was surprisingly light on the contribution of BBC News. Yet getting more public service news back into people’s lives is something the government is very keen to do.

To that end, minister Ian Murray (who has kept his post under Andy Burnham) is consulting on how to “foster a healthy information environment where trustworthy news is easy to find”.

According to the green paper, that might mean legislating to ensure that the places where people now spend their screen time – YouTube, Netflix and TikTok, for example – are forced to carry trustworthy news.

But then the problems start. Who decides what is trustworthy? How can you shape a social media environment that has been driven by what people want to watch, rather than what would help them become better-informed citizens – or, “the basis of a cohesive country and a healthy democracy”, as the green paper puts it?

“The principle is a very good one,” says Martin Moore, the director of the Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power at King’s College London. “The real difficulty and complexity is in how you do that, not least because the very basic elements of the broadcasting ecosystem have changed significantly.”

In other words, we used to have a limited choice of TV and radio channels, and the government controlled them through Ofcom. That has not changed, but the public’s viewing habits have. Last year YouTube caught up with the BBC, with each commanding 19 per cent of viewing time. Netflix has overtaken Sky and Channel 4. Many people simply no longer bother with public service media (PSM, defined as the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, STV, Channel 5 and the Welsh-language S4C). They might listen to The Rest is Politics podcast, or watch GB News, or just rely on whatever TikTok serves up in the way of news.

That is their choice. But it has consequences. People who get their news from PSM providers are better at identifying facts, trust institutions more and are less polarised than those who do not, according to Ofcom. If we ask whether the UK is becoming ‘ungovernable’, as the Institute for Government did this summer, the lack of a shared news agenda is one of the reasons why.

In exchange for their spectrum privileges, PSM agree to conditions such as impartiality and strict regulation during election periods. Giving them prominence online might seem a relatively uncontroversial policy. Boosting their visibility while ignoring other news sources would meet furious resistance from competitors, however.

The green paper suggests adopting a definition of trustworthy news based on a definition in the Online Safety Act (OSA), but Moore believes it “really underestimates the complexity and difficulty” of that: “I can understand their motivation, but it opens a real Pandora’s box.” He describes the OSA criteria as “extremely broad and vague”. On paper, GB News would meet them. It is already regulated by Ofcom. But few Labour MPs would legislate to ensure it had a right to appear on everyone’s YouTube.

“It feels like the most enormous boast for broadcasters that have struggled to find a new online audience,” says Jim Waterson, founder of local news site London Centric, whose limited resources would make it very unlikely to qualify as ‘trustworthy’. “I would be fuming if I were GB News.” (GB News did not respond to an invitation to comment for this article.)

“The principle is delightful, but even the people nodding along to it might be quite shocked when they find out which outlets are included in it. London Centric breaks award-winning stories, about everything from dubious landlords to tax-evading Harry Potter shops, that are raised in Parliament and change policy. Will smaller independent news outlets that break agenda-setting public interest stories be given access to this privileged public service media slot?”

Part of the problem with choosing what to promote is that ‘legacy’ media have become more biased as they pursue clicks and engagement. “I am something of a defender of British journalism,” says Charlie Beckett, a professor of practice at the London School of Economics’ media department, “but I would never hold it up as a paragon of virtue. The evidence is our media has become more partisan and more interested in opinion content … It’s much harder to honestly put your hands up and say British mainstream media is worth privileging.”

“Even a three- to four-minute TV package is too long. People are just not going to watch it”

Assuming the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport can get agreement on a definition of trustworthy news media – which is somewhat doubtful – further challenges remain. On a streaming service like Netflix, PSM could be promoted fairly easily. The French channel TF1 did a deal with Netflix last year to promote each other’s content. But on an algorithm-driven app, the challenge is much harder. While YouTube is already thought to amplify certain organisations, the lack of transparency around its algorithm makes that hard to verify.

“TikTok is measuring everything you do and trying to serve you things that will keep you online,” says Moore. “How you integrate news within that becomes much more complicated.”

Or as Waterson puts it: “Younger audiences don’t really seem to read. The dominance of short-form video is a challenge. Even a three- to four-minute TV package is too long. People are just not going to watch it.”

Moore warns that digital platforms may not be particularly keen to co-operate with the plans and will try to drive a hard bargain. “They’ve underestimated how far platforms will push back against this and will probably be supported by the current US administration,” says Moore.

Earlier this month, PoliticsHome reported that British officials were called into the US Embassy to hear concerns from American diplomats over the impact on US-headquartered tech firms. Optimistically, however, these firms might see it as an opportunity to boost their credibility. “You are then giving them an institutional role, should they choose to accept it,” says Beckett. “It may be because they want other advantages.” Facebook ultimately decided not to co-operate with governments except if the law required it, but other platforms might.

Are there other ways of encouraging people to consume PSM? Perhaps by requiring operating systems like Apple and Google to pre-install their apps on UK mobiles? That would be difficult, says Beckett, especially given that they want to promote their own apps such as Apple News.

“There’s a lot of wishful thinking here,” he adds, comparing the green paper proposals to the plans to ban social media for under-16s. “The social media ban is an incredibly crude attempt to pretend that social media doesn’t exist.” Hoping that people will return to PSM when they have so many other ways to spend their viewing time risks becoming an exercise in nostalgia.

Indeed, in his foreword to the green paper, the 50-year-old Murray evoked “evenings… gathered around the living room TV set”, watching The Generation Game and Noel’s House Party.

And even as the government mulls how to encourage people to consume more public service news, it is overseeing cuts to BBC journalism. Income from the licence fee has fallen and the current charter review has ruled out replacing it with a levy on streamers or rolling it into general taxation. “Why have you been cutting back on the BBC in the past 10 years if you think public service media is such a good idea?” asks Beckett. At first glance, Ian Murray’s aims look praiseworthy. But as Lord Leveson knows, any attempt to regulate the British press soon becomes extremely controversial. 

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