In case you hadn’t come across it, there’s a very good report [pdf] out from media consultancy Human Capital on the value of news for UK commercial Public Service Broadcasters (that’s ITV, Channel 4, and five), who all have to run news as part of the price of accessing the vanishing airwaves.

In an act of noblesse non-oblige, the report was commissioned by…the BBC! Be interesting to know exactly who at the Beeb commissioned it. As this chiefly impacts on ITN, it’s an act of benevolence akin to leaving a suitcase full of cash outside 200 Grays Inn Road, ringing the doorbell and running away.
There are some interesting nuggets. Remember this:

In terms of reach, news is important in bringing in relatively upmarket, male viewers to ITV1 and Channel 4, who otherwise tend to watch relatively little commercial PSB television. These viewers are valuable to advertisers and attract a premium. The ability to extend reach is also important because once viewers visit a channel, there is an opportunity to promote other programmes to them. Moreover, the relationship between reach and share suggests that, for the network channels, a small change in reach can drive a large change in share. To the extent that news drives reach, therefore, it is very important to advertising-funded channels.

Yes, it’s a new way of re-stating the conventional wisdom about ITV‘s axed News at Ten – that its central ad break was the place to get middle-aged men to buy cars.

It also has two key observations. First:

news plays a critical role in extending the reach of the channel and defining the channel’s brand…the role played by news in building reach and channel brand is likely to grow in importance.

Hmmm. I’d say influential, rather than critical. I don’t see Sky rushing to put a news half-hour in peak on Sky One. Or five offering to restore a half-hour of news at 7pm. (Much as I’d welcome those two moves.)

And second:

the opportunity cost of delivering news appears likely to fall – especially for ITV1.

Opportunity cost being the loss the channel makes from running news where it could run something else. So PSBs will lose less money from the news than they do right now. Not a compelling reason to keep it going forward. But better than a trend in the opposite direction.

So a welcome document, but TV news execs may have to squeeze the champagne cork back in bottle.