{"id":73,"date":"2006-11-23T13:15:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-23T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=73"},"modified":"2006-11-23T13:15:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-23T19:15:00","slug":"tv-news-who-gives-a-ross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2006\/11\/tv-news-who-gives-a-ross\/","title":{"rendered":"TV News – who gives a Ross?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In television, I think we should start talking about the cost of what we do in Rosses \u2013 Jonathan Rosses<\/b><\/a>. Just to refresh your memory, Jonathan takes home\/homes about six million quid a year. So ITV News<\/b> costs \u00a335 million, that\u2019s a six Ross deal. Channel 4 News<\/b> is about \u00a320 million, just over three Rosses. Five news<\/b> \u2013 that\u2019s just a Ross.<\/p>\n

Of course, when you stop talking about TV news, and just talk about TV then the system breaks down. BSkyB\u2019s investment in ITV, for example. That\u2019s well over a g<\/i>Ross<\/b> (\u00a3864m if you’re interested). <\/p>\n

Putting Jonathan to one side, what does BSkyB<\/b>\u2019s stake in ITV<\/b> mean for ITN<\/b>? For starters, BSkyB can only hold a maximum of 20% of ITV, and you don\u2019t spend a billion pounds to win a news contract. Unless you\u2019re insanely rich, or insane and rich, and \u2013 rather boringly \u2013 James Murdoch<\/b><\/a> seems neither.<\/p>\n

ITV\u2019s total news provision probably costs \u00a390-100 million pounds a year, about forty percent of that coming from the national service, the rest from the regions. Jeremy Thompson<\/b> could simulcast on ITV News tomorrow, and Sky News<\/b> could pocket the \u00a335 million and Mr Murdoch would still be losing money providing a news service. But if he could provide the regional news too, he might just start making a modest amount of cash, although as Sky News Ireland<\/b> demonstrated, small-scale news operations are expensive.<\/p>\n

The Damoclean sword hanging over all this is the future of news, national and regional on ITV (and five). Will BSkyB be interested in moving into disappearing territory? My feeling would be yes. BSkyB likes to occupy space, it wants a bigger share of voice. News is important in that vocal mix, not because it makes money, nor because it gives a proprietor a megaphone (in a regulated news environment, it doesn\u2019t), but because it stops someone else doing it. It denies areas of the board to potential opponents.<\/b> Once you occupy it, then you can decide what to do with it.<\/p>\n

Because of its talk segments and current affairs leanings, Channel 4 News could probably survive as a standalone operation. But it would probably cost an extra \u00a310 million a year, just to replace the services and facilities shared with ITV. Andy Duncan<\/b> may be a public service masochist but even he would probably wince at paying that.<\/p>\n

Strangely enough, ITV News is going great guns under Deborah Turness<\/b> and Dave Mannion<\/b>, causing trouble where trouble needs to be caused. Alas, journalistic merit matters little in the greater scheme of things. It\u2019s the price, not the product, that\u2019s the problem. And if Murdoch fils<\/i> offers Sky News at a price tag lower than ITN\u2019s, then someone upstairs at Grays Inn Road might have trouble blocking their ears.<\/p>\n\n

Postscript:<\/i> For a rather barmier take on this, try Peter Preston<\/b>, whose auto da fe<\/i> for newspapers includes wanting to throw TV news on the bonfire too:<\/p>\n

Round-the-clock news has become like newspapers: a multiplicity of outlets owned by different people for different motives. They all have an agenda – and it would be prudent to recognise as much.<\/strong> [Observer<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In television, I think we should start talking about the cost of what we do in Rosses \u2013 Jonathan Rosses. Just to refresh your memory, Jonathan takes home\/homes about six million quid a year. So ITV News costs \u00a335 million, that\u2019s a six Ross deal. Channel 4 News is about \u00a320 million, just over three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50,81],"tags":[19,25,33,145,78],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-journalists","category-media","tag-itn","tag-itv","tag-sky","tag-sky-news","tag-uk-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}