Scottish Affairs Committee
Wednesday 2nd September 2026
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09:30
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
View of performance and public funding to make that recommendation. The recommendation then is made on the regulator, Commissioner John, a mixture of the annual statement of performance commitments and then the annual basis to the minister who brings the the government the recommendation then to government for approval, and it's announced yearly on the budget day. So this coming October, for example, we'll know our funding recommendation for 2027. So we're different to other broadcasters and that we don't have Multi-annual funding.
In Ireland, for example, RTE, the Public Service Media and English Language Public Service Media has a currently a three year temporary Multiannual funding arrangement. Strategic. It doesn't.
In Ireland, for example, RTE, the Public Service Media and English Language Public Service Media has a currently a three year temporary Multiannual funding arrangement. Strategic. It doesn't.
09:30
09:31
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Was created 40 years ago, created by statute. So we have a statutory basis. We're funded by the licence fee, not by the BBC, although we come under the licence fee but as a separate organisation. Our funding coming from the licence fee is decided by government, decided by the Department of Culture. That is supplemented by an annual programme agreement with the BBC, which provides around ten hours of programming for us every week.
And that arrangement stems from the previous situation before Spagyric was established, whereby the BBC and Wales used to make ten hours worth of programming in Welsh. So that arrangement has continued under the current programme arrangement. We feel that the current system works very well for us. There are clearly big concerns about the licence fee, but that's a slightly separate issue. But up until now the system that we operate under has worked very well for us.
One of the most important elements of that has been funding certainty that we have had in order to plan ahead, and I can tell you a lot more about that. So that's been very important. The second very important thing is cross-party support. We've always had the support of all political parties for the existence of SP and for the role we play in the Welsh economy and in support of the Welsh language. Do you want to add anything?
And that arrangement stems from the previous situation before Spagyric was established, whereby the BBC and Wales used to make ten hours worth of programming in Welsh. So that arrangement has continued under the current programme arrangement. We feel that the current system works very well for us. There are clearly big concerns about the licence fee, but that's a slightly separate issue. But up until now the system that we operate under has worked very well for us.
One of the most important elements of that has been funding certainty that we have had in order to plan ahead, and I can tell you a lot more about that. So that's been very important. The second very important thing is cross-party support. We've always had the support of all political parties for the existence of SP and for the role we play in the Welsh economy and in support of the Welsh language. Do you want to add anything?
09:32
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Yeah, I think that sufficient funding is the key for us, and that's something that was in the Broadcasting Act 1990 and something that we saw, and we were quite glad to see the Secretary of State reiterating in the Green Paper on charter review that sufficient funding was something that would be very important as part of charter review process for SP and also for for MG Alba as well. In the UK. So I think that sufficient funding is the important element for us.
What is sufficient, I suppose, is the next question. But sufficient for us means more than just achieving the basics. It's very much about being able to engage and appeal with audiences, wider audiences than we currently appeal to, that we're able to be an economic catalyst for growth across Wales, because the funding that we get from the licence fee, what we see is that for every pound of licence fee that we get, we deliver 170 in GVA in terms of economic benefit to the UK.
So I think the sufficient funding is the key thing on our minds as we now embark on this charter review process. And that's very much the submission that we've made, is that we will need, at the very least, CPI increase on our current licence fee settlement, but we will more than likely need more if we're able to engage with young audiences because of the need to appeal to them on all the platforms that they consume. We're no longer a TV channel.
We're more than a TV channel. We need to appeal to young audiences on all the platforms where they consume their content, and that's one of the key challenges going forward.
What is sufficient, I suppose, is the next question. But sufficient for us means more than just achieving the basics. It's very much about being able to engage and appeal with audiences, wider audiences than we currently appeal to, that we're able to be an economic catalyst for growth across Wales, because the funding that we get from the licence fee, what we see is that for every pound of licence fee that we get, we deliver 170 in GVA in terms of economic benefit to the UK.
So I think the sufficient funding is the key thing on our minds as we now embark on this charter review process. And that's very much the submission that we've made, is that we will need, at the very least, CPI increase on our current licence fee settlement, but we will more than likely need more if we're able to engage with young audiences because of the need to appeal to them on all the platforms that they consume. We're no longer a TV channel.
We're more than a TV channel. We need to appeal to young audiences on all the platforms where they consume their content, and that's one of the key challenges going forward.
09:34
Patricia Ferguson
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Patricia Ferguson
Thank you. Can I ask you, you mentioned that you're independent, but the funding comes from government. So does that involve you in your your colleagues in negotiation with the government about the funding? Is it agreed cross-party? Is it subject to political machinations? I'm just interested to explore how that independence.
09:34
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. So I think the key the key issues. We don't have a multi-annual funding recommendation from from the regulator or from from government. We have cross-party support in the island of Ireland, both north and south for TG, and we were recognised under the Good Friday or the Belfast Agreement as a public service media provider in the island of Ireland. And we. We. The process currently involves an annual request for funding and.
It's based on augmentation or additionality of what service we provide for our audiences. We currently have large gaps in content that we cannot provide because we don't have adequate funding to to provide, for example, content for teenagers. We have a children's channel that we establish three years ago, but we have a content gap from 13 then to 18 year olds that we cannot provide content for, for example, because we don't have sufficient funding. But the current process works on the annual statement of performance commitments, as well as the annual review with the media regulator.
And then a funding recommendation is is made to government. And then it depends on the other the other budgetary pressures where where we where we perform or how we do on that. We have had incremental funding since 2016, and last year we had a 9% increase in our funding allocation to 65.4 million. But it is a lot less, for example, than S4C , and also the European Media Freedom Act is in place since August last year.
And that does have a provision for adequate, sustainable and predictable funding for PSM across Europe. And just to compare, I suppose, the Irish context with the rest of Europe and public service media is generally underfunded in Ireland compared to Europe. We're in the bottom ten of EU countries. For example, the public service funding, which would include RTE as well, is 0.08 of GDP in comparison to 0.14% of GDP as an average across Europe.
So Ireland is funded less than Portugal on the same level as Malta and just above Romania. So that's for context where we where we are in terms of public service media funding. But yeah, so currently it is it's a yearly ask and it's a lot of lobbying and a lot of meetings with politicians to, to show the worth of TGI carrot. But generally across the board, there's a high appreciation of the value in terms of the content we provide, particularly for connection with audiences through sport, music documentaries, but also then in terms of regional employment, because we work with about 60 companies as a publisher broadcaster, we have multi annual output contract deals with companies, and part of the remit for that is sustainable employment in areas outside of kind of the key production areas of Dublin and Wicklow in Ireland.
It's based on augmentation or additionality of what service we provide for our audiences. We currently have large gaps in content that we cannot provide because we don't have adequate funding to to provide, for example, content for teenagers. We have a children's channel that we establish three years ago, but we have a content gap from 13 then to 18 year olds that we cannot provide content for, for example, because we don't have sufficient funding. But the current process works on the annual statement of performance commitments, as well as the annual review with the media regulator.
And then a funding recommendation is is made to government. And then it depends on the other the other budgetary pressures where where we where we perform or how we do on that. We have had incremental funding since 2016, and last year we had a 9% increase in our funding allocation to 65.4 million. But it is a lot less, for example, than S4C , and also the European Media Freedom Act is in place since August last year.
And that does have a provision for adequate, sustainable and predictable funding for PSM across Europe. And just to compare, I suppose, the Irish context with the rest of Europe and public service media is generally underfunded in Ireland compared to Europe. We're in the bottom ten of EU countries. For example, the public service funding, which would include RTE as well, is 0.08 of GDP in comparison to 0.14% of GDP as an average across Europe.
So Ireland is funded less than Portugal on the same level as Malta and just above Romania. So that's for context where we where we are in terms of public service media funding. But yeah, so currently it is it's a yearly ask and it's a lot of lobbying and a lot of meetings with politicians to, to show the worth of TGI carrot. But generally across the board, there's a high appreciation of the value in terms of the content we provide, particularly for connection with audiences through sport, music documentaries, but also then in terms of regional employment, because we work with about 60 companies as a publisher broadcaster, we have multi annual output contract deals with companies, and part of the remit for that is sustainable employment in areas outside of kind of the key production areas of Dublin and Wicklow in Ireland.
09:37
09:37
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09:38
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Shall I start? Yes, please. I mean, they are very important in terms of commissioning any kind of programming. It's very hard to do that if you only have one year's funding certainty. If you don't mind, I'll hand over to Geraint because he's he's better able to talk about the commissioning details if you're happy with that.
09:38
09:38
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Okay. Well, I think it's the point I made earlier, which is that that funding certainty enables us to plan ahead across all genres, and we work very closely with the production sector in Wales, and they're incredibly important to the Welsh economy to have those jobs in the Welsh language, particularly in in rural areas , outside the urban areas. And, you know, in order for them to plan ahead and to plan their workforce and so on, knowing that that there is funding going forward is, is incredibly important.
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09:39
09:39
09:39
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Well, I mean, it's key for that. We we would like to have a multi-annual funding arrangement. The new broadcasting bill, which is currently going through Parliament, does have a recommendation that we move from a five year funding model to a three year, but it hasn't actually clarified that it will be a Multi-annual recommendation. But that would be our request. There is currently a recommendation. There is currently an arrangement for RTE. It's a temporary arrangement and.
But again, we see across Europe the best examples of performing public service media have multi-annual arrangements here in the UK, but also in Denmark and Germany and the Netherlands and the EBU have also shown the strong link to strong democracies where there is Multi-annual funding for PSM. So we think it's very important for us as a minority language broadcaster. The difference not having Multi-annual funding is, as Gareth mentioned, planning ahead. For example, for drama, it doesn't happen within a budgetary year.
We. It takes multiple years and multiple funding sources to produce Irish language drama. And we don't have that certainty from year to year of where where we'll be next year and what we can commit to. We currently would like to to commission two drama series a year, but we're always plan A, plan B depending on how we're funding is. And then there's, you know, inflationary costs and, and other costs that that always eat out of.
I suppose the content budget. And so as a publisher, broadcaster, most of our, our funding goes straight out to the sector. So it's about 74% of the funding is is spent on content. But again, without Multi-annual funding, you can't plan ahead. And you spend half the year, I suppose, trying to get more money for the following year and then trying to make sure that you have a zero balance at the end of the year as well.
So it's not an efficient way for us as a PSM to run and run teacher care.
But again, we see across Europe the best examples of performing public service media have multi-annual arrangements here in the UK, but also in Denmark and Germany and the Netherlands and the EBU have also shown the strong link to strong democracies where there is Multi-annual funding for PSM. So we think it's very important for us as a minority language broadcaster. The difference not having Multi-annual funding is, as Gareth mentioned, planning ahead. For example, for drama, it doesn't happen within a budgetary year.
We. It takes multiple years and multiple funding sources to produce Irish language drama. And we don't have that certainty from year to year of where where we'll be next year and what we can commit to. We currently would like to to commission two drama series a year, but we're always plan A, plan B depending on how we're funding is. And then there's, you know, inflationary costs and, and other costs that that always eat out of.
I suppose the content budget. And so as a publisher, broadcaster, most of our, our funding goes straight out to the sector. So it's about 74% of the funding is is spent on content. But again, without Multi-annual funding, you can't plan ahead. And you spend half the year, I suppose, trying to get more money for the following year and then trying to make sure that you have a zero balance at the end of the year as well.
So it's not an efficient way for us as a PSM to run and run teacher care.
09:41
09:41
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Yes, I'll return to sport and drama and sport, first of all is a key genre for for Doric, because it enables us to draw audiences from all parts of Wales and beyond, because language is not seen as so much of a barrier. If you want to see a sports event, you will tune into it, whatever the language, because you can still enjoy the sport, which enables us to have rights for things like the tour de France for international rugby, international football and now even Six Nations darts, which did very well for us recently across all platforms.
But with sports rights deals and negotiations, the sports rights are usually linked to a competition which is multi-year in itself. So you have to have a multi-year settlement in order to be able to commit to that level of funding, because sports rights are not cheap, but they're valuable and they deliver good audience for us. So to invest in those, we need clarity of funding moving forward. Drama. Similarly, as did you mentioned there, it's a multiyear project to get a drama on screen or a film on screen, as we did recently with a film for Blaenau, which premiered in Glasgow, as it Happens, before going on tour in Wales and the UK and did very well for us.
So those those two genres specifically are very important. But for things such as returning series as well, to be able to commit to a production company so that they know they can produce something more efficiently if they have multi-year visibility, going from one year to the next doesn't enable businesses to plan carefully to develop talent and skills and invest in the workforce unless you've got that visibility. But I would return to those two genres as being absolutely key in that.
If you want to compete in the market for sports rights, if you want to develop high quality drama, you really do need a multi-year funding settlement to be able to achieve that.
But with sports rights deals and negotiations, the sports rights are usually linked to a competition which is multi-year in itself. So you have to have a multi-year settlement in order to be able to commit to that level of funding, because sports rights are not cheap, but they're valuable and they deliver good audience for us. So to invest in those, we need clarity of funding moving forward. Drama. Similarly, as did you mentioned there, it's a multiyear project to get a drama on screen or a film on screen, as we did recently with a film for Blaenau, which premiered in Glasgow, as it Happens, before going on tour in Wales and the UK and did very well for us.
So those those two genres specifically are very important. But for things such as returning series as well, to be able to commit to a production company so that they know they can produce something more efficiently if they have multi-year visibility, going from one year to the next doesn't enable businesses to plan carefully to develop talent and skills and invest in the workforce unless you've got that visibility. But I would return to those two genres as being absolutely key in that.
If you want to compete in the market for sports rights, if you want to develop high quality drama, you really do need a multi-year funding settlement to be able to achieve that.
09:43
09:43
09:43
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah, so I won't give specific numbers on that, but it's a small additional income for TGI car. I don't think it's ever going to be sufficient that we we can rely on it full term, but it does allow us, for example, to, you know, it's an additional income for our scheduling. It allows us, for example, to buy film content and acquisition content to support our schedule because we don't have enough funding to have all Irish language programming.
So we have, for example, films and some drama series in English that we buy with commercial income to support our schedule. So it is important for TGI carrot, but it's, it's not really a key. It's not going to be ever a key part of our funding mechanism. Right.
So we have, for example, films and some drama series in English that we buy with commercial income to support our schedule. So it is important for TGI carrot, but it's, it's not really a key. It's not going to be ever a key part of our funding mechanism. Right.
09:44
Dave Doogan
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Dave Doogan
Except that, but within that reality that you set out there is, is there a strategic priority within TGI Caha to grow the commercial element? Hopefully not to displace any of the public funding. We want to make sure that was nailed down. But to grow the commercial element of your funding through advertising.
09:44
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
There is as in it's, you know, it's part of our annual statement of performance commitments with the regulator that we grow the commercial income. But again, the amount is quite small in comparison to the funding that we need to provide the services we provide. And as a public service broadcaster, you know, we we have a remit to provide Irish language content for for Irish language audiences. So it's, you know, it's an additional income, but it's not enough to, to drive and to deliver.
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09:45
Dave Doogan
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Dave Doogan
09:45
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Future funding of the BBC and S Padraic, which are funded by the same model? Exactly. The licence fee obviously puts public service broadcasting at great jeopardy because if there are fewer people paying the licence fee, the income from that is going down. We hear that all the time, and we've heard the BBC say quite plainly in this building that, you know, the future of the licence fee is unsustainable as it is. So I think government needs to look at other models because the licence fee is not going to be increasing at the same level as the costs within the production sector.
So in much the same way as it's a risk for the BBC, it's a risk for us as well. Our submission to government as part of charter review has been very much that we need the same level of funding and more, if we're honest, because Padraic is a very lean organisation. Our budget is around 100 million, whereas the licence fee collected by the BBC amounts to around 3.8 billion. So it's a very small proportion of the licence fee that comes to us.
But as a lean organisation it would be very difficult for us to find efficiencies. If our income was in any way in jeopardy. It would jeopardise the future of the service and by doing so, would jeopardise the future of the Welsh language.
So in much the same way as it's a risk for the BBC, it's a risk for us as well. Our submission to government as part of charter review has been very much that we need the same level of funding and more, if we're honest, because Padraic is a very lean organisation. Our budget is around 100 million, whereas the licence fee collected by the BBC amounts to around 3.8 billion. So it's a very small proportion of the licence fee that comes to us.
But as a lean organisation it would be very difficult for us to find efficiencies. If our income was in any way in jeopardy. It would jeopardise the future of the service and by doing so, would jeopardise the future of the Welsh language.
09:46
09:46
Kirsteen Sullivan
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Kirsteen Sullivan
I have a couple of questions for you. First of all is Fauci has had a long standing partnership with the BBC, and it's been able to maintain its own statutory identity and funding arrangements. How important has that balance between partnership and independence been to S4c's success? And secondly, has the relationship changed since receiving a multiyear funding settlement that's been funded directly by the licence fee?
09:47
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
The relationship with the BBC is incredibly important to us and always has been. As I said earlier, they deliver ten hours worth of programming to us a week and we share a building with them in Central Square. We have S4c's has three centres around Wales, which is very important in terms of our regional profile, but also to have premises in in the centre of Cardiff in the BBC building is also important and we have a very good relationship with the BBC, which we value very much.
We also share back office and technical services with them, you know, which, which which is really important. We have a presence on the iPlayer now. Again, very important. I'm sure we might come on to prominence, but having a presence on on the iPlayer is brilliant for, for many of our audiences . And we, we value that greatly. So I think the relationship with the BBC is, is a good one , and we want to see that continue and develop in new ways.
The Green Paper on the licence fee talked about better partnerships or greater partnerships across the public service broadcasting, and we feel that we are a good example of a of a partnership with the BBC at the moment in terms of being a separate organisation. I mean, that that is how SFC was set up. And we guard that very, very carefully. I think our audiences think it's terribly important that we are an independent Welsh language broadcaster, the only one of its kind delivering content through the Welsh language, which is greatly, greatly valued by our audiences.
And I think the BBC understands that and respects that as well. But we have managed to to develop a very close relationship with them and want that to continue.
We also share back office and technical services with them, you know, which, which which is really important. We have a presence on the iPlayer now. Again, very important. I'm sure we might come on to prominence, but having a presence on on the iPlayer is brilliant for, for many of our audiences . And we, we value that greatly. So I think the relationship with the BBC is, is a good one , and we want to see that continue and develop in new ways.
The Green Paper on the licence fee talked about better partnerships or greater partnerships across the public service broadcasting, and we feel that we are a good example of a of a partnership with the BBC at the moment in terms of being a separate organisation. I mean, that that is how SFC was set up. And we guard that very, very carefully. I think our audiences think it's terribly important that we are an independent Welsh language broadcaster, the only one of its kind delivering content through the Welsh language, which is greatly, greatly valued by our audiences.
And I think the BBC understands that and respects that as well. But we have managed to to develop a very close relationship with them and want that to continue.
09:49
09:49
09:49
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Yeah, I wouldn't say that that's changed anything in particular. For the last five years, we've been funded wholly by the licence fee as well as the statutory supply agreement, which is that ten hours a week that we receive from the BBC. But what I would say in terms of that partnership is that the Secretary of State has recently asked the SBS to work in partnership, because the competition that we face is not from each other as much, but from the streamers and from YouTube.
And this I play relationship has been essential in driving viewing numbers up for us because of the prominence of iPlayer on connected TVs, because of the familiarity of the audience with it, and since going into a new iPlayer deal with with the BBC, which enabled us from being a walled garden within the iPlayer , now coming out into the home page and achieving that prominence on that main new and trending rail on the iPlayer. It's really driven viewing numbers for us.
There was a growth of 25% year on year, from 200,000 to 250,000 viewers. In terms of monthly active users for us on iPlayer as a result of that change, I'd say so that's working in partnership with the BBC as as directors, I think is a great example for any other broadcasters. And I know that there is this question out there as to whether there should be one PSB player. Well, we can definitely see the benefits of that. If we realistically to be able to compete with the streamers and with the challenge of YouTube, but we may come on to that as well, because that's something that is vitally important for us.
The competition is not so much from each other, but it is from the changing viewing habits of younger users particularly, but of all users. I would say in terms of viewing of streamers and changing of habits to viewing of YouTube content.
And this I play relationship has been essential in driving viewing numbers up for us because of the prominence of iPlayer on connected TVs, because of the familiarity of the audience with it, and since going into a new iPlayer deal with with the BBC, which enabled us from being a walled garden within the iPlayer , now coming out into the home page and achieving that prominence on that main new and trending rail on the iPlayer. It's really driven viewing numbers for us.
There was a growth of 25% year on year, from 200,000 to 250,000 viewers. In terms of monthly active users for us on iPlayer as a result of that change, I'd say so that's working in partnership with the BBC as as directors, I think is a great example for any other broadcasters. And I know that there is this question out there as to whether there should be one PSB player. Well, we can definitely see the benefits of that. If we realistically to be able to compete with the streamers and with the challenge of YouTube, but we may come on to that as well, because that's something that is vitally important for us.
The competition is not so much from each other, but it is from the changing viewing habits of younger users particularly, but of all users. I would say in terms of viewing of streamers and changing of habits to viewing of YouTube content.
09:51
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09:51
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So again, I suppose we rely on multiple funding sources to produce high quality content. So for example, we work very closely with the Irish Language Broadcast Fund of Northern Ireland screen. We we broadcast with a lot with BBC Northern Ireland the same content because they're for different audiences. But that partnership works really well. So in terms of the tax credits, it's a revenue based incentive. There's a section for H1 which is a tax credit for film and drama and high end documentaries.
The advantage to that is you can get a payment in advance on up to 90% of the payment for, which helps producers to produce the content. And that differs from a lot of other jurisdictions where you can claim that back after production has finished. So that's that's a huge incentive. But the real advantage to us is it's another funding source for film, for documentaries and high end, high quality content. We've another uplift and that the uplift, which is 8%.
So that's up to 40% of a tax credit. But that only applies to lower to mid range films and doesn't apply to television drama, for example. So we're involved in hoping to change that, that we can include television drama in that. And that's part of our lobbying efforts with Ibec and the Audiovisual Ireland. There was a new tax incentive introduced last year for unscripted section four, eight, seven A, and that is for primarily to try .
And I suppose it's an inward investment initiative from government, but it. We're still working through how that actually works in terms of indigenous productions and particularly for lower budget minority language. Is there an advantage for us with that? But it's definitely having an impact already on inward production into Ireland. And there's different other tax credits, for example, for virtual effects for gaming. But all of us, all of these, I suppose, are advantageous for for us as producers, for us as broadcasters, but also for our production companies and particularly for co-productions between producers in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, because we can work on the tax credits available in both jurisdictions and the different funding screens from Northern Ireland, screen and Screen Ireland.
So that has worked very well for us. For example, for high quality content. CRO, which was on the BBC iPlayer, was such a huge success that it then was broadcast on BBC four. And again, that all came from working with with the tax credits from from both jurisdictions.
The advantage to that is you can get a payment in advance on up to 90% of the payment for, which helps producers to produce the content. And that differs from a lot of other jurisdictions where you can claim that back after production has finished. So that's that's a huge incentive. But the real advantage to us is it's another funding source for film, for documentaries and high end, high quality content. We've another uplift and that the uplift, which is 8%.
So that's up to 40% of a tax credit. But that only applies to lower to mid range films and doesn't apply to television drama, for example. So we're involved in hoping to change that, that we can include television drama in that. And that's part of our lobbying efforts with Ibec and the Audiovisual Ireland. There was a new tax incentive introduced last year for unscripted section four, eight, seven A, and that is for primarily to try .
And I suppose it's an inward investment initiative from government, but it. We're still working through how that actually works in terms of indigenous productions and particularly for lower budget minority language. Is there an advantage for us with that? But it's definitely having an impact already on inward production into Ireland. And there's different other tax credits, for example, for virtual effects for gaming. But all of us, all of these, I suppose, are advantageous for for us as producers, for us as broadcasters, but also for our production companies and particularly for co-productions between producers in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, because we can work on the tax credits available in both jurisdictions and the different funding screens from Northern Ireland, screen and Screen Ireland.
So that has worked very well for us. For example, for high quality content. CRO, which was on the BBC iPlayer, was such a huge success that it then was broadcast on BBC four. And again, that all came from working with with the tax credits from from both jurisdictions.
09:54
09:54
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Without those tax credits? There's a lot of things we couldn't do. Like, for example, our films, our high quality drama. And it's it's one of numerous funding sources that we have for the content we make, but without it, we wouldn't. For example, we had a film go to the Oscars on Colin Quinn in 2023 that would have benefited from that tax credit . Last week, Ifta and selected one of his films, also as Ireland's entry to the Best International Feature Film.
So that's our fifth film since 2021. All of those films would have benefited from the tax credit. So, and again, those high end projects give status to to give status to the Irish language and bring new audiences to us that wouldn't necessarily engage with maybe television content, but we'll watch the films in cinemas. And when they hear about, oh, this has been selected as Ireland's entry for the Oscars. Okay, I'm interested in knowing more about that.
So it's brand building, status building, but ultimately, without those funding sources, we would not be able to produce that kind of quality content ourselves.
So that's our fifth film since 2021. All of those films would have benefited from the tax credit. So, and again, those high end projects give status to to give status to the Irish language and bring new audiences to us that wouldn't necessarily engage with maybe television content, but we'll watch the films in cinemas. And when they hear about, oh, this has been selected as Ireland's entry for the Oscars. Okay, I'm interested in knowing more about that.
So it's brand building, status building, but ultimately, without those funding sources, we would not be able to produce that kind of quality content ourselves.
09:55
09:55
09:55
Patricia Ferguson
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Patricia Ferguson
Mr.. I'll come to you now. Sorry, you've been sitting quietly. You get your chance. Now, can I ask you how important the Irish Language Broadcast fund in the Sound and Vision Scheme have been in expanding, I suppose, Irish language content generally, but also supporting those independent producers and strengthening the wider Irish language media sector as a whole.
09:56
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
I think, as Deirdre's explained, the funding sources for most of the production companies tend to be a tapestry, so they're trying to find money from different pockets and and different supports. It would be wrong to think, though, that the money is just about producing an audiovisual content that's going to go on screen. Because behind all of those efforts, there are also training initiatives. There. Are there seed funding, right? There are schemes to develop writers, there are schemes to develop directors, there are shadowing schemes to bring crews through and to train new talent.
They're they're vitally important. So the Iwbf in the North is one of our strongest partners. And in that way , they've the the training and the sectoral capacity building that they've been doing over the years has meant that it's increased the number of production companies available to work with us, but also the staff and the the people who can work on the productions and brought those to a much higher level. And I think that's something really important to share with the committee here, is that you have a very important role to play in creating the space for this type of work to happen.
We're 30 years old this year. My role is around innovation, sustainability and sector capacity, so we're looking forward to the next 30 years. We're trying to build the new cohort of people and companies that can create content for people who speak Irish and increase those numbers. Unless the legislation that's that's passed gives the space to do that, it means that you can't build in that way. So I think as well as Grant has mentioned, it's really important that we look to collaborating Transnationally we have really good collaboration has happened over the years.
For example, I spent my first years in TV production as a director on the soap opera called Ros na Run. And when that started, we borrowed lots of people from public to come over because we didn't have people with the relevant experience at the time. So we brought them in as heads of department, but we shadowed with them heads of department who were local. So they they grew up through the system. So I think it's really important to take into, into consideration that sector of capacity building that needs to be done, that builds in the regions.
It builds the cultural and creative sector for us outside of Dublin and Wicklow, which is really important, which means people can stay at home, they can work in their own areas, they can raise their families, send their kids to school, spend their money in the local areas. And that for us has always been a huge argument that we've made with our funding submissions, that this, this, this element of what we do can't be underestimated. And it's the same for all of the broadcasters that are here, because we do need to work together to, to, to fight the challenges, to get those eyeballs from the people who are looking at Apple and Netflix and YouTube and all of these other.
That's where the competition really is. And we need public service media at the forefront in all of these efforts.
They're they're vitally important. So the Iwbf in the North is one of our strongest partners. And in that way , they've the the training and the sectoral capacity building that they've been doing over the years has meant that it's increased the number of production companies available to work with us, but also the staff and the the people who can work on the productions and brought those to a much higher level. And I think that's something really important to share with the committee here, is that you have a very important role to play in creating the space for this type of work to happen.
We're 30 years old this year. My role is around innovation, sustainability and sector capacity, so we're looking forward to the next 30 years. We're trying to build the new cohort of people and companies that can create content for people who speak Irish and increase those numbers. Unless the legislation that's that's passed gives the space to do that, it means that you can't build in that way. So I think as well as Grant has mentioned, it's really important that we look to collaborating Transnationally we have really good collaboration has happened over the years.
For example, I spent my first years in TV production as a director on the soap opera called Ros na Run. And when that started, we borrowed lots of people from public to come over because we didn't have people with the relevant experience at the time. So we brought them in as heads of department, but we shadowed with them heads of department who were local. So they they grew up through the system. So I think it's really important to take into, into consideration that sector of capacity building that needs to be done, that builds in the regions.
It builds the cultural and creative sector for us outside of Dublin and Wicklow, which is really important, which means people can stay at home, they can work in their own areas, they can raise their families, send their kids to school, spend their money in the local areas. And that for us has always been a huge argument that we've made with our funding submissions, that this, this, this element of what we do can't be underestimated. And it's the same for all of the broadcasters that are here, because we do need to work together to, to, to fight the challenges, to get those eyeballs from the people who are looking at Apple and Netflix and YouTube and all of these other.
That's where the competition really is. And we need public service media at the forefront in all of these efforts.
09:59
Douglas McAllister
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Douglas McAllister
Ask a general question to either Trevor or Deirdre. Forgive me because I can't see it in her papers. I've got the information in relation to Welsh language. Can either of you tell me what the percentage proportion of people in Ireland report having any skills in Irish language, and what percentage is in relation to the ability to actually speak Irish?
09:59
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. So the last census in 2022, 1.8 million say they speak some level of Irish. But in Gaeltacht areas that's our daily Irish speakers. That's the figures down to about 66,000 per year. But then there is another cohort of about half a million who have who say they have good level of Irish or can speak Irish very well. So I suppose for us we have to create content and cater for all those different types of Irish speakers.
With the core daily Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht 1.8 million, primarily because Irish is compulsory subject up to Leaving Cert in schools, and it is the first official language of the state and the, you know, the official language of of the Constitution. So we have official status for the language, but there's multiple layers of fluency and ability within that. And teaching caters for all levels of speakers.
With the core daily Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht 1.8 million, primarily because Irish is compulsory subject up to Leaving Cert in schools, and it is the first official language of the state and the, you know, the official language of of the Constitution. So we have official status for the language, but there's multiple layers of fluency and ability within that. And teaching caters for all levels of speakers.
10:00
Speaker 4
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Speaker 4
And I think it's fair. It's not the same to equate the number of speakers with the audience, because the audience, we see the audience as all of the people on the island of Ireland and abroad and the diaspora through through our player as well. So all of our content is accessible to people through subtitling or whatever as well to a much, much broader audience. So that's very important international sense.
10:00
10:00
Douglas Lumsden
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Douglas Lumsden
Yeah. Thank you chairman. Before I ask a question, I just want to declare an interest that my wife is a part owner of a small independent TV company, but I don't consider that to be a big enough. Reason to exclude myself from the session today. Gareth, you mentioned iPlayer and streaming services. How much is that changing how you're operating, how you're working and how you're reaching people with the Welsh language?
10:01
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
We all know that the numbers of people watching traditional TV, linear television is declining, but what we're seeing is that real growth in our digital platforms, we have our own player, we have the presence on iPlayer, which does really well for us because again, of that familiarity that the audience has with that platform, but also we commission now specifically for platforms such as YouTube and for platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, even, because we know that for many young Welsh speakers, very few of them actually engage with social media content in the Welsh language.
Around 80% of Welsh speaking young people use social media in English only, and that's because of the sparsity of Welsh language content on those platforms. So we deliberately now set out to commission. We commissioned a vertical drama, which means you can watch it on your phone on TikTok recently and have gone back and commissioned a second one. Now, because we can see that this is the type of content that is going to get young people watching Welsh language content on a regular basis.
And also, this is the kind of content that means we can compete with the other challenges that are out there, because we know that around 60% of Welsh people. This is according to the Ofcom Media Nations report recently watch YouTube on a weekly basis. So that again, that is the competition. It doesn't mean that they're watching YouTube content. They're watching content maybe from other SBS on YouTube as well as all kinds of other types of videos.
But we commissioned specifically to that platform because we know if they're spending so much of their time there, then the Welsh language needs to be there. When when, as Padraic was established in 1982, it was established due to a public protest in many ways, because people wanted the Welsh language to be on the most popular media of its time if it was to survive. Well, I've since described this now as a battle on several fronts.
It's not just a battle that's on television now for the future of the language, but it's a battle that needs to be on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, as well as on the other players that we have.
Around 80% of Welsh speaking young people use social media in English only, and that's because of the sparsity of Welsh language content on those platforms. So we deliberately now set out to commission. We commissioned a vertical drama, which means you can watch it on your phone on TikTok recently and have gone back and commissioned a second one. Now, because we can see that this is the type of content that is going to get young people watching Welsh language content on a regular basis.
And also, this is the kind of content that means we can compete with the other challenges that are out there, because we know that around 60% of Welsh people. This is according to the Ofcom Media Nations report recently watch YouTube on a weekly basis. So that again, that is the competition. It doesn't mean that they're watching YouTube content. They're watching content maybe from other SBS on YouTube as well as all kinds of other types of videos.
But we commissioned specifically to that platform because we know if they're spending so much of their time there, then the Welsh language needs to be there. When when, as Padraic was established in 1982, it was established due to a public protest in many ways, because people wanted the Welsh language to be on the most popular media of its time if it was to survive. Well, I've since described this now as a battle on several fronts.
It's not just a battle that's on television now for the future of the language, but it's a battle that needs to be on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, as well as on the other players that we have.
10:03
10:03
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
It's a real mix. Around 60% of the viewing of our audience between 16 and 44 is purely on the players, so they spend more and more of their time watching our content on click or on iPlayer, rather than on traditional linear television. The older audiences are still watching on linear television, but in terms of future of language, we have to think of the younger audience. And by young I mean under 45.
10:04
10:04
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
But that is how we term the younger audience. So that is parents with children and so on who could be consuming Welsh language content. We want it to be a part of their lives, so we need to commission carefully. We need to establish that we have rights so that we have a longer rights window for our content on things such as BBC iPlayer or dramas can be on there so people can tune in to them.
And that's all a part of the new strategy that we have, which is, again, about being this more than a TV channel. We have to cater for audiences on whichever platform they are consuming their content.
And that's all a part of the new strategy that we have, which is, again, about being this more than a TV channel. We have to cater for audiences on whichever platform they are consuming their content.
10:04
10:04
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Well, it's basically 52 weeks of the year. We have a live schedule, which goes from with original new content from 7 to 10 every evening, which is pretty much all new content commissioned. So we still need to serve that linear TV schedule. But we find it increasingly is that is that schedule needs to have a longer tail. It needs to be able to be viewed by people for a longer period of time afterwards.
But the number of hours commissioned by us. But I can come back to you with a figure now, haven't got at the top of my head, but is significant , and being able to sustain that volume of content to maintain a linear TV schedule, but also this other type of content, the shorter form content, which appeals to younger audiences, is all a part of what we need to do now to be a modern public service media organisation, not a public service broadcaster.
But the number of hours commissioned by us. But I can come back to you with a figure now, haven't got at the top of my head, but is significant , and being able to sustain that volume of content to maintain a linear TV schedule, but also this other type of content, the shorter form content, which appeals to younger audiences, is all a part of what we need to do now to be a modern public service media organisation, not a public service broadcaster.
10:05
10:05
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
depends on the rights holders and what they will allow us, because very often what's been very successful for us is we've gone into a partnership with streamers such as Amazon, for example, or TNT, who may have a contract for a sport which they will show on their pay TV service, and we've gone in and negotiated with them to get some free to air rights to show that in the Welsh language only on. And they don't deem that to be as serious a competition as if they were selling those rights to say, shall we say, to BBC or ITV.
So that's proved to be very effective for us. Occasionally, however, for domestic sport we do provide English language commentary as well as Welsh language commentary, where rights do allow, and that's been very popular with audiences in Wales.
So that's proved to be very effective for us. Occasionally, however, for domestic sport we do provide English language commentary as well as Welsh language commentary, where rights do allow, and that's been very popular with audiences in Wales.
10:06
10:06
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Pretty much, yes. I think Ogwen Williams's report , there was a clear desire for us to be moving more into that digital space, creating a digital hub. And since then, we've developed our own digital news service, which is an in-house service by working again in partnership with the BBC, increasing the amount of commissioning to platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and so on, increasing our social media team who are repackaging content from linear TV and getting it out on those social media platforms.
So there's been a clear drive there. It also it also stated that we should be getting our funding from the licence fee and multiyear funding as well. So many of these recommendations have already been implemented, and the other one was that the board should become a unitary board, which it is now with Delyth as chair.
So there's been a clear drive there. It also it also stated that we should be getting our funding from the licence fee and multiyear funding as well. So many of these recommendations have already been implemented, and the other one was that the board should become a unitary board, which it is now with Delyth as chair.
10:07
10:07
Patricia Ferguson
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Patricia Ferguson
Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes our questions to the first panel. So thank you for your time this morning and for being so open and frank with us. It's very helpful to our inquiry. And thank you for coming along to London today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very much. Thank you. And welcome to this morning's second panel, as we did previously. Could I just ask you all to say briefly who you are and what you do, and I'll start with Mr.
McCulloch.
McCulloch.
10:13
10:13
10:13
10:13
10:13
Patricia Ferguson
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Patricia Ferguson
Thank you very much and welcome. Well, welcome back to some of you who we've had here before on at least one occasion, perhaps more in your case, Mr. McCulloch. So if I can address my first question to Mr. Morrison, MJ Harper has called for parity with S for C in terms of both funding and the statutory recognition that it has. So in practical terms, what would that look like for Gaelic broadcasting and what specific changes would be needed to make that happen?
10:14
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Well, in terms of parity, what we look for is a sort of equivalence of treatment. I don't think we're in the position where we're looking for the same budget as as Welsh has. But what we would like to see is, for example, when documents come out relating to broadcasting from DCMs, a couple of additional words Welsh and Gaelic would be very welcome because sometimes, as we've seen even recently, Gaelic is not mentioned in very important documents that are looking forward to the BBC charter.
We were happy to see in the in the Green Paper that appeared that sustainability of MG was mentioned. Sustainability is key for us, as I am sure the Committee is aware, our funding. I notice that you've actually used some of our own words that we are in real jeopardy, and that can't be overstated because every year the value of our budget has dropped by a budget was frozen for ten years, so value has dropped by about 45%.
That is, that trajectory is unsustainable for any, any organisation, any company. And so what we're looking for is equivalence in both legal terms and that the treatment of Gaelic is the same as the treatment of Welsh. And obviously we're looking for an increased budget as well. Yeah.
We were happy to see in the in the Green Paper that appeared that sustainability of MG was mentioned. Sustainability is key for us, as I am sure the Committee is aware, our funding. I notice that you've actually used some of our own words that we are in real jeopardy, and that can't be overstated because every year the value of our budget has dropped by a budget was frozen for ten years, so value has dropped by about 45%.
That is, that trajectory is unsustainable for any, any organisation, any company. And so what we're looking for is equivalence in both legal terms and that the treatment of Gaelic is the same as the treatment of Welsh. And obviously we're looking for an increased budget as well. Yeah.
10:15
10:16
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
It would be transformational because one of the first things that we did when I came in was we got E to have a look. Ernst and Young in their old fashioned language, E did an analysis which showed that effectively our budget should be double what it was at the time because it had fallen so far behind. What they said was that if that if we had kept up with inflation, we would have created an additional 300, 350 jobs.
And most of the jobs that we've created as a result of production have been in the Highlands and Islands, which badly need jobs. And, you know, for example, we have a media centre in Stornoway, which is now one of the the biggest employers in the whole of the Western Isles. And the demographics of that are fantastic because you see young people who have gone away to college or university, and they go back because they can have careers.
And as somebody. Trevor, I think you mentioned the importance of sustaining communities is vital. So we do all that. Then in terms of the broadcast, what it allows us to do is just the ordinary things that every other TV channel does, because we are now down to new content every week of 21% or 20. Is it 21, 23%? So it's just over 20%, which is not a TV channel. We are.
And if we slip below that, we can see that audiences go away, particularly the young audience, because like everybody else, they're consuming Netflix, Apple TV and BBC Alba. But unless we've got new content, they go away. We can see that in the weekly figures. So, for example, the big thing that we did and we would like to do more of, and I'm sure you'll ask us about the risks associated with spending all of our drama budget on one big production.
The board sat with the image of the basket in front of us and eggs in the basket sat with it. But we took the calculated gamble that a big production in Gaelic could actually raise the profile of the channel of the language. And we're delighted that happened, because Dylan was watched by 2 million people, more than 2 million now because of the the iPlayer. But it also won best drama in public sector regional television in Europe, and also best programme in Regional Television in Europe, which shows you that there is no dearth of talent, there's no dearth of storytelling ability.
And so we would love to do more high profile drama. If you think about it, we spent our entire budget for a year on a four part series, and we'd love to do more of that. In terms of other programming, one of the previous contributors spoke about big gaps. There's big gaps in in our schedule as well. We would love to be doing more programme. We'd love to be doing more digital because again, as we heard earlier, that is where the that's where the youth audience is going.
And we can see, for example, with our learn Gaelic and speak Gaelic, which have been hugely important, hugely welcomed by audiences and learners of the language. We now have nearly 50,000 people signed up to the Facebook and learning Gaelic online. We can see that they're staying with us for over 20 minutes, which shows they're actually savouring the the content on Instagram. We have now 100 and heading towards 110,000 followers on Instagram, again showing the way that young people are consuming the content.
We'd love to do so much, so much more than that. And there was one thing, if you'll allow me just in terms of of finance, just to see, there was a figure that emerged in both houses here in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords recently, which said that Mgla has spent £420 per Gaelic speaker, while Welsh language spent £260 per Welsh speaker. And honestly, we were looking at this figure and we were bemused by it because when you look at the budget Wales has and the budget we had, how do we slice and who has sliced and diced these figures to come up with this with this figure? So what we found looked at was if you add all the sums that go into Gaelic broadcasting and then take the lowest number of speakers, which is those who are totally fluent in Gaelic, which is 69, 70, 000.
Then you get that figure. But the latest census showed that the number of speakers of Gaelic had actually gone up to 130 000, which is a doubling in ten years. And I would say that BBC has played a critical role in that, alongside Gaelic medium education. And the other thing is when you if you are going to do that calculation, that's the least helpful figure for us because every week 360 000 people in Scotland tune in to BBC Alba £360,000.
Then you look at the other figures. So I would seriously ask the committee to basically look at that figure with a fairly jaundiced eye, because we think it's flawed.
And most of the jobs that we've created as a result of production have been in the Highlands and Islands, which badly need jobs. And, you know, for example, we have a media centre in Stornoway, which is now one of the the biggest employers in the whole of the Western Isles. And the demographics of that are fantastic because you see young people who have gone away to college or university, and they go back because they can have careers.
And as somebody. Trevor, I think you mentioned the importance of sustaining communities is vital. So we do all that. Then in terms of the broadcast, what it allows us to do is just the ordinary things that every other TV channel does, because we are now down to new content every week of 21% or 20. Is it 21, 23%? So it's just over 20%, which is not a TV channel. We are.
And if we slip below that, we can see that audiences go away, particularly the young audience, because like everybody else, they're consuming Netflix, Apple TV and BBC Alba. But unless we've got new content, they go away. We can see that in the weekly figures. So, for example, the big thing that we did and we would like to do more of, and I'm sure you'll ask us about the risks associated with spending all of our drama budget on one big production.
The board sat with the image of the basket in front of us and eggs in the basket sat with it. But we took the calculated gamble that a big production in Gaelic could actually raise the profile of the channel of the language. And we're delighted that happened, because Dylan was watched by 2 million people, more than 2 million now because of the the iPlayer. But it also won best drama in public sector regional television in Europe, and also best programme in Regional Television in Europe, which shows you that there is no dearth of talent, there's no dearth of storytelling ability.
And so we would love to do more high profile drama. If you think about it, we spent our entire budget for a year on a four part series, and we'd love to do more of that. In terms of other programming, one of the previous contributors spoke about big gaps. There's big gaps in in our schedule as well. We would love to be doing more programme. We'd love to be doing more digital because again, as we heard earlier, that is where the that's where the youth audience is going.
And we can see, for example, with our learn Gaelic and speak Gaelic, which have been hugely important, hugely welcomed by audiences and learners of the language. We now have nearly 50,000 people signed up to the Facebook and learning Gaelic online. We can see that they're staying with us for over 20 minutes, which shows they're actually savouring the the content on Instagram. We have now 100 and heading towards 110,000 followers on Instagram, again showing the way that young people are consuming the content.
We'd love to do so much, so much more than that. And there was one thing, if you'll allow me just in terms of of finance, just to see, there was a figure that emerged in both houses here in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords recently, which said that Mgla has spent £420 per Gaelic speaker, while Welsh language spent £260 per Welsh speaker. And honestly, we were looking at this figure and we were bemused by it because when you look at the budget Wales has and the budget we had, how do we slice and who has sliced and diced these figures to come up with this with this figure? So what we found looked at was if you add all the sums that go into Gaelic broadcasting and then take the lowest number of speakers, which is those who are totally fluent in Gaelic, which is 69, 70, 000.
Then you get that figure. But the latest census showed that the number of speakers of Gaelic had actually gone up to 130 000, which is a doubling in ten years. And I would say that BBC has played a critical role in that, alongside Gaelic medium education. And the other thing is when you if you are going to do that calculation, that's the least helpful figure for us because every week 360 000 people in Scotland tune in to BBC Alba £360,000.
Then you look at the other figures. So I would seriously ask the committee to basically look at that figure with a fairly jaundiced eye, because we think it's flawed.
10:21
10:21
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
I don't know, we don't have the unless you have depth of knowledge, Donald. But certainly if you if you take the S4c's budget and budget, even when you add the BBC, it's very difficult to calculate how you can get to that figure. I think it's by taking the lowest number of speakers, the highest amount of, of money. If you add out out the money that we receive at England and you add in the the BBC contribution, then you get a figure divided by the lowest number of speakers.
But the lowest number is, is people who daily use the language. We then have the same number again, who are learners, a lot of whom are approaching fluency now and will continue, have shown in their interest that they want to continue. And then you add in all the, well, 360,000 every week who tune in. And then if you look at when we do the really high end productions that we would like to do more of, more than 2 million people watched and Dylan, but I don't know exactly how it was calculated.
But the lowest number is, is people who daily use the language. We then have the same number again, who are learners, a lot of whom are approaching fluency now and will continue, have shown in their interest that they want to continue. And then you add in all the, well, 360,000 every week who tune in. And then if you look at when we do the really high end productions that we would like to do more of, more than 2 million people watched and Dylan, but I don't know exactly how it was calculated.
10:22
10:22
10:23
10:23
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
That comes from Scottish ministers. So the way I've described as previously is that we're like the the orphan child of British broadcasting because everybody loves us. We were set up by Westminster. We are regulated by Ofcom. We have a very valuable and productive partnership with the BBC and was funded by Scottish Ministers. But somehow, somewhere we fall between the stools and I think what we need is somebody to take charge of of where we're going and making sure that we have a proper settlement.
10:23
10:24
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Thank you. And it's interesting to to go to that question on the basis of what Mr. Morrison's just been saying, because, of course, we do have both funded, as Mr. Morrison was saying, by the Scottish Government and BBC Alba, the BBC s channel, which is funded by MG Alba and by the BBC through the licence fee. So there's the funding that MG brings to the channel, and there's the funding that the licence fee brings to the channel.
And when the channel started in 2007 eight, which the chair will remember from her previous life.
And when the channel started in 2007 eight, which the chair will remember from her previous life.
10:24
10:24
Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Earlier at the at that at that point in time, the BBC invested £4 million of licence fee funding at that point, and there was investment, obviously through MG from the Scottish Government, which, as the committee has just heard, has got stuck for some period of time in that same period of time, despite the BBC's revenue decreasing in real terms by over £1 billion. Our investment from the BBC in BBC Alba has gone up by more than inflation, so if you applied the inflation rate to that £4 million original investment, you'd get something like £7.5 million.
We now spend £10 million on BBC Alba and then further investment on BBC online and so on. And there is no less certainty of the BBC's investment in the channel than there is in any other BBC service. So we treat our investment in BBC Alba exactly the same as we would BBC one, BBC radio two, Radio Scotland, Radio na Gael. There is the certainty of licence fee funding for all that we do, to an extent, but as I think Mr.
Dougan was saying in the previous session, there is a real challenge and a and a threat to that licence fee, which I think probably impacts multiyear anything. The licence fee settlement, as it is at the moment, ends in August of 2028. We are in the slightly strange position where 93% of the population of the United Kingdom use the BBC every month, but only 78% of households now are paying for it. So there is a large gap and a growing gap between the number of people who are paying for their public service media, including BBC Alba and BBC Radio Gail, and the costs of providing them.
So the sort of real threat is around the sustainability of funding generally to all of the BBC services and and no service is exempt from that. But but I would say the BBC's contribution to BBC Alba has been more than steady. It's been growing. But we entered that absolutely as a partnership model. And it's vital that the partnership as a whole continues to grow and have some certainty.
We now spend £10 million on BBC Alba and then further investment on BBC online and so on. And there is no less certainty of the BBC's investment in the channel than there is in any other BBC service. So we treat our investment in BBC Alba exactly the same as we would BBC one, BBC radio two, Radio Scotland, Radio na Gael. There is the certainty of licence fee funding for all that we do, to an extent, but as I think Mr.
Dougan was saying in the previous session, there is a real challenge and a and a threat to that licence fee, which I think probably impacts multiyear anything. The licence fee settlement, as it is at the moment, ends in August of 2028. We are in the slightly strange position where 93% of the population of the United Kingdom use the BBC every month, but only 78% of households now are paying for it. So there is a large gap and a growing gap between the number of people who are paying for their public service media, including BBC Alba and BBC Radio Gail, and the costs of providing them.
So the sort of real threat is around the sustainability of funding generally to all of the BBC services and and no service is exempt from that. But but I would say the BBC's contribution to BBC Alba has been more than steady. It's been growing. But we entered that absolutely as a partnership model. And it's vital that the partnership as a whole continues to grow and have some certainty.
10:26
10:26
10:27
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
I think if you take and Dylan, for example, as the as the drama, high level drama , that really fits neatly within a financial year. So therefore, to be able to plan ahead for high level drama, the other important element for our viewers is we like to think of ourselves as the home of women's football. At BBC Alba, we show a lot of women's football and it's been fantastic for the game and it's been it's been very good for the channel as well.
However, sports rights are negotiated over a 3 or 4 year period. So this is becomes very high up the risk register for the board. When we're having to
However, sports rights are negotiated over a 3 or 4 year period. So this is becomes very high up the risk register for the board. When we're having to
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The board when we were having to say, do we commit to this? And the answer is yes, we want to commit to it, but we have no. guarantee that we can fulfill that commitment without the multiyear. So yeah, there's a risk there and there would be security for us. But then it's not just for me, it's for the people who work for us. It's the jobs that are involved in, in actually showing these games on TV.
And also, and it has, I think, you know, women's football is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. And I think in Scotland, BBC coverage of it has helped contribute to that. But but . It's
And also, and it has, I think, you know, women's football is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. And I think in Scotland, BBC coverage of it has helped contribute to that. But but . It's
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10:28
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
protections for Gaelic language broadcasting? So I think Ofcom is operating licence for the BBC is a stronger regulatory footing as as any BBC Alba is regulated in exactly the same way as BBC one or as Radio Scotland or BBC Radio Wales or any of the other. services that that we have. And the operating licence makes a number of clear provisions for Gaelic, which I think are really helpful. So in terms of BBC Alba, it determines that there will be a weekday evening news.
programme that's provided entirely from licence fee funds. It's broadcast live from Inverness every evening in the studios there. It also provides for a news review programme at the weekend and then beyond the BBC Alba conditions. It also provides for learning in Gaelic. So our learning provision, yes, exists on BBC Alba, but also in our partnership through Speak Gaelic and the bite size service that we offer for children and learners. There's provision there for regular news on radio and through the day, and also for Gaelic content to be on the BBC website, particularly the news.
content that again operates primarily out of Inverness, Stornoway and Portree and Glasgow, although also journalists based in the Scottish Parliament. So the the regulatory system underpins all of that, but I think it does also allow creative freedom and allows those who co-commission with us. And Margaret Mary would be able to talk about the content decisions that we make. But working with our.
programme that's provided entirely from licence fee funds. It's broadcast live from Inverness every evening in the studios there. It also provides for a news review programme at the weekend and then beyond the BBC Alba conditions. It also provides for learning in Gaelic. So our learning provision, yes, exists on BBC Alba, but also in our partnership through Speak Gaelic and the bite size service that we offer for children and learners. There's provision there for regular news on radio and through the day, and also for Gaelic content to be on the BBC website, particularly the news.
content that again operates primarily out of Inverness, Stornoway and Portree and Glasgow, although also journalists based in the Scottish Parliament. So the the regulatory system underpins all of that, but I think it does also allow creative freedom and allows those who co-commission with us. And Margaret Mary would be able to talk about the content decisions that we make. But working with our.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
That charter didn't envisage BBC Alba and it didn't envisage iPlayer. And yet within about 18 months, both those things existed and became absolutely part of the waft and weave of the culture of Scotland in the UK. So I think you need a framework that sets the minimum requirements, particularly around how we service. journalism and tell the story of Scotland to.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
sustainability of Gaelic language broadcasting? So in our BBC response to the UK government's Green Paper, we did say how. important the languages that the BBC operate in remain and we see them remaining in the future. Obviously, like everything else, that does require sustainable funding for public broadcasting and for the BBC as we move into the future. But I would expect the charter to underpin the fact that we have services in Welsh and in Gaelic with that freedom to respond at the speed that the audience needs us to respond, and perhaps also nod to the other languages that we work with.
I know the committee has heard this morning around Gaelic Irish in in the Republic of Ireland and and around Welsh, the BBC also working with the Northern Ireland Screen broadcast funds, which the witnesses earlier mentioned also produce content that is government funded via Northern Ireland screen in. Ulster-Scots and in the Irish language in Northern Ireland, sometimes working in Irish in partnership with tJi. Kara, who you heard from earlier in Cornwall, were working again in a partnership model with Cornwall Council.
They have helped us invest in learning. Cornish podcast we present the News in Cornish on BBC Radio Cornwall, and we also have a partnership with Manx Radio in the Isle of Man, where we help support learning in Manx with some Manx output. So I think the charter needs to allow the BBC to continue to evolve that.
I know the committee has heard this morning around Gaelic Irish in in the Republic of Ireland and and around Welsh, the BBC also working with the Northern Ireland Screen broadcast funds, which the witnesses earlier mentioned also produce content that is government funded via Northern Ireland screen in. Ulster-Scots and in the Irish language in Northern Ireland, sometimes working in Irish in partnership with tJi. Kara, who you heard from earlier in Cornwall, were working again in a partnership model with Cornwall Council.
They have helped us invest in learning. Cornish podcast we present the News in Cornish on BBC Radio Cornwall, and we also have a partnership with Manx Radio in the Isle of Man, where we help support learning in Manx with some Manx output. So I think the charter needs to allow the BBC to continue to evolve that.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
stable funding and a statutory framework? Well, I think I can't underestimate by saying it'd be catastrophic for us because if you you know, if you were running any sort of private company and the value of your turnover had reduced by. 45% over a decade, that. trajectory would be very concerning indeed. So and the most important thing for us, it's not the it's not just the Mgla, but it's not BBC itself, but it's about the whole.
language and the importance of the language to the increasing number of young people, young people who are embracing it now, who are learning it. And as we heard from the earlier speakers, the importance of we are no longer just a linear TV channel. We are having to work on. Multi-platforms again, our colleagues in the Celtic countries, they got serious millions of pounds of support to help them. diversify on the dash to digital as we call it.
We got no money to to support it with that. So if that.
language and the importance of the language to the increasing number of young people, young people who are embracing it now, who are learning it. And as we heard from the earlier speakers, the importance of we are no longer just a linear TV channel. We are having to work on. Multi-platforms again, our colleagues in the Celtic countries, they got serious millions of pounds of support to help them. diversify on the dash to digital as we call it.
We got no money to to support it with that. So if that.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
We see the fates of both quite closely intertwined, just. absolutely linked, because we would like to say that when the Mgla became a BBC, mgla existed, and then BBC Alba came on the screen that we've seen a. doubling of the number of people with ability in the language. And I would say there's two key factors in that, and that is Gaelic medium. education and and BBC Alba.
And the other thing that we do, which I've spoken to a lot of musicians about this, is you look at the the. explosion in the number of. traditional music and traditional bands who are playing Gaelic music, and they're now exporting those all over the world. The first platform they had for this was Gaelic radio and Gaelic television. And you are now looking at potentially hundreds of people earning a living from music.
And again, would they have done this? Well, maybe they would have. But we gave them the platform that allowed them the confidence to express themselves on stage, on.
And the other thing that we do, which I've spoken to a lot of musicians about this, is you look at the the. explosion in the number of. traditional music and traditional bands who are playing Gaelic music, and they're now exporting those all over the world. The first platform they had for this was Gaelic radio and Gaelic television. And you are now looking at potentially hundreds of people earning a living from music.
And again, would they have done this? Well, maybe they would have. But we gave them the platform that allowed them the confidence to express themselves on stage, on.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
or is it guaranteed long term funding, or do you see them both as being. Can I be greedy and say both? Can I say, can I, can I say both? And the reason for that is if you have a. statutory status that should lead to improved, it makes it easier to to make the arguments for, for funding the. So I would, I would have to say that we.
We need both.
We need both.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
think it's important to say here as well is that in your own on your committee website, you talk about. You raise the word jeopardy. Israeli. And there's another side to that as well, though, because if the. charter and the government made the right decision, you're creating huge opportunity. And it's not that far to go in terms of finance between jeopardy! And the sort of. catastrophic outlook I'm telling you about here, and creating a world of opportunity where we're creating hundreds of jobs in rural areas, in.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Our money is not going to double overnight. But this is our role where this committee can recommend to. DCMs how you go about doing it. And, you know, I think the the E report said if our money had kept pace with inflation, we'd be sitting at around. 30 million now rather than 15. So we're talking about. £15 million to to get us back to where I think we should be.
Is that enough? Well, compared to the other Celtic countries would still be way behind, but it would make a big change for us as well as, you know, creating content, creating digital content, sustaining the language, sustaining all these kids who are coming out of Gaelic medium.
Is that enough? Well, compared to the other Celtic countries would still be way behind, but it would make a big change for us as well as, you know, creating content, creating digital content, sustaining the language, sustaining all these kids who are coming out of Gaelic medium.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
It probably wouldn't exist. There might be small pockets here and there, and I think the language would be in a in a much worse. condition than than it currently is. BBC has been hugely important. Mr. McCulloch has explained how the contributions from the BBC has increased above the level of inflation. So we. We welcome that. And we also the.
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Douglas McAllister
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Douglas McAllister
are, I think, very important for us as well. Can I just ask on that point, from the evidence we've heard this morning, the BBC funding has increased every year because we hear, you know, it was originally £4 million. It's gone up to 10 million. So the BBC is increasing the funding in line with inflation, if not higher than inflation. The problem seems to be your core funding from Scottish Government, because what I can see and hear from evidence today, it's largely been.
flatlined since the.
flatlined since the.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Your budget, is it not? I think. Well, I suppose the facts speak for themselves. Is that the budget, the funding was frozen for ten years, and anything that's frozen for ten years, broadcasting inflation tends to run above inflation elsewhere. So that's why we. And again, it wasn't our figures. We brought in experts to do the analysis. Yes that's right. And the BBC contribution has been valuable. It's given us the the news.
It's given us current affairs. We do the New Year ceilidh, which I think is probably the. best New Year show on television. It's straightforward party. It's good. But yes, the funding, the the freezing of the funding for ten years, we can't get away from it has . Been
It's given us current affairs. We do the New Year ceilidh, which I think is probably the. best New Year show on television. It's straightforward party. It's good. But yes, the funding, the the freezing of the funding for ten years, we can't get away from it has . Been
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Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
And how significant are those. contributions to the language? Yes, as as Mr.. Morrison said just now, the BBC has been. broadcasting in Gaelic since. 1923 and has grown and developed our. services over that period of time. We have a portfolio of services including BBC Alba but also. critically BBC Radio and Gail, which is a is an audio service which can be heard throughout the world via .
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Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
A variety of podcasts, from learning to entertainment to a more recent addition was around about a content for the World Cup and following Scotland's journey during. During these. I don't know if I'll say fateful weeks. So we offer a. A window or a door to the Gaelic language and culture. Through BBC Alba. We also deliver a daily service for a language rich daily service for. For Gaelic speakers through radio lingual.
But also we have BBC bitesize, which supports young people through their learning journey through school, all the way through to to the latter stages of their education. We also partner with the BBC brands CBeebies and Cbbc to deliver a daily schedule of children's programmes. And that has been. That's been the. backbone of BBC Alba, but also is really attractive from an iPlayer point of view.
So in terms of of core public service genre, we have a new service which. broadcasts hourly on radio and and Gail every evening. It provides a sort of live heartbeat for the TV channel.
But also we have BBC bitesize, which supports young people through their learning journey through school, all the way through to to the latter stages of their education. We also partner with the BBC brands CBeebies and Cbbc to deliver a daily schedule of children's programmes. And that has been. That's been the. backbone of BBC Alba, but also is really attractive from an iPlayer point of view.
So in terms of of core public service genre, we have a new service which. broadcasts hourly on radio and and Gail every evening. It provides a sort of live heartbeat for the TV channel.
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Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Our news is being. consumed via social and digital media. So we've seen a real growth in the consumption of our news. On a recently added account, on Instagram, on Facebook and and on X. So the BBC supports Gaelic in a in a variety of ways through the core public service genre of news, current affairs.
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Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
And just recently the. The partnership model has been has been reviewed as well in order to make sure that our partnership with MGM is is future facing. We're really ambitious for for Gaelic broadcasting and for Gaelic language. And that that review of our. partnership looked to. drive digital growth to, to invest more in content of high impact and to support the growth of the language, which we do through partnership services such as Speak Gaelic, which has.
undergone a really impressive growth since its inception during during the lockdown years, I think.
undergone a really impressive growth since its inception during during the lockdown years, I think.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So that's the ways that the BBC supports the Gaelic language. And if I could just add to that, that. renegotiation of the partnership, which was voluntary and entered into by both parties, it ended up as a really. strengthening the service as well. And if I could just add a little bit, Mr. McAllister, to my answer to you, the freeze. We were frozen for ten years. We have to give the former deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, Credit Chief Founders an extra.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
was a one off. And but I think it's it's not annual core funding. It's not annual core funding, isn't it ? That that's locked, that bit is locked in. But we don't know what we're we don't have a multi year deal. So we don't know what we'll get. And but we haven't actually met the new Gaelic minister yet. So we . Look
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10:45
Patricia Ferguson
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Patricia Ferguson
meeting. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you Miss Murray. And some of us had the opportunity to visit the CBeebies set at the BBC. And that was really fun, I have to say. But if I could ask you, Mr. McCulloch, we've talked a lot today about parity between Welsh and Gaelic language broadcasting. So how significant is the BBC s in-kind .
Contribution
Contribution
10:46
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
to. SC4 in comparison? So that it's different, but they're not like for like services, as I think your witnesses from S4c's were saying earlier on, they are a service that runs from 6 or 7 in the morning till midnight. BBC Alba is a service that runs from five in the evening. When we start with the children's content that Margaret Mary Murray was just speaking about, and also runs till around midnight.
So in terms of the proportion of hours of.
So in terms of the proportion of hours of.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
I think they are reasonably similar. But but the model is is different. The BBC is obviously making content in Gaelic for a BBC service. There's a lot of history of the BBC making. content for. SS4C in Welsh that predates the channel's existence. So different models, different. systems and different models for the other languages I was talking about earlier. So I think a lot of the time people compare Welsh and Gaelic.
It is two different models with two different systems. Here is a partnership model on a BBC service. S4CS is a different model with different lengths of broadcast. Our contribution to Cornish very different again where the news in Cornish is broadcast once a week in Gaelic we're broadcasting the news every hour. The numbers of speakers of Cornish is obviously lower but not insignificant. And again, we're investing there to help more people learn. So I think we we need to grow these partnerships and move at the right speed for the audience.
I don't think things should be the same. I don't think anyone is saying this should be the same, but I think they probably should be broadly proportionate. And I think the BBC's contribution to BBC Alba is . Broadly
It is two different models with two different systems. Here is a partnership model on a BBC service. S4CS is a different model with different lengths of broadcast. Our contribution to Cornish very different again where the news in Cornish is broadcast once a week in Gaelic we're broadcasting the news every hour. The numbers of speakers of Cornish is obviously lower but not insignificant. And again, we're investing there to help more people learn. So I think we we need to grow these partnerships and move at the right speed for the audience.
I don't think things should be the same. I don't think anyone is saying this should be the same, but I think they probably should be broadly proportionate. And I think the BBC's contribution to BBC Alba is . Broadly
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10:48
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
for BBC Alba. Is that protected in any way? Not nothing is protected at BBC Scotland at the moment. But we are not. expecting our investment in BBC Alba to change, particularly in the current financial year. But the BBC Scotland's budget is under a lot of pressure and we're on record as saying that across the savings we're trying to deliver at the moment, we're trying to save around £10 million.
Now, I know in the sort of s4c's context, you look at 10 million and think that's not enough. I mean, the the entirety of our spend on BBC Alba is also the equivalent of what we're looking to save in other areas of BBC Scotland at the moment. So we are under real pressure. The committee will have seen some of that recently. We expect around 60 rules to close in BBC Scotland this year. Out of our headcount and across the UK, we're looking at around 2000 people over the next couple of years out of our workforce leaving the BBC.
These are really serious savings challenges.
Now, I know in the sort of s4c's context, you look at 10 million and think that's not enough. I mean, the the entirety of our spend on BBC Alba is also the equivalent of what we're looking to save in other areas of BBC Scotland at the moment. So we are under real pressure. The committee will have seen some of that recently. We expect around 60 rules to close in BBC Scotland this year. Out of our headcount and across the UK, we're looking at around 2000 people over the next couple of years out of our workforce leaving the BBC.
These are really serious savings challenges.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
real terms, we have increased our investment in Gaelic precisely because we know how important it is that the BBC is there to support speakers of minority languages, not least, as Mr. Morrison was saying, there aren't many other people who are making that investment, and we're very grateful to have the partner to do it with. We see the economic impact of that all around Scotland, and I think we wouldn't move away from that lightly. But but I can't stress enough, we are in.
really difficult times financially because of that growing gap between users and payers, and you're seeing real impact on our English language. services now. So a number of of Scottish titles that aren't coming back for second series, third series, a number of other titles that are coming back for shorter runs. The coverage of of this place, the politics programme on a Wednesday will cease. So there will no longer be a Scottish Prime Minister's Question programme on the basis you can watch Prime Minister's Questions somewhere else.
We are looking at shrinking the length of some of our radio news output. These are our real difficult . Decisions, but
really difficult times financially because of that growing gap between users and payers, and you're seeing real impact on our English language. services now. So a number of of Scottish titles that aren't coming back for second series, third series, a number of other titles that are coming back for shorter runs. The coverage of of this place, the politics programme on a Wednesday will cease. So there will no longer be a Scottish Prime Minister's Question programme on the basis you can watch Prime Minister's Questions somewhere else.
We are looking at shrinking the length of some of our radio news output. These are our real difficult . Decisions, but
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Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Gaelic. broadcasting is protected? I think the BBC's investment in in Gaelic. broadcasting demonstrates real value for money in terms of the way that we we operate in in partnership. And I think that that investment. We can we can. demonstrate that a. We operate a really lean. structure as well as the content that we make. The models that we use in order to deliver. content are innovative.
Just recently, the, the, the BBC funded a coverage of our Commonwealth Games, and we did that in, in a very. innovative way, which I think offers the BBC some some lessons, some learning in terms of how how best to ensure that its . Investment
Just recently, the, the, the BBC funded a coverage of our Commonwealth Games, and we did that in, in a very. innovative way, which I think offers the BBC some some lessons, some learning in terms of how how best to ensure that its . Investment
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Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
If further BBC savings are required? I think the the. investment that we have is is tight for the services that we deliver. However, that doesn't diminish the ambition that we have for the growth of the language. And I think I think it's about. recognising the. value in that. investment and how that value is. demonstrated across the sector,
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
in. communities across Scotland. Could I add just a wee word there? Because I was with the BBC for many years, and also because we're in this partnership, the this partnership actually gives value to the BBC. That's immeasurable in many ways because of the diversity and the role of the BBC in. representing all our communities and we help. And the. Bbmg and BBC work together to.
represent the. Some of the areas of the Highlands and the islands that are probably underrepresented. When you look across the whole of, of broadcasting. So it's it's valuable and it helps the BBC. deliver on its core purpose as well. And just on the. practical day to day are all the Gaelic speaking. reporters that , that you you employ, they also speak English. So if they end up on doing a story, they will very often double up on doing something for Reporting Scotland.
In fact, one of the main contributors to Reporting Scotland for many years from Inverness was bilingual, did did Gaelic .
represent the. Some of the areas of the Highlands and the islands that are probably underrepresented. When you look across the whole of, of broadcasting. So it's it's valuable and it helps the BBC. deliver on its core purpose as well. And just on the. practical day to day are all the Gaelic speaking. reporters that , that you you employ, they also speak English. So if they end up on doing a story, they will very often double up on doing something for Reporting Scotland.
In fact, one of the main contributors to Reporting Scotland for many years from Inverness was bilingual, did did Gaelic .
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10:53
Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
Thank you. Did you want to add something to that? Yes, please. So I think I think the discussion is, is I think dealing with the what are the obvious deficits with Gaelic. broadcasting at the moment? And those I think are laid out in our submissions here and elsewhere. And that is that Gaelic is more Gaelic broadcasting is more than BBC Alba. It's more than the BBC regulatory framework governing it.
BBC Alba is not just a portfolio channel within the BBC. BBC Alba is the UK's only Gaelic language service, and it's delivered in a. partnership between Alba and the BBC. It fulfils the UK's policy promise under its acceptance of the European Charter for regional or minority languages, that there should be a Gaelic service. So the deficit that we have, and which is, I think, apparent here, which is which is coming, is that there isn't a mechanism that says this is what the licence fee will contribute, and this is what the Scottish Ministers will contribute.
And there isn't a compact that says clearly why that's. important and how much that that's that's what it's going to be. And that, in a nutshell, is what we are proposing. And when we're looking at the discrepancies between Gaelic situation and Irish and Welsh, it's predominantly that they have that certainty of why it's. important and who's going to deliver it, and how much resource is going to be allocated against that.
So in some ways, I think one of the solutions to this is what S4c's have got, which is an allocation from the licence fee. And if there was an allocation from the licence fee, then that would answer that question about how can funding be protected? We're not looking for special. protections to to be honest with you, because we realise that funding is tight in many ways. But if there are a set of priorities that UK Government and Parliament has in relation to Gaelic.
BBC Alba is not just a portfolio channel within the BBC. BBC Alba is the UK's only Gaelic language service, and it's delivered in a. partnership between Alba and the BBC. It fulfils the UK's policy promise under its acceptance of the European Charter for regional or minority languages, that there should be a Gaelic service. So the deficit that we have, and which is, I think, apparent here, which is which is coming, is that there isn't a mechanism that says this is what the licence fee will contribute, and this is what the Scottish Ministers will contribute.
And there isn't a compact that says clearly why that's. important and how much that that's that's what it's going to be. And that, in a nutshell, is what we are proposing. And when we're looking at the discrepancies between Gaelic situation and Irish and Welsh, it's predominantly that they have that certainty of why it's. important and who's going to deliver it, and how much resource is going to be allocated against that.
So in some ways, I think one of the solutions to this is what S4c's have got, which is an allocation from the licence fee. And if there was an allocation from the licence fee, then that would answer that question about how can funding be protected? We're not looking for special. protections to to be honest with you, because we realise that funding is tight in many ways. But if there are a set of priorities that UK Government and Parliament has in relation to Gaelic.
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10:55
Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
And those are shared by Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, then those should be adequately provided for by, by, by both partners. And it's their contention. It's my contention, at least, that that should be brought out of the realm of of management decision making. It should be policy led decision making.
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Speaker 5
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Speaker 5
Programmes and drama programmes for children that have been part of the EBU scheme have also benefited from tax credit and partnership funding from Screen Scotland. But I guess the biggest area of benefit is in drama, where in the first series and the second series benefited from the tax credit which supplements the budget to a significant degree. So yes, it's a it's a really a. valuable . Part
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10:57
Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
percentage wise, you know, so in very rough terms, the threshold of. £1 million an hour needs to be met for high end Avex or tax credits. And practically speaking, we need to find the funding for. 800,000 of that. And the tax credits take it up up to 1 million. I think the question that was being addressed in the previous session was around those kinds of credits being more accessible and the financial limits being or thresholds being set at a more reasonable level, particularly for minority language.
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
Threshold down a lot lower than than 1 million? Yes. So there's a lot of a lot of obviously interests are looking for that for that to happen. But and the challenge with it is if it's set by Treasury, it needs to wash its face in terms of bringing money in from from outside as well. It's there. It's there as a financial incentive to drive inward investment primarily. So it needs to pay for itself.
And I think when, when you reduce the thresholds to low and apply it to a lot of programming, the dividend needs to be as much about the cultural return and as, as as much about the or the investment in the future economic growth as about immediate return .
And I think when, when you reduce the thresholds to low and apply it to a lot of programming, the dividend needs to be as much about the cultural return and as, as as much about the or the investment in the future economic growth as about immediate return .
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10:59
Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
benefited from that? Is it just that that one we were speaking about earlier or. No. So, so the some of the children's programming benefits because there's no threshold. It's just a kind of a test of, of what, what. And that's through through the BBC's. arrangements and the so smaller dramas with the EBU within a European Broadcasting Union scheme, that's probably been. 5 or 6 of them.
And the the two,
And the the two,
11:00
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The serious ones. Series two of. Okay, so very few. And could I add add to that as well in terms of the kind of circular economy because of the budget for England series one was it was. £1 million an episode. So that was. 4 million when and tax credit made up, what is it, about 20%, 20%, roughly. And then when we did some analysis on the spend, nearly.
£1 million of the four was spent. directly into.
£1 million of the four was spent. directly into.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Food suppliers in the Western Isles. So had we not done that, that million pounds wouldn't have happened. That was for five weeks of filming. Then we see these two has just finished filming and I think that was seven weeks. So we'd expect to surpass above £1 million. So you can actually see this money that is come to us for creating programmes. And . Then
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
boost Gaelic broadcasting. Oh, lots of schemes. But the, you know. partnerships I think is a way forward. We've got the partnership with the BBC, but MGM is not prevented in seeking. partners partnerships with other. broadcasters as well. You know, any any of the streamers for example. But we would need to have skin in the game and we would have to have the money to put skin in the game to do a to deliver a partnership.
You know, you can see that some of them are, you know, the Netflix and these big streamers are filming in in Spain and but money, money . Will be
You know, you can see that some of them are, you know, the Netflix and these big streamers are filming in in Spain and but money, money . Will be
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Douglas McAllister
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Douglas McAllister
well. Thank you. Chair from Douglas McAllister. Yes, please. Chair, on that point about partnership funding, can the argument not be made that you deserve additional funding from other external agencies, such as Creative Scotland or Scottish Enterprise? If you are creating those. programmes and you've demonstrated to us the vast economic benefit or gain everyone is getting from that. The community in the Highlands .
And
And
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
Yeah, and we did that for series. Do you want to break that down? Yes. So in series two of enduring, for example, the local authority and Highlands Enterprise both. contributed to effectively making sure that it happened on, on, on that on that patch because of the the vast economic benefits. I think there's, there's a wider point about this, which is which is early on my my kind of job, I was asked, I was tasked not just to spend the money wisely, but to make sure that every pound that was received was going to generate a lot more in value and other income.
So last year, we had almost. £5 million of additional investment into content that we were funding. It wasn't money into English, but it was money into the projects that we had.
So last year, we had almost. £5 million of additional investment into content that we were funding. It wasn't money into English, but it was money into the projects that we had.
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
Represents a vast. opportunity and a huge talent pool. If the funding is there to support strategising, for example, international documentary making more more than it currently currently is, then that's part of part of our part of the question, I think, in relation to what the benefits of Multi-annual funding, what would it permit you to do that you currently can't do? And one of the things that would permit would be a stepped approach to making sure that our.
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
the Gaelic language have the marketing, the networking, the ideas, development, the partnering. opportunity to to work in European and worldwide networks, to originate ideas that other other broadcasters and other agencies and other countries will, will, will. support that. A very good example of a Gaelic programme based out of South Uist a few a number of years ago now, but there were 14 partners in that. 13 of them were from the Baltic nations and agencies and governments and.
And broadcasters around the Baltic nations. And we were a minority funder. And yet it was a programme for for BBC Alba and for the. Scandinavian and Baltic channels. And that that is a documentary series, three, three episodes about about the art of Yoiking. And it was very interesting show, by the way. But but those are that kind of represents an example of the. opportunity that we have in Scotland.
I think Gaelic broadcasting, Gaelic media is one of those catalysts for for enabling that to happen. The skills are there. What's not there is that stepped approach to let's invest over five years to try and get .
And broadcasters around the Baltic nations. And we were a minority funder. And yet it was a programme for for BBC Alba and for the. Scandinavian and Baltic channels. And that that is a documentary series, three, three episodes about about the art of Yoiking. And it was very interesting show, by the way. But but those are that kind of represents an example of the. opportunity that we have in Scotland.
I think Gaelic broadcasting, Gaelic media is one of those catalysts for for enabling that to happen. The skills are there. What's not there is that stepped approach to let's invest over five years to try and get .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Are aware of a phenomenon called set jetting, which is people coming to the country to visit the sets that are used by usually the high profile. international sales. But Shetland has seen the benefit of that because of the what is it, 7 or 8 series, and we would hope. And Dylan will have a. It's too early to judge the. The impact on the Western . Isles,
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
But it's very difficult to get a bed in Stornoway these days, if I may. I think those. Those partnerships and also the economic benefits apply to pretty much everything that we make in Scotland, both in Gaelic and in English. And as this committee has heard before in our English language content, we're increasingly. requiring partners to be able to make stuff at all of scale and to the level that the audience expects. I think when Lewis Thornton appeared here as a witness, she shared with the committee that the BBC drama The Ridge had been funded, yes, by BBC Scotland, but also by Sky New Zealand, and ended up filmed both in Scotland and in New Zealand as a result of that partnership.
We've also got this committee discussed at length the BBC's investment in the traitors, but we commissioned an economic impact report of that. And, as Mr. Morrison has said, talking to people like. VisitScotland and.
We've also got this committee discussed at length the BBC's investment in the traitors, but we commissioned an economic impact report of that. And, as Mr. Morrison has said, talking to people like. VisitScotland and.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
can see an absolute impact of requests about journeys to the Highlands, to Inverness. And we think the first three series of that added about. £22 million of GVA to the Highland economy. So there is definitively an impact of having public investment in content filmed in Scotland, in Gaelic and in English, on tourism, on economic development, on jobs. And we . Can see
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
think the A position is that the BBC charter should should address Gaelic. specifically and not address it as a subset of the BBC. nations and regions. I think, as I said before, Gaelic broadcasting is a matter of UK policy. It's delivered in a partnership. It's not solely a BBC concern. I think there's a. regulatory framework, which is the the prism, the regulatory prism at the moment is entirely through the prism of the BBC operating licence.
And so, for example, last year, Ofcom's review of the BBC s performance was 74 pages long, six lines dedicated to BBC Alba. And and my question is, is that enough to be in the public domain about the contribution of BBC Alba, other than what we say in Gallup's annual report, which is quite full. But is that enough for the the the. regulator and for the, you know, the UK's public policy to be saying about that was a good job well done.
Or that was a, you know, a poor job or could you do better here or whatever. So that whole the lack of the statute or the the. structural kind of. provision means that we rely sometimes quite, quite. beneficially on the BBC, remembering that there is a Gaelic priority amongst the other thousand and one priorities that the BBC currently has. And if there was a certain. There was a special statutory designation or chartered.
designation for the partnership that delivers Gaelic.
And so, for example, last year, Ofcom's review of the BBC s performance was 74 pages long, six lines dedicated to BBC Alba. And and my question is, is that enough to be in the public domain about the contribution of BBC Alba, other than what we say in Gallup's annual report, which is quite full. But is that enough for the the the. regulator and for the, you know, the UK's public policy to be saying about that was a good job well done.
Or that was a, you know, a poor job or could you do better here or whatever. So that whole the lack of the statute or the the. structural kind of. provision means that we rely sometimes quite, quite. beneficially on the BBC, remembering that there is a Gaelic priority amongst the other thousand and one priorities that the BBC currently has. And if there was a certain. There was a special statutory designation or chartered.
designation for the partnership that delivers Gaelic.
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Lillian Jones
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Lillian Jones
That's very interesting. Thank you, Lillian Jones. Thank you, chair Mr. McCulloch. So drawing on your. experience with S4, C, what do you see as the most important features of the Welsh language. broadcasting model that are currently absent from the BBC Alba Framework and which, if any, do you think would have the greatest impact on the long term. sustainability of Gaelic. broadcasting .
If applied to
If applied to
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
BBC Alba? So again, I think models are different. In Wales, for example, the BBC. provides two radio stations in Welsh , Rajkumari, Rajkumari di. As part of the way that that service has grown and evolved in time. But those are obviously BBC services. And then alongside that you have an independent. broadcaster s S4, who are presenting the content that your witnesses earlier described to you.
In some ways, I would say that that there is more opportunity for sharing of content services. And as Margaret Mary Murray was saying earlier, to maximise value for money in a model where we are working in close partnership across everything we do, than there is maybe in models where you have multiple players, but the histories of the two. languages and the broadcast services of the two languages are very different, and likewise with with the other languages that we're working in, our journey with Ulster Scots and with the Irish language in Northern Ireland through Northern Ireland screen's broadcast fund.
Again, a very different model where we are commissioning both audio and video content, but for within the BBC.
In some ways, I would say that that there is more opportunity for sharing of content services. And as Margaret Mary Murray was saying earlier, to maximise value for money in a model where we are working in close partnership across everything we do, than there is maybe in models where you have multiple players, but the histories of the two. languages and the broadcast services of the two languages are very different, and likewise with with the other languages that we're working in, our journey with Ulster Scots and with the Irish language in Northern Ireland through Northern Ireland screen's broadcast fund.
Again, a very different model where we are commissioning both audio and video content, but for within the BBC.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
also with partners from time to time. And in Cornish, as I said, we've worked with the local authority in Cornwall to try and drive uptake of the language, which itself will then hopefully generate further content in due course. So I don't feel that one model is better than another. I think it's important that the public broadcaster of the United Kingdom can work in an appropriate way with the languages, but we did say in our Green Paper response that we know how.
important the language services that the BBC provide are. We are absolutely committed to them. But at the risk of sounding like a slightly broken record, it is subject to sustainable funding for the BBC. And I think your witnesses from Padraic said that earlier, in terms of their contributions from the BBC, they do. recognise the . Jeopardy
important the language services that the BBC provide are. We are absolutely committed to them. But at the risk of sounding like a slightly broken record, it is subject to sustainable funding for the BBC. And I think your witnesses from Padraic said that earlier, in terms of their contributions from the BBC, they do. recognise the . Jeopardy
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Italian football to promoting the Gaelic language? Very important. Both the women's football. We see ourselves, as I said earlier, as the home of women's football in Scotland, it's been good for the channel. It's been also very good for the women's game in Scotland. And then we as a board, I suppose if you are going to sum up our. philosophy and.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
It's basically be brave because we need to be noticed and try and make , try and make an impact as much of an impact as we can with the budget. So pre the run up to the World Cup, we managed to get eight games from Serie A. involving the Scottish stars who are playing in Italy, and that was fantastic. It drew in an audience. And this goes back to the figures I was explaining to the chair about.
This brought in football fans, Gaelic speakers, non Gaelic speakers, but it was really good with the youth audience as well. We saw a real spike in new content, fresh.
This brought in football fans, Gaelic speakers, non Gaelic speakers, but it was really good with the youth audience as well. We saw a real spike in new content, fresh.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Interesting content and probably surprising content on on BBC Alba. So that has been really important. And now looking ahead, Syria came to us to ask, do we want to continue doing that? And so we again, have a partnership with this time. It's with BBC sport on the iPlayer. We will do. 19 games on BBC two, and BBC sport will do 19 games on Syria. So sport is hugely important for us.
Music is really important as well and so is so is drama , because all these things bring in, they've got an interest which. transcends any. linguistic barriers that exist. And I don't think the barriers exist. But football is slightly different, although the technology is improving, that you will get. subtitles with live. commentary that that technology is not far away. But with . Football
Music is really important as well and so is so is drama , because all these things bring in, they've got an interest which. transcends any. linguistic barriers that exist. And I don't think the barriers exist. But football is slightly different, although the technology is improving, that you will get. subtitles with live. commentary that that technology is not far away. But with . Football
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
it's not really promoting the Gaelic language? Or is it promoting the Gaelic language? It's absolutely promoting the Gaelic language and it's taking. Part of our drive is to break the. Take the Gaelic language to new. audiences and to increase interest in Gaelic language so that people are watching things and thinking, actually, I'd quite like to learn this language, why can't I learn it? And that's shown a huge increase in the number of people who are logging in to speak Gaelic language series.
One of the most successful things we do, and all of these things are interlinked. Why do we do sport? Because lots of people are interested in it and we're we're able to. We saw a deal and we we went for it similarly with the with the Commonwealth Games, which were in English language behind a paywall, we came in and did the sport in Gaelic. But again, the audience on the iPlayer was fantastic.
On the channel was really good as well because we focused, we didn't have studio content. We just focused. entirely on the sport because we thought that's what people want to see and if they're . Watching
One of the most successful things we do, and all of these things are interlinked. Why do we do sport? Because lots of people are interested in it and we're we're able to. We saw a deal and we we went for it similarly with the with the Commonwealth Games, which were in English language behind a paywall, we came in and did the sport in Gaelic. But again, the audience on the iPlayer was fantastic.
On the channel was really good as well because we focused, we didn't have studio content. We just focused. entirely on the sport because we thought that's what people want to see and if they're . Watching
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
you spending on Italian football, for example? Oh. Oh no, that's I need to do this in my head. So we the way that we work is we're not spending an awful lot on rights per se. The a lot of the cost of sports, although we are spending money on rights, obviously, but it's a very small amount, relatively speaking. The cost of these things is usually in production. So that's part of the balance that we have to kind of work out.
So if, for example, we take a package for Scottish women's football or the. SPfl or, or rugby, or in this case with Serie A, what it means is that not just are we able to show those games, but quite often we've got to show those games. So we've got to find the producer who's going to produce that. So what we have in our budget and the way that we budget out, we have one of these multi-year deals that we've been, we've been talking about with a sports provider just extended for a couple of years.
And that gives us. security of what we're going to be paying. And within that, there is a portfolio of a lot of different ways that the thing could shape out. So we kind of have to move things around to make sure that to do Italian football, we have to do a little less of something else. So the cost of it, we can we can work out roughly. We at MGM spend about a quarter of our content budget on sport and delivers about 60% of our audience on a, on a, on a weekly basis.
So the return kind of by audience is, is, is, is really good. But as you'll know, sport is kind of on the up and up and up. We just can't get enough sport now with, with broadcasters and particularly live event based.
So if, for example, we take a package for Scottish women's football or the. SPfl or, or rugby, or in this case with Serie A, what it means is that not just are we able to show those games, but quite often we've got to show those games. So we've got to find the producer who's going to produce that. So what we have in our budget and the way that we budget out, we have one of these multi-year deals that we've been, we've been talking about with a sports provider just extended for a couple of years.
And that gives us. security of what we're going to be paying. And within that, there is a portfolio of a lot of different ways that the thing could shape out. So we kind of have to move things around to make sure that to do Italian football, we have to do a little less of something else. So the cost of it, we can we can work out roughly. We at MGM spend about a quarter of our content budget on sport and delivers about 60% of our audience on a, on a, on a weekly basis.
So the return kind of by audience is, is, is, is really good. But as you'll know, sport is kind of on the up and up and up. We just can't get enough sport now with, with broadcasters and particularly live event based.
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
It's, it's really important. And for us as a minority language broadcaster, one of the things that it does for us is not only our Gaelic speakers interested, or Gaelic users or learners interested in sport the same way as anyone else is. interested in it. But there is a normalization effect of the language, so people aren't necessarily asking, gosh, it's a bit strange that BBC Alba is covering Italian sport, you know, and our response back to that, well, can English language sports, English language handles Italian sport and Welsh language handles Italian sport.
Why shouldn't Gaelic language handle Italian sport? What what what distinctions are people drawing in their minds that would say, oh no, Gaelic broadcasting is only for a certain number of things, or the Gaelic language is only for a certain number of things. So it's a very deep part of the language.
Why shouldn't Gaelic language handle Italian sport? What what what distinctions are people drawing in their minds that would say, oh no, Gaelic broadcasting is only for a certain number of things, or the Gaelic language is only for a certain number of things. So it's a very deep part of the language.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And in our context is value is value for money. And we can demonstrate that. And if I can add to that, that is so important for the confidence of young people to be to be speaking the language and to be speaking it on a daily basis where they can actually say to people, did you see Italian football on BBC last night? Hugely important. And we don't see any barrier in doing any aspect .
Of
Of
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Douglas Lumsden
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Douglas Lumsden
the world in Gaelic. The only barrier is usually, and I think I think my only concern is, you know, I think you mentioned. 360,000 viewers that maybe some of these sports things are actually being used. People aren't really going and engaging in Gaelic. They're not learning Gaelic. It's really about. boosting the the viewing figures, which is one thing which is great to then justify extra funding later on. If I was to put that .
To
To
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
know, would you say that's that's completely wrong. I've never say it's completely wrong, but what I would say is that what we have to do is what will what is of interest to our audience. And there's a lot of research go into that. And the percentages that Donald just described show that our audience loves sport and we love providing sport, and we want to provide support for them. And how do you make the language relevant to the lives of people and increase their interest in it?
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
It's by giving them what they want in that language. I think it's about overall audience access to sport as well. At a time when sports rights and broadcaster access to them have become under a huge amount of pressure. So the ability of MG Alba and indeed the BBC, who acquired the Commonwealth Games rights, as Margaret Mary was saying in Gaelic, to get that content to the audience in Scotland is vital that the sports rights market in English has more than doubled in cost since.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
a time when, as we went through the history earlier, the licence fee was either flat or just going up with inflation. So at a period when BBC resources have been really, really tight, our ability to get rights in English to serve the audience has been extremely constrained. So being able to also open up the market in Gaelic rights and put that in front of all of our audiences, not just those who are speaking the language, because it's a BBC service and it appears on the new and trending realm when you open up iPlayer.
Oh, there's some live sport on there. Oh, it's in Gaelic. That's fine. I'll have a watch that you could see that with a number of the sports that we were covering. We weren't able to do that with the Commonwealth Games in terms of new and trending for various other rights reasons. But generally speaking, you can bring Gaelic . Sport
Oh, there's some live sport on there. Oh, it's in Gaelic. That's fine. I'll have a watch that you could see that with a number of the sports that we were covering. We weren't able to do that with the Commonwealth Games in terms of new and trending for various other rights reasons. But generally speaking, you can bring Gaelic . Sport
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Gaelic as opposed to in English? You know, is that how the licensing works? I won't get into the individual specifics, but generally you're in a market and the market for, I suspect, Welsh language rights, Gaelic language rights and Cornish rights of sport would be of lower value than English language rights,
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Not least because of global markets. Who will come to. To English, I would add. I don't think you're going to see the English Premiership on BBC Alba anytime soon. but so what we have to do is look. And it's that. balance that you correctly pointed out between. audience value for money. interest and growth of the language. And so we balance all these.
And we thought because of the number of Scottish players playing in Italy right now, that this would be of interest to our audience. And when we say our audience, we mean Gaelic speakers, Gaelic learners and everybody else's interested in football and some of these who are interested. And we see that with Speak Gaelic, the people that are logging in and then going on to additional courses in learning the language. Have usually come in because they've heard either through music or sport, the language.
We also do a lot of shinty, which seems like a very natural game for us to do. And we can see that the number of young people who are coming through the teams, all the teams, male and female of Gaelic speakers, has increased as well over the over the years. So there is a language growth there. And that figure of. 69,000 Gaelic speakers, and that that's gone up to.
And we thought because of the number of Scottish players playing in Italy right now, that this would be of interest to our audience. And when we say our audience, we mean Gaelic speakers, Gaelic learners and everybody else's interested in football and some of these who are interested. And we see that with Speak Gaelic, the people that are logging in and then going on to additional courses in learning the language. Have usually come in because they've heard either through music or sport, the language.
We also do a lot of shinty, which seems like a very natural game for us to do. And we can see that the number of young people who are coming through the teams, all the teams, male and female of Gaelic speakers, has increased as well over the over the years. So there is a language growth there. And that figure of. 69,000 Gaelic speakers, and that that's gone up to.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
music at at key because it just it attracts young people. Sport opens the door to public media for a lot of the audience who might not find it otherwise. And I think when when Healy Valentine, the director of BBC Scotland, was at this committee. previously talking about the fact that the BBC had reacquired the men's international football rights after a long, long period when they were not on the BBC. We know that people who came to iPlayer to watch, for example Scotland versus Denmark, are a good chunk of those people hadn't been to iPlayer at all for months.
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Angus MacDonald
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Angus MacDonald
service content that they might not otherwise find. And I think if I could just add one thing, I think for us, then I think the point that you raise is so, so important about this is not about chasing numbers for us. It's not in a sense about, you know, the even the BBC's objectives in terms of serving its audiences. For us, when we look at this as a minority language, Gaelic language service, we are looking to create opportunities for people to encounter the language.
And those have to be wide. widespread and, and, and that's really where that's it's not it's not the numbers that we, any of us are chasing. It's the difference that it can make from having an encounter and bringing people, you know, opening up a pathway towards language awareness, language.
And those have to be wide. widespread and, and, and that's really where that's it's not it's not the numbers that we, any of us are chasing. It's the difference that it can make from having an encounter and bringing people, you know, opening up a pathway towards language awareness, language.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
In that sense. In some ways it's the same and that way it's different. Can I just add just a tiny thing to say that yes, we, we, we do like numbers as well though, because we look at the numbers for in Thailand, over 2 million people have watched it. That's hugely reassuring for us as. creators that this is something that's so attractive that it brought in. 2 million people to watch it.
They loved it. The feedback has been huge. Nobody cared that it was an English language because we were all. consuming content now on our phones or on our laptops or iPads with. subtitles and. But it's in Gaelic.
They loved it. The feedback has been huge. Nobody cared that it was an English language because we were all. consuming content now on our phones or on our laptops or iPads with. subtitles and. But it's in Gaelic.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
When you're looking at investing in Italian football, there's there's none of that. There is there's interest and you can't do just do one thing. You know, that scripted drama and then you've got sport. You have to you don't do a TV channel that just, just just does drama. It probably exists somewhere in the digital sphere, but we need to . Provide
11:27
Patricia Ferguson
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Patricia Ferguson
a . balance of programmes. Thank you very much. Thank you. That concludes our question session for this morning. So thank you all very much for coming along today. It's always very interesting to hear what's happening and to look forward to the future. I'm certainly looking forward to the new Syria, which will be great fun. So thank you all very much indeed.
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