ITV Chief Issues “Wake-Up Call”

LONDON, July 3: Speaking at the Royal Television Society,
Michael Grade, the executive chairman of ITV, called on broadcasters to
remember that maintaining audiences’ trust is key, stating that the call-in
scandals that have hit the U.K. reflect a “casual contempt” for viewers.

“I want to sound a wake up call to my fellow professionals
with a reminder that viewers’ trust is the most precious commodity in the old
media armory as we move into the digital world of plenty,” Grade said. “As our
different screens are increasingly invaded by new unlicensed video services of
variable authenticity, trust and integrity must be one of the crucial
distinguishing features of what we have to offer.”

Grade cited the problems with premium-rate phone services
across the U.K., noting, “It was, frankly, an unexpected, shocking, but very
necessary wake-up call. Despite the commercial implications, I called an
immediate halt to ITV’s PRTS services while a rigorous independent review
examined the scope and implications of the problem. Swift action was necessary,
and swift action was taken. Other broadcasters have also acted to end the
abuses and malpractices that have been revealed. But it doesn’t end there. The
discovery of these problems calls for a pretty fundamental re-examination of
two key issues. First, how economic, technical and organizational changes have
strained our ability to ensure the highest standards throughout the whole
production chain. And second, what it has highlighted in our attitudes to our
audiences: how—in some of the cases—was such a casual contempt for
audience allowed to develop?”

Grade also noted that broadcasters should understand the
difference between audiences and ratings. “Ratings are numbers. They are very
important numbers. They are a key to revenue generation in the commercial
sector, and part of the justification for the license fee at the BBC.
Intelligently used, as servants not masters, they are excellent guides and a
good currency. But audiences are people. The ratings say five
million—that is simple arithmetic: but it is an audience of five million
individuals, each one of whom judges our output as a whole, each one of whom
has some degree of trust in our brand, in everything we do.”

Part of the solution to these breaches in trust, Grade says,
is “to bring our procedures right up to date.… We must also be pro-active to
ensure that the lengthening chains of production are effectively supervised to
guarantee that at every step the interests of viewers are properly and
transparently addressed.”

He continued: “What we—and everyone in PSB television
production—need to understand is that it can never, ever, be right to
deceive viewers. I do not accept that the public is happy with concept of
“choreography” where fiction is presented as truth, where deceit is condoned as
one of the producer’s professional skills. I do not accept the moral relativism
implicit in the idea that there is a sliding scale of honesty in broadcasting,
with the news at one end and entertainment at the other. I do not accept that
truth and transparency are more important in some programs than in others.…
Deceit is deceit, and it is corrosive of trust in whichever genre it appears.”

“Zero tolerance of deceit really isn’t a difficult concept,”
Grade concluded. “The key is transparency. If you can’t be straight with the
audience without the item or the program collapsing, then you should ask
whether you should be doing it at all.”