TUESDAY 20 MAY 2003

MR ALAN YENTOB, MS CAROLINE THOMSON, MR CLIVE JONES, MR JOHN CRESSWELL AND MR PIERS CALDECOTE

  Q340  Mr Bryant: Mr Yentob, you said that one of the jobs of the BBC is to bring the very best work on film to audiences in the UK. If you look at the some of the very best British films or European foreign language films over the last 10 years, how many of those have been seen on BBC1 or BBC2?

  Mr Yentob: The very best British films have been seen on British television I would say, unequivocally, in fact some of the not very good British films have been shown on British television because Channel 4 particularly commission so many, and they did not get into the cinema. I am sympathetic to your view about foreign language films. One of the things I would say to you is that the world has changed and the cinema distributors sat here and told you that people are not even going to the cinema to see foreign language films so what you are getting, paradoxically, is a situation where the broadcaster, certainly the BBC, has now gone in to partnership with a number of European film makers so that they are joint ventures and BBC4, in particular, has done this. Although I am sympathetic I would say that there is less viewing of foreign language films.

  Q341  Mr Bryant: When was the last one on BBC1 or BBC2?

  Mr Yentob: My memory is that the last significant presence of a foreign language film was a repeated Das Boot for the nth time apparently very successful. They have been but they are not a regular feature and they are not a feature, more importantly, of Channel 4's portfolio.

  Q342  Mr Bryant: Or a British Shakespeare film?

  Mr Yentob: That is different. A Shakespeare film has been made and shown and the BBC is about to invest in a significant Shakespeare initiative which will see Shakespeare projects on all three channels. That is slightly beyond your remit.

  Q343  Mr Bryant: There have been quite a few British films in recent years of Shakespeare, Much Ado, for instance.

  Mr Yentob: They have, Chris, they have all been shown. Much Ado was shown on the BBC.

  Chairman: Okay, Chris?

  Mr Bryant: Thank you for allowing me to ask my question.

  Q344  Derek Wyatt: Mr Murdoch is quite good at looking at things and turning them upside down because he has a film studio in his remit and television and pay-per-view. If he were to move the goalposts to premiering pay-per-view first before it had theatrical release, would that alter any of your thinking about investing in film, if that proved to be successful?

  Mr Jones: I do not think so necessarily. I think there is a change happening in the distribution chain. It would seem to me, I am saying this anecdotally because I have no statistical evidence or analysis to prove this, that theatrical release in some films is getting shorter and shorter and shorter and they are moving very nimbly and quickly to areas of DVD and video release and then into pay-per-view. I suspect that is going to shorten and quicken, but I do not necessarily think that it will change the way that we approach it because there is still that extended tail before it can come to us and we can put on our free-to-air transmission. So I think the debate we would constantly have both within ITV and I guess within the BBC is do we invest in TV drama or occasional TV movies or do we invest in films that go into theatrical release first?

  Mr Yentob: I do not disagree with that. I think there will be new methods of distribution and I think we will have to accept that that is going to change. That is why, of course, the bigger films are always the ones which in the end become more of a treat on television, more surprising to get on television, so this question of cinema distribution for the smaller films in a way goes against the grain because there ought to be enough television channels to show these kind of films anyway. Would they cost that much? No, they would not. So even £1 million for a film that would get a small audience in a cinema it is difficult to get a return on investment. Probably a lot of that will come from television at the end of the day and DVD and distribution, it is just a window, a marketing opportunity.

  Q345  Derek Wyatt: Looking at the European model of films, which seem different in each country, do you think there is a line where you could start to say there should be some sort of cultural licence fee that is different as we move towards the future of how we might fund culture on television? Perhaps we ought to look and say 10% of that might be allocated to British film and culture. Do you think that is a development that is likely to happen?

  Mr Jones: I am very wary of having further quotas on ITV. I am very happy to show British films as long as they are good British films, and they can be very popular and attract big audiences at peak time. I do not want a quota that insists I have to put out poor British films.

  Mr Yentob: I agree, I think it would be imprudent to do that.

  Q346 Derek Wyatt: So the Government should not do anything more to help British film?

  Mr Yentob: I think tax incentives are important but 10% is quite a significant figure. I think you need to feel that that is going to actually deliver culturally as well.

  Ms Thomson: I am going to have to go back to the point Alan was making originally, which is that the point in doing this is to fund films which will get a theatrical release and people will want to watch in the cinema. It seems to me the risk about developing a big fund, a bit like the Arts Council for film, if this is what you are meaning, is whether you will get any more films that people want to see that will get theatrical release, and I think the experience with Channel 4 was that it was very difficult.

  Mr Jones: There are three areas which Government should concentrate on and support. There is the Communications Bill which has gone through the Commons and is currently before the Lords, and it recognises maintaining a strong public service broadcasting sector with a big emphasis on original production for both ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC, which I think is essential because of all the training points I made earlier. There are loads of directors from Coronation Street or BBC drama who have gone into making movies or writing movies so I think that training synergy is important. I think retaining Section 48 tax relief is important. It works and it has put a lot of money into British film alongside the Lottery. I would focus on distribution. I think that is where the problems are, that is where the stranglehold seems to be. It does not seem to be a problem with training, it does not seem to be a problem with potential monies being available to British film-makers. The problem seems to be the films are made and they do not get distributed. I am not expert enough to resolve that problem.

  Q347  Derek Wyatt: Do you think that is something for the OFT or the National Audit Office? How do we tickle this? It seems to me they have too strong a say over what is going on.

  Mr Cresswell: For Granada we produce a lot of drama and until recently quite a few films. The difference between the two is that TV production is demand-led whereas film is supply-led so what you have to try and do is incentivise the people who are choosing, which is the distributors, to put more money back into the production somehow because you need to enable them or encourage them to invest in that way. At the moment the tax breaks all go towards the producer so as a producer I am quite keen to get tax breaks to get my production made. The risks I generally pass on to the distributer and the distributer needs some incentive to come back and actually invest in British films.

  Chairman: Thank you, Derek, and thank you very much indeed for your very valuable evidence, we are most grateful to you. We are sorry for the interruption.