What next for Channel 4 News?

Future-proofing Channel 4 News? Can you? Would you even want to?

You're a digital user of Channel 4 News already - just by virtue of reading our website - and perhaps you watch our video on the site as well. Maybe you also listen to our podcasts or read Snowmail.

And we now know that you'll have the opportunity to listen to more Channel 4 News on the radio, after Channel 4 today won the franchise to open up a series of digital radio stations.

We, like the BBC, ITV and Sky, are exploring many different ways of getting our news to you. We were all part of a conference yesterday organised by Broadcast.

I spoke about 'Future-Proofing Channel 4 News' and thought you should get the opportunity to see our thinking.

I steer clear of too many predictions about the digital challenge to focus on the news we make - the content - and the platforms on which we distribute it, the way we make it. And how that fits with the role we have in the public-service landscape.

That's because I think it's terribly easy at the moment for us to lose sight of what we're good at - and all the news broadcasters organisations in the UK have their areas of excellence and expertise - and get preoccupied with how to get onto the next digital platform and be ahead of the curve, sometimes merely for the sake of it.

What we're about - what we aspire to - is original and revelatory journalism, brought to the screen, PC or radio with high-production values. International news, bringing depth and understanding to the unreported world.

Challenging cosy consensus, asking awkward questions ranging from the fearless to the just plain cheeky. Investigative journalism - not cheap, not easy.

What underpins our public purpose is creative freedom.

That's the principal advantage we get from our position in the public-service broadcasting landscape. The duration of our flagship programme, its place in the schedules, the risk-taking and entrepreneurial culture fostered by Channel 4, the resourcing - these are all things that we know the market can't provide and which the BBC by virtue of its license-fee obligations, has to approach in a different way.

So let's have a very quick look at the news we make now, and how we've already developed multiplatform services.

More than just maverick

Just over 4 years ago, we were a flagship programme with a small website, and a very tall presenter.

Then the Iraq War, came along and we began lunch-time news, with a bigger website, and Krishnan presenting the programme, bringing our brand of serious 'news with attitude' to a day-time audience

More 4 News launched in October 2005, and now is rating highest of the news programmes at 8pm.

One interesting fact for you - adding all those TV programme's audiences together gives the Channel 4 News service a reach of more than 8 and a half million viewers per week, twice as much as Sky News, higher than the Today programme, and only just behind Radio 4 itself, which has a reach of just over 9 million.

If anyone thought we existed SOLELY to fulfil a maverick role, standing on the fringes of the body politic chucking little journalistic darts, then I think these figures demonstrate that we also reach a broad and significant number of people.

To our TV offerings, you can add this recently relaunched website, which focuses on promoting our distinctive and original video on demand, and on building a community around our journalists, presenters and our content.

In the past, it's been the catalyst for a series of interactive seasons around particular themes - from Getting Britain Moving when the government was wrestling with a ten-year Transport Plan, to Feeling the Heat, asking what role, if any, individuals and families had to combat global warming. All produced films featuring our viewers, some of whom then ended up in the studio debating with the Ministers responsible.

We think this is a great way to harness the interactive potential of digital media whilst maintaining the quality and universal appeal of our programming.

We've been delivering news via mobile phone since 2002, and since 5 June last year we've been making a breakfast radio programme for Channel 4 Radio, which like Jon's weekly Snowmail, is also available as a podcast.

Focus on our flagship

Exciting as it is to do be doing so many new things, year-in, year-out, it's really important for us to keep our focus on our flagship and its brand of original journalism. There's so much generic content out there - particularly in news - that you have to identify what it is you're good at, why the audience values you and focus on that.

Live television news, with distinctive interviews, discussions and events, still has a strong appeal, and research shows is less likely to be time-shifted than any other genre of television programming.

Even when viewed on demand on this website or via other platforms, which we expect to happen more frequently, we need to ensure that the news we produce carries with it the quality, character and distinctiveness of the live programming.

We're lucky that the presenter-led nature of our programming supports that imperative, and we're lucky too that our new contract with Channel 4 allows us to create even more original content, in technology, personal finance, arts, and foreign affairs, specifically from a new China Bureau.

We need to be clear that we focus on those things that the market can't provide, and which can offer viewers, users and listeners a choice of impartial, public service news.

Channel 4 talked about this at length in their successful bid to run a network of digital radio stations. There isn't the choice - the plurality - at present in serious public service news, comment and current affairs. And the market hasn't, even in the boom years of radio advertising, supported this on a national commercial network.

So we do think carefully about the public role we fulfil as well as the opportunities technology is giving us and the way it's reshaping the way people use news.

That's partly because we need to take stock of what we do that has real value, and what the distinctive contribution of a public-service broadcaster should be amidst increasing convergence.

We make podcasts, so do newspapers.

Does the public - indirectly or otherwise - really need to support our public service content?

There are lots of news websites, with many different text versions of the same story, bringing plurality and choice, so why does there need to be any public policy intervention, licence-fee funded or otherwise?

Tough questions, good questions, and ones that regulators and broadcasters are debating as the advertising -funded model of commercial television news comes under strain.

Are we doing our job?

But there's another reason for focusing on our role - the responsibilities that public-service news carries when audiences and society are fragmenting.

Are we fulfilling our remit? Are we delivering trusted, impartial news? How do we go about our job, as well as what we do.

Some aspects haven't changed.

We're clear that a key part of our public purpose is to find things out that affect public policy. That's why we commit so much to investigations, and we hold so much store by the impact our journalism has.

Impact - not of the sensationalist 'dangerous' kind identifed by Tony Blair in his Reuters lecture, that 'forces accuracy into second place' or is 'unravelling standards.'

No real impact is about substance, about change. Ali Larijani revealing to Jon Snow Iran's change of heart on the sailors and marines held hostage.

Or our Social Affairs Correspondent Victoria Macdonald revealing the security flaws with the MTAS website for recruiting doctors, leading to a Parliamentary debate and eventual withdrawal of the site.

Television news is still terrifically important to the democratic process - 90 per cent of the public got their political news from TV at the General Election according to the Electoral Commission. It's also especially important at times of crisis, such as war or the attempted terrorist attacks of last week. The audience figures speak for themselves on that.

So it really matters that people trust what we say and believe it's fair, accurate and impartial.

It matters particularly if, as we do, you take on investigations that discover unpleasant truths about companies, governments or individuals.

Ofcom - the body which regulates commercial television in the UK - put out a report this week which, amongst other things, highlighted trust and impartiality.

It revealed a decline in the number of people who believe that television news is trustworthy and impartial. That included Channel 4 News, although people who actually watch the programme do think it's impartial and do trust it.

The BBC Trust has also done some interesting work here recently.

Both Ofcom and the Trust point towards a need to reappraise the concept of impartiality, and both argue that the airwaves need to be open to more competing perspectives and diverse views.

This is an area where we've got something to contribute and where we've all got something to learn about increasing public scepticism.

This isn't just because of potential changes to the way public service news may be funded but also to reflect changing patterns of media consumption.

I think Anthony Lilley from Magic Lantern put it well in a piece in Media Guardian back in May.

How does YouTube decide, for instance, which videos to link? It's certainly not editorially driven to provide background context. So how do you find context and, therefore, opposing views?

I need some help with this - help that people with an editorial sensibility like public service broadcasters and newspapers could give.

Don't make me believe you're impartial or, Big Brother-like, tell me what to think, but do provide background to help me make up my mind. And get on with it because I'm drowning here.

Don't tell me what to think - that's a sentiment we broadcasters really need to take note of if that's how we're perceived. We don't want to be seen to be predictable or representing a narrow world-view, but open and eclectic.

Where I differ from Anthony is on not wanting to give up on the aspiration to impartiality. I believe it's at the core of public-service news, and what should distinguish, for example, our podcasts, our audio and video, our websites, from those produced by newspapers. It's how we justify public support, and it's why it's appropriate to regulate us differently.

And I see no anomaly in that continuing, even if our content is delivered via the same platforms.

Indeed, so important is impartiality that it can't be left to just one public-service broadcaster. The need for competing points of view requires different news organisations with different editorial cultures. Impartiality needs choice and plurality.

We're also looking hard at our role in reaching out to particular sections of the audience - making a specific effort to build on the connections that Jon Snow and our team have built up over the years.

Disengaging youth

First, the younger audience that Ofcom's research has indicated is disengaging fast from the news and from politics.

We've got a high proportion of younger viewers on the 7pm news, higher still on More 4 - ok some of that on Channel 4 may be down to the Hollyoaks inheritance perhaps, but it also reflects a conscious decision to achieve a younger contemporary feel - to be the news service for the Channel 4 demographic.

I think we can aim to do better here, and that that's achievable without dumbing down but through a better understanding of how to use digital media and community to appeal to younger viewers.

We've also cooperated on a big media literacy project with Channel 4 and the British Film Institute, Breaking the News, that saw us hosting and mentoring teenagers to help them understand where the news comes from and how to decode and deconstruct what they see, hear and use. There's obviously the potential to build on this kind of work in the future.

Channel 4 has always had a remit to reach out to our culturally diverse society, and that's even more important now than 25 years ago. It's not just about how many people are watching, it's about making minority issues part of an inclusive mainstream agenda.

Channel 4 News has a pretty good reputation here. Figures produced for the Culture and Diversity Network last year suggested that ethnic minority viewers think we do the best job at representing the issues that affect their communities. And we know the Home Office, in particular, has seen the value of our programme in reaching Muslim viewers.

But none of us in the industry can take too much comfort from these or the figures that Ofcom's audience research is producing.

We need to challenge our editorial culture and re-interpret what issues and viewpoints should be part of a mainstream news agenda.

And we need to widen the range of our staff yet further to reflect a greater diversity of ethnic groups and faiths, and recognise that recent migration is changing the composition of our ethnic minority population.

So can we future-proof Channel 4 News?

We're equipping all our journalists with the digital skills that allow them not just to report on the TV, but also to make radio, or do things for this website.

We're also building a newsroom where we can develop as a multimedia news producer, and we're producing even more original, distinctive news.

And Channel 4 are working to future-proof the business model that funds the news and this website.

But for any programme-maker or news service to believe that we can really be proof against the future smacks of arrogance and complacency.

We're only as good as our last programme. And we're only relevant if you want to carry on watching or listening to us. Here's an opportunity for you to contribute your thoughts. Look forward to hearing from you.

This is an edited transcript of a presentation given to the Broadcast Conference in London, 5 July 2007.

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