Written evidence submitted by Dr Ken Griffin

British Film and High-End Television

Submission to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee

Background

1. I am a television historian and archivist who is based in Northern Ireland. My main research interest is the exploration of archival silences created by the loss or destruction of moving image material. I specialise in film archiving and the tracing of ‘lost’ footage.

2. I was affiliated with Ulster University from 2010 to 2018. I began as a doctoral researcher, studying archival silences in the Ulster Television (UTV) archive, and then became a research associate, working mainly on the university’s own audiovisual collections.

3. I am not originally from Northern Ireland and I was shocked by the general condition of its screen heritage and the disinterest of the authorities in its protection and promotion. In response, I focused my research in directions which improved screen archiving in the region.

4. At UTV, I focused on documenting uncatalogued footage, repairing damaged film and locating material which had gone missing. On a more strategic level, I sought opportunities to secure better storage conditions for the station’s holdings. I found that the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) were interested in storing the collection and the archive was finally relocated in 2018. I also managed to open up new funding avenues by securing

funding from the Republic of Ireland for preservation work at Ulster University’s archive.

5. My research in Northern Ireland ended amid a local political climate which increasingly conflated archival research with legacy issues relating to the Troubles. In 2017, ITV withdrew my access to the UTV archive and then blocked publication of my doctoral research. This blow was soon followed by Ulster University’s decision to close its archive and withdraw from television archive research in 2018.

6. My submission focuses on the question of “What more can done to protect and promote the UK’s screen heritage?” I felt it was important to provide the committee with my perspective because those involved in the protection and promotion of screen heritage in Northern Ireland face greater challenges than their colleagues in Great Britain but are frequently overlooked in discussions about the sector’s future. I will begin by focusing on the situation within Northern Ireland before looking at wider issues related to screen heritage in the UK.

Part 1 - Northern Ireland

Introduction

7. Northern Ireland has a rich screen heritage. While it has never been a major film production hub, the region has a strong tradition in amateur filmmaking and TV production. In terms of the latter, the Northern Irish broadcasters BBC NI and UTV made important early contributions to the development of regional television. For example, BBC NI’s Ulster Mirror was the UK’s first regular regional series.

8. But its screen heritage is not protected or promoted to the same extent as seen in other UK regions. It uniquely lacks a regional film archive and the protection of screen heritage is not a strategic objective for its screen agency, NI Screen. The main reason for this is the continuing legacy of the Troubles, particularly the emergence of revisionist accounts of the conflict. Such accounts are supported by many decisionmakers, some of whom also appear to fear that archival material could be used to hold them or their associates to account[1]. This has made it impossible to obtain the requisite political support for investment in screen heritage.

9. As a result, preservation has been left in the hands of a small number of institutions which are often underfunded, particularly as it has proven very difficult to access UK archival funding due to how it is awarded (see below). This has left Northern Ireland’s screen heritage in a poorer physical condition than that of other UK regions. There are major deficiencies in key areas such as storage, cataloguing and preservation. In addition, there is a larger percentage of productions missing from its archives.

Areas of particular concern

10. It is worth focusing on some particular areas where the absence of proper protection and promotion of Northern Ireland’s screen heritage has affected public access, research and the preservation of the region’s screen culture.

11. The most obvious consequence is the lack of a properly curated and promoted archive of Northern Irish screen heritage, selected on the basis of historical, cultural and artistic importance. This type of collection would be particularly valuable in ensuring that a representative sample of Northern Ireland’s screen heritage is permanently protected, particularly given the region’s two strong cultural identities. At the moment, there is a real risk that we will be left with what happens to have survived amid regional policy failings.

12. The number of screen archives in Northern Ireland has also declined over the past 20 years. This is likely due to a combination of a lack of financial support, increasing costs and the prevailing political environment. The archives involved range from private collections to Ulster University’s archive, which was the third-largest audiovisual collection in Northern Ireland. In some cases, material has been relocated outside Northern Ireland[2] but I have been unable to find any trace of some collections, suggesting that they are lost or destroyed.

13. There are also significant issues with access to screen heritage, especially for academic purposes. Access is understandably difficult in relation to archives exported out of the region. But the main problems relate to the region’s two main archives, BBC NI and UTV.

14. The issues with BBC NI are long-standing. The organisation is generally suspicious of academic projects involving archive material, meaning that even basic information about the extent of its holdings is difficult if not impossible to obtain. This has a chilling effect on research because it is impossible to pursue research when cannot establish what material is available.

15. UTV was historically more tolerant of researchers when it was under local ownership. It even, for a time, published selected catalogue data online. It did impose potentially censorious conditions such as the right to prevent publication of research outputs but there was never expectation than they would be utilised. Under ITV, these conditions have been utilised and the company has introduced restrictions on the release of basic catalogue data akin to BBC NI. It has also negotiated an almost unconditional right to refuse archival access with PRONI.

16. The lack of a regional archive is also acutely felt in terms of wider public access. This is due to the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland which require more care to be taken when curating access platforms so that material is properly contextualised and users have the opportunity to explore different perspectives on an event or issue. This would suggest that a single authoritative access platform would be preferable.

17. Unfortunately, public access is split between the BBC Rewind website and NI Screen’s online Digital Film Archive (DFA)[3]. This is unfortunate as the two stations took distinct approaches to the Troubles and were often watched in combination at that time. From a curatorial perspective, BBC Rewind is very unsatisfactory. It provides a huge amount of footage, which is weighted heavily towards conflict, with minimal contextualising information. The DFA provides better context but offers a smaller and more conservative selection of material. For example, it has little footage on historical events such as the rise of Ian Paisley, the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and the 1981 hunger strikes.

18. The lack of a regional archive has limited our ability to address the gaps in Northern Ireland’s screen heritage. A significant amount of material survives, especially as programme wiping continued well into the home video period. I have personally found more than 100 programmes over the years. The problem is that limited progress can be made while BBC NI and UTV’s holdings remain shrouded in secrecy and there is nowhere which can accept footage donations.

The Way Forward

19. The situation facing Northern Ireland’s screen heritage is very serious. In an ideal world, it would be tackled by the NI Executive through the creation of a regional film archive and appropriate catch-up funding for archiving. But this seems impossible given the region’s political environment.

20. This means that alternative approaches must be considered. I do not think that any initiative could organically emerge from the sector as currently constituted, especially as key rightsholders seem focused on limiting access rather than promoting their collections.

21. This leaves the establishment of a regional archive by the UK government. This could be conceptualised as a ‘levelling up’ of Northern Ireland’s screen heritage infrastructure to match that of the rest of the UK. It is likely that this initiative would attract support from the Irish government, which has been funding work on the region’s screen heritage since 2014.

22. There are other interim measures which could be taken to protect and promote screen heritage in advance of the creation of a regional archive. The government could form an advisory panel, which could examine what material would be suitable and available for deposit in a regional collection and the resources necessary to preserve it on a long-term basis. It might also examine the gaps within the region’s archives to identify significant missing productions, which could form the basis of targeted archival searches or a general regional ‘missing believed wiped’ public campaign.

23. In terms of promotion, there needs to be initiatives undertaken to remove the general suspicion of research among the region’s archivists and to repair relationships with researchers who have been the subject of restrictions on their work. Any publication restrictions should be removed except in the highly unlikely event there are pressing legal or security issues involved. This would allow the emergence of stockpiled research which is likely to address local misconceptions about archival research and focus attention onto heritage which has been overshadowed by the Troubles. My doctoral research, for example, focused on schools’ programmes, light entertainment and late-night talks programmes.

24. It may also be helpful if PRONI could make a limited amount of space available to facilitate donations of lost footage and other valuable screen heritage, pending the establishment of a dedicated regional archive.

Part 2 – The United Kingdom

Introduction

25. The UK, with the aforementioned exception of Northern Ireland, has good structures for the protection and promotion of screen heritage. There remain, however, issues in relation to funding, strategic leadership and access to collections. It is also unclear whether sufficient consideration is being given to the wider implications of preservation decision-making.

British Film Institute Funding

26. The BFI’s responsibilities include the allocation of Heritage Lottery funding to the UK’s moving image archives. I think that the allocation process should be reviewed because it can inadvertently limit the range of projects funded.

27. The BFI’s application restrictions are very tight. Only regional film archives and a small number of designated “significant” collections can apply. Although other archives can receive funding, they can only do so within a collaboration with a regional archive. This contrasts with the situation in states such as the Republic of Ireland where all archives can apply for funding via a competitive application process.

28. The BFI criteria mean that only preservation work is clearly aligned to its partners’ priorities will receive funding. It assumes that such priorities are in accordance with the actual preservation needs of a region and its archives. This isn’t necessarily the case, especially in the UK, which has a history of class conflict, multiculturalism and marginalised identities.

29. The risk of exclusion isn’t theoretical. For many years, it was impossible to obtain BFI archive funding in Northern Ireland because the region did not have a regional archive. Since 2015, this has been fudged by recognising the Digital Film Archive as though it were an archive rather than an access platform.

30. This situation led me to seek funding from the Republic’s Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) for the preservation of a unique set of home video recordings of Northern Irish television from the 1970s which were part of Ulster University’s archive. We obtained funding from the BAI just before the tapes became unplayable.

31. At the time (2014), we were ineligible for BFI funding due to regional archive issue mentioned above. But, even after the issue was fudged, it would have been impossible to secure BFI funding because its strategic focus (and that of its partners) was on film not videotape. Given the state of the tapes, the recordings would have been lost if we had waited for UK funding.

32. Given the issues outlined above, I would suggest that the BFI broadens its eligibility criteria for Heritage Lottery funding so that archives can apply directly and a certain percentage is set aside for non-priority projects which relate to specific immediate local preservation issues. This would allow a more diverse range of projects and reduce the risk of material slipping through the cracks.

Channel 3 archival contributions

33. Under the Broadcasting Act 1990, Channel 3 broadcasters (ITV and STV) make an annual contribution to the BFI as a condition of their licence. This regime was instigated prior to the development of the current regional archive network and, along with the age of this legislation, it would be appropriate to consider if it reflects the current archival landscape.

34. The issue is that regional archives have received substantial donations from ITV in recent years. The levels are such that it is probable that more Channel 3 archive material is held at regional rather than national level. This raises the question of whether a split contribution between the BFI and regional archives would be more appropriate.

35. There is also a case for reviewing the overall contribution level. The ITV donations entailed a substantial transfer of preservation costs from that company to regional archives. This may raise long-term financial issues for those institutions unless the contributions are properly calibrated to reflect the costs associated with preserving the donated material.

Strategic planning

36. There is room for greater strategic planning to anticipate and mitigate threats to our screen heritage. Moving image archiving lends itself to such planning because its biggest threats such as chemical decomposition are foreseeable. But the UK’s response to such threats has often been uncoordinated.

37. In particular, broadcast archives have struggled to deal with technological obsolescence relating to their videotape holdings. This issue occurs because manufacturers discontinue support for videotape formats once they are superseded by new technology. The only way of preserving content on an obsolete format is to migrate it to a new one.

38. There have been multiple waves of technological obsolescence since the 1980s. It is predictable part of the product lifecycle and so there is ample opportunity for archives to make preparations and co-ordinate their responses. Instead, each wave has resulted in the lost of footage and the creation of islands of material on obsolete formats. Some major transfer projects have been poorly resourced. For example, the BBC was only able to transfer one-third of its D3 videotape holdings, which include many archival masters, when that format became obsolete. The reason was that it had not procured enough spare parts for its recorders[4].

39. It seems likely that the BBC’s difficulties may have been avoided if there was a better strategic focus among screen archives on planning for technological obsolescence. This would entail the BFI taking a more active leadership role within the sector, perhaps via a technical working group involving representatives from across the moving image archive community. This group could identify threats, recommend mitigations, setting out common technical pathways and set preservation targets for the sector. It might also facilitate collaborations which assist smaller archives deal with threats in a more effective manner.

Access

40. Access to the UK’s screen heritage has improved considerably in recent decades. There is now a wealth of film and television productions available to the public via streaming, specialist TV channels and physical media. Meanwhile, the education sector further benefits from Learning On Screen’s repositories, which include more than 3.2 million streaming radio and television broadcasts. Despite these positive developments, there are still difficulties accessing some screen heritage and associated materials.

41. Access to written archive material is a particular problem, due to the limited progress made by archives in cataloguing and digitising their collections. The vast majority of this material can only be accessed at a single location, which is usually in London or the South-East. The collections involved include the BBC Written Archives, the BFI Reubens Library and the Independent Broadcasting Authority archive. This situation limits their accessibility for individuals based in regions such as Northern Ireland or Northern Scotland.

42. There are immediate steps which could deliver significant accessibility improvements. The archive owners could make a selection of key records with high information value available online. For example, the BBC could digitise their collections of Audience Reception and Programme as Broadcast[5] paperwork, which answer most queries about older programmes. In other cases, collections could make their catalogues publicly available to allow visitors from more distant regions to plan their research in advance and reduce the number of trips made.

43. There are also issues with access to material which is not available via streaming and physical media. These vary depending on who owns the footage and where it is located.

44. The BFI holds a substantial amount of unavailable material but, in many cases, it can only be viewed at their premises in London. In fairness, the institute has recognised the problem and has made selected material available via their BFI Replay and BFI Mediatheque regional access points.

45. The problem is that it has been unable to build a genuinely national network of access points. For example, there are only five BFI Replay access points in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland. It is also unclear what material is available on these services, which may lead to unnecessary trips to London. In this case, the answer to widening access is to expand the regional network and provide clearer information about what is available.

46. Other material is completely unavailable to the public or academic researchers. It mostly comprises of productions where the only surviving copies are held by copyright holders. These organisations are either unable or unwilling to release the material or make it available for research access. This is a global issue which usually involves commercial archives but the UK context is slightly different because the main problems are associated with the BBC.

47. The BBC has been less active than other broadcasters in making its back catalogue available via streaming and physical media. This means that many key pieces of the UK’s television heritage are hidden from view such as the earliest surviving editions of Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars, which are landmarks in the development of British crime drama. This situation is especially frustrating because the corporation provides this material via streaming to commercial researchers for footage sales purposes. The logical solution would be to extend this access to accredited researchers. In terms of wider public access, the BBC has a perfect means of providing access via its iPlayer service.

48. Beyond the specific case of the BBC, there is a strong argument to be made for a follow-up to the BFI’s successful Unlocking Screen Heritage initiative, aimed at addressing further gaps in back catalogue accessibility caused by preservation issues or a genuine lack of commercial potential. I think that there is also work which has to be done in terms of resolving the rights issues involving key productions so they can be made available to the public but I am not familiar enough with that area to suggest any particular measures.

Conclusion

49. In conclusion, I hope that the committee has found my evidence useful and will consider exploring the issues raised, especially in relation to the protection and promotion of Northern Ireland’s screen heritage. It seems bizarre that all of the UK has managed to build up strong, if not perfect, archival infrastructure and systems with the exception of region. I believe that unless corrective action is taken, posterity might take a dim view of the UK’s disinterest in preserving the screen heritage of one of its four constituent nations.

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