Written evidence submitted by the Open University

 

House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Inquiry into the future of Public Service Broadcasting

 

June 2020

 

 

Executive Summary

 

  1. Education is a crucial part of the Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) requirements. Several of the statutory requirements set out in Section 264 of the Communications Act 2003 relate to educational objectives.

 

  1. An important way in which the BBC meets its PSB requirements around education is through its partnership with the Open University (OU) in producing factual programming developed in collaboration with academic experts. This content is closely linked to related educational materials hosted by the OU. A key objective of the partnership is to encourage viewers to embark on learning journeys from the informal, factual content produced with the BBC, through online and printed educational resources which enhance and enrich the viewer’s broadcast experience, to taking up formal learning opportunites inspired by watching, listening to and engaging with the broadcast content produced as part of the partnership.

 

  1. In 2018/19:

 

  1. Engaging adults in lifelong learning is becoming more important to the success of the UK economy and the UK Government’s “levelling up” agenda, especially in light of the Covid-19 crisis. Television has unique power and reach as a medium for inspiring them to do so and is also able to engage unconfident learners who would not normally consider the possibility of lifelong learning. It is therefore crucial that PSB requirements are in place which encourage broadcasters to make space for such programming rather than more commercially attractive programming.

 

  1. Indeed, the importance of engaging more adults in lifelong learning is a good argument for increasing PSB requirements on television content for schools and education and adult informal learning specifically (as opposed to factual content more broadly) as this has reduced significantly in recent years. Public service broadcasters could also do more to highlight appropriate learning content that is complementary to their output as one way of furthering their educational objectives.

 

  1. There is a real opportunity to build on the recent expansion of public service broadcasters’ educational activities in response to the Covid-19 crisis, for example the BBC’s package of educational programming and materials produced to support schools and children with their learning while schools are closed.

 

  1. Our response focuses on providing some more details about the impact that the OU/BBC partnership both in terms of informal learning and facilitating civic understanding of key issues and in terms of encouraging more adults to engage in lifelong learning. It also makes some suggestions for how PSBs around education could be strengthened. 

 

Q4: Impact

 

What value, if any, do PSBs bring to the UK in terms of economic (local and national), cultural and societal impact?

 

  1. Education forms a crucial part of Public Service Broadcasting requirements and several of the statutory objectives set out in Section 264(6) of the Communications Act 2003 relate to this, including:

 

  1. An important way in which the BBC currently fulfils its public service broadcasting duties related to education is via its partnership with the OU. The OU/BBC partnership began in 1971 with the broadcast of late night OU course programmes and has evolved to a wide range of educational peak time series aimed at the wider population, such as The Planets, Blue Planet, Hospital and Forensics: The Real CSI. It also includes radio co-productions, with programmes for Thinking Allowed, BBC Inside Science, The Bottom Line, All in the Mind and More of Less as well as programmes for the World Service. There are up to 35 OU/BBC partnership projects per annum ranging from TV series, radio, digital and online content to outreach engagement activities. The partnership also includes producing content for BBC Ideas, covering a wide range of subjects relating to OU research.

 

  1. Every programme produced via the partnership is developed with the close involvement of OU academics. Key points of consultation include: attending and contributing academic expertise to editorial meetings for the programme and related online content; commenting on draft scripts; providing feedback on the rough cut; advising on the academic approach and providing a fact check on the final commentary script; signing-off the fine cut from an academic perspective; the development of additional materials; and contributing academic expertise to the production of supporting online materials.

 

  1. The OU/BBC partnership produces high-quality programmes, several of which have been nominated for and/or won BAFTA awards. In the last five years, OU/BBC co-productions have been nominated for 18 BAFTA awards and have, with the 2020 ceremony still to take place, won 7 BAFTAs (Blue Planet II and Exodus: Our Jouney to Europe and The Hunt have each won two awards and The Detectives: Murder on the Street has also won an award). 2020 BAFTA nominations include 8 Days to the Moon and Back, David Harewood: Psychosis and Me, Our Dementia Choir with Vicky McClure and Blue Planet Live.

 

 

 

  1. The OU/BBC partnership has a significant direct impact in educating and informing the public via people watching or listening to programmes. For example, in 2018/19 a total of 305 hours of educational content produced via the partnership was transmitted and this generated 321 million viewing and listening “events”. This is an essential contribution to the BBC’s public service broadcasting requirements and the OU’s social mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas, widening access to education to all.

 

The most viewed OU/BBC co-productions in 2018/19

 

Title

Viewing Figure

(million)

The Planets

21.5

Hospital (Series 4)

16.5

Forensics: The Real CSI

11.2

Icons

8.6

School 

7.3

The 15 Billion Pound Railway

4.5

Inside the Bank of England

2.3

Magic Numbers

2.0

 

  1. The impact of the OU/BBC partnership is far bigger than this. A key objective of the partnership is to create learning journeys from the informal, factual content produced with the BBC, through online and printed educational material which enhances and enriches the viewer’s broadcast experience, to ultimately encourage viewers to take up formal learning opportunities inspired by watching, listening and engaging with the broadcast content.

 

  1. In order to support these learning journeys, the partnership aims to deliver content which:

 

  1. Programes produced through the OU/BBC partnership include invitations to the audience to continue their learning journey by accessing free complementary materials produced by The OU and hosted on Openlearn. Certain projects also offer viewers free printed materials.

 

  1. The objective of encouraging people to access formal learning opportunities is at the heart of the commissioning process, with a focus on priority curriculum areas identified by OU faculties and to deliver content which can be used in teaching and learning. Current priority areas include: arts and history; business, management and law; education and languages; health, wellbeing and social care; technology including engineering, maths and computing; science and nature; social sciences including psychology; and current affairs.

 

 

  1. The OU/BBC Partnership also supports a range of public engagement activities. These range from OU lectures and workshops at museums such as the Science Museum, to screenings and press events. There were 12 OpenTalks in 2018/19 across Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland from OU academic consultants on OU/BBC co-productions including Blue Planet II, Inside the Foreign Office, Our Dementia Choir, 8 Days: To the Moon and Back, Icons (Sport), and David Harewood :Psychosis and Me.

 

  1. To give an indication of the impact of this activity, in 2018/19, the OU/BBC partnership attracted 1 million unique visitors to the Broadcast pages on OpenLearn with 440,000 requests for printed materials.

 

  1. It is also worth highlighting the big social impact that programmes produced via the OU/BBC partnership can have. The best recent example of this is Blue Planet II from 2017/18. The programme reached 45% of the population and generated over 830,000 visits to the OU website. It had a huge social impact in raising the profile of the issue of marine plastic pollution, inspiring several campaigns to tackle the problem, encouraging people to change their behaviour, stimulating several Parliamentary debates and ultimately having a big influence on the UK Government’s decision to take action to achieve zero avoidable plastic waste by 2042, including introducing a ban on plastic straws and drink stirrers.
  2. The OU makes every effort to support opportunities for informal engagement and to inspire learning which replicates our diverse range of subjects working in partnership with the other public service broadcasters beyond the BBC. Educational objectives are relevant to all public service broadcasters and are explicitly part of the public service remit for Channel 4.

Q5. Looking ahead

 

  1. Engaging adults in lifelong learning is becoming more important to the success of the UK economy and the UK Government’s “levelling up” agenda, especially in light of the Covid-19 crisis. Television has unique power and reach as a medium for inspiring and encouraging them to do so and is also able to engage unconfident learners who would not normally consider the possibility of lifelong learning. It is therefore crucial that PSB requirements are in place which encourage broadcasters to make space for such programming rather than more commercially attractive programming.

 

  1. Indeed, the importance of engaging more adults in lifelong learning is a good argument for increasing PSB requirements on television content for schools and education and adult informal learning specifically (as opposed to factual content more broadly) as this has reduced significantly in recent years. Public service broadcasters could also do more to highlight appropriate learning content that is complementary to their output as one way of furthering their educational objectives.

 

  1. There is a real opportunity to build on the recent expansion of public service broadcasters’ educational activities in response to the Covid-19 crisis, for example the BBC’s package of educational programming and materials produced to support schools and children with their learning while schools are closed.

 

 


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