大象传媒

The new Charter and Agreement outline six "Public Purposes" for the 大象传媒 and task the new 大象传媒 Trust with ensuring the 大象传媒 delivers the best possible programming to promote them.

The Trust has today taken its first step to fulfilling this responsibility, publishing for public consultation six draft Purpose Remits which spell out proposed priorities and how the 大象传媒s delivery of each purpose will be judged. The consultation and the first of the Trusts major audience research surveys will seek to find out what priorities are most important to licence fee payers and how the 大象传媒 is currently performing in those areas.

Acting Chairman Chitra Bharucha said:

"The new Charter makes clear that the 大象传媒 exists only to serve the public interest and the 大象传媒's main object is the promotion of its six Public Purposes. For each of these Public Purposes we are today publishing draft remits and asking licence fee payers whether they agree with the priorities proposed for the 大象传媒. We also want to know how well licence fee payers think the 大象传媒 is currently performing in these priority areas."

The public consultation will begin formally on Tuesday 16 January and any individual or organisation can respond via the 大象传媒 Trust's website. The Audience Councils - the Trust's advisers in the UK's four nations will provide responses from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and around England; and the Trust will seek to raise awareness amongst interest groups and the public directly.

Chitra Bharucha said however that the Trust needed to do more in order to ensure the evidence on which the Trust based its judgements was properly representative of licence fee payers:

"The Trust hopes as many people as possible will respond to the consultation. We owe it to all licence fee payers to ensure that the evidence we collect is truly representative. We are therefore also commissioning our first major survey of 4,500 adults to help identify the publics priorities for the 大象传媒 and where they think the 大象传媒 could do better. The Trust will take account of all views expressed before finalising the Purpose Remits. We will then request 大象传媒 management to respond with their plans for delivery."

The consultation will close on 10 April 2007. The Trust will publish responses to the consultation and the results of the survey alongside the final Purpose Remits later this year.

Ends.

Notes to editors

Publications for consultation

Today the Trust is publishing: six draft Purpose Remits and the operating framework document, which explains the process around the remits. Documents are available via www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust.

The Trust will be holding a briefing for external stakeholders on Tuesday 16 January about the Purpose Remits and the Service Licences (published on 18 December). Both sets of documents are the subject of a public consultation, starting 16 January 2007.

The six Public Purposes

• Sustaining citizenship and civil society
• Promoting education and learning
• Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
• Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities
• Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK

Emerging communications: helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television

Research overview

• The research agency BMRB has been commissioned to conduct the survey.
• A total of 4,500 interviews with adults 15+ will be completed using a mixed method approach whereby 50% of interviews will be conducted face to face and 50% will be conducted online.
• We have ensured that boosts are included so that there will be approximately 500 interviews in each of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; and ethnic minorities over-sampled to achieve at least 500 interviews.
• Fieldwork will be from 25th January through to 25th February.
• The main purpose of the questionnaire will be to consider the Purpose Remit priorities in terms of performance and importance of each from both a consumer and a citizen perspective.
• In addition, to enrich the results, the survey will also capture a number of demographics; media consumption; technology ownership and usage; lifestyle and interests; 大象传媒 specific questions (inc approval; satisfaction; relationship etc)
• The total cost of the research will be around 拢250,000

Extract from the 大象传媒 Agreement

Purpose Remits

• Purpose remits set by the Trust under article 24(2)(a) of the Charter must comply with the requirements of this clause.
• There shall be a separate purpose remit for each of the six Public Purposes.

Each remit must:

• set out priorities, and
• specify how the 大象传媒's performance against them will be judged, in relation to how the 大象传媒 promotes is Public Purposes in accordance with article 5 of the Charter (the 大象传媒s mission to inform, educate and entertain)
• The Trust must consult publicly in developing purpose remits
• Once purpose remits have been adopted, the Trust must keep them under review and may amend them. Before an amendment is made, there must be a process of public consultation appropriate to the nature of the proposed change. For example, any substantial change to the priorities set within a purpose must be subject to a particularly thorough process of full consultation.