The UK needs to be better represented in all its diversity on cinema and TV screens, tackle divisive fake news and level the playing field for traditional streamers and broadcasters, Lisa Nandy, UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s relatively new Labour government, said at a conference in London on Tuesday, highlighting the “challenging” period the industry is going through amid the digital revolution and the impact of the COVID pandemic and advertising crisis.
Outlining his priorities in his first major public speech since his appointment, during a scheduled appearance at the Royal Television Society’s 2024 London convention, he said: “We have a choice ahead of us: whether we choose to be the last custodians of this chapter or whether we choose to be the first pioneers of the next.”
Addressing industry representatives in the room, he vowed that the Labour Government would help “create the conditions for this new era, not just by fixing models and ways of working that no longer work, but by ensuring you have the right framework, conditions and support to thrive in the future, and by being clear about the change we need from you in return”.
Nandy also said, in a dig at recent Conservative Party governments, that “the era of culture wars between governments is over” while Labour is in government and that the Labour government believes in public service broadcasting.
He praised the BBC, saying it had been “caught between the state and the market for too long.” The secretary vowed to at least keep funding stable for Britain's public broadcaster. “The next charter review must ensure the BBC not only survives, but thrives,” Nandy stressed.
The culture secretary stressed the role the media must play in properly representing the whole country and not just parts of it. He also expressed hope for a more united and comfortable country ahead of the next elections in a few years.
“When warring political tribes with separate news sources and information feeds construct their own unique realities, it costs us our ability to understand each other and we have seen how pernicious and uncontrolled misinformation can fan the flames of violence on display in our cities this summer,” Nandy said in reference to the riots and violence targeting asylum seekers. “My friend Peter Kyle and the team at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are already tackling incitement and misinformation through the Online Safety Act and in my department we have inherited a Media Act from the previous government with major reforms to the regulation of television and radio services that will ensure that as the way we consume media changes, the landscape changes with it,” he continued.
“Today I am writing to [media regulator] Ofcom will launch a review of the video-on-demand market,” Nandy further revealed. “This review will lay the foundations for a more level playing field for all traditional services, with video-on-demand [or streaming] regulated services with the same high standards we expect from traditional broadcasters.”
He also stressed that the entertainment industry needed to invest and produce more content set outside of London and in working-class settings. Nandy said his goal was “an industry that will not only survive, but thrive”, adding: “We will do everything we can to put rockets under your efforts, but that effort belongs to all of you first and foremost.”
Late last year, the previous Conservative Party government unveiled plans to launch a new independent standards body to help tackle bullying and harassment in the creative industries, which will begin work this year. The body, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA), will bring together stakeholders from the UK's film, TV, music and theatre sectors and is designed as a forum where concerns about behaviour can be raised and investigated confidentially. A number of well-known British creatives, including Keira Knightley, Stephen Graham, Ruth Wilson, Naomie Harris, Rebecca Ferguson, Moments of glory director David Puttnam, and James Bond Producer Barbara Broccoli joined Frazer in advocating for the new authority.