No-one is holding power to account, says Sir Phil Redmond

Grange Hill and Hollyoaks creator Sir Phil Redmond says the loss of local media led the public to vote in the May local elections based on opinions, rumour and gossip, rather than real information.

And he is calling on new BBC director general Matt Brittin to strengthen public service broadcasting for the regions against the onslaught of social media.

“Places like Liverpool and Manchester are clearly not adequately served by public service media. BBC Merseyside does a good job but is not reaching swathes of the public, including young people, while much of the rest of the media have little or no stake in the city other than to go after our ‘clicks’ and ‘likes’.

“It is time for us as a region and as a nation to decide if we want public service broadcasting and to demand that it serve our interests as communities.”

LJMU public lecture series

Sir Phil, who also created the Liverpool-based drama Brookside and ran Mersey TV, outlining his argument for ‘Why we need strong public service broadcasting’ in a lecture in the city’s Philharmonic Hall on Tuesday, May 26 at 5pm.

Organised by Liverpool John Moores University, the sell-out talk to more than 900 people is part of the university’s Roscoe Lecture Series, which has welcomed speakers from The Prince of Wales and the Dalai Lama to Jeremy Paxman and Mark Carney.

Sir Phil proposed there are three great social challenges of the day:

• Technology allowing social media platforms to build ever more intrusive platforms for echo chambers of conspiracy and fake news
• Those platforms, including entertainment streamers, relying on algorithms to record ‘likes’ and therefore increasing the promotion of the same content over and over again – reinforcing a narrowing of views
• This growth of social media platforms accelerating the contraction of traditional media through merger and rationalisation, again chasing ‘what people like’ and resulting in ‘news deserts’ across the UK

“All are a challenge to democracy, as all three combine to create news deserts: areas where there is, quite literally, no local news provision. No one asking the awkward questions and the public get froth not fact,” Sir Phil will say.

“If algorithms are used to simply mine data and refine content only to what people ‘like’, or find acceptable, what results is a deficit of real information which in turn leads to a democratic deficit.

“People making decisions based on opinions, rumour and gossip, rather than real information. This, I believe, was thrown into stark relief at the recent elections. Nobody trusts anyone.”

Future of the BBC

And he argues that the public can take back control by supporting a strong, adequately funded but more focused public service content provider.

“It is not just about the future of the BBC as it is. Not about what they need to survive. But what we, the public, the Licence Fee payers, the taxpayers want from it.

“That is not a debate to be left to a few people in a room in London. Nor rushed simply to meet a Charter deadline. We need a proper, UK-wide debate about what a future public service content provider should be doing, for the next 100 years, perhaps. How we pay for it? And how it should be shaped.”

Sir phil was interviewed before his talk by LJMU Journalism undergraduates Dylan Reed and Megan Thomas (pictured).

Sir Phil is an advocate and ambassador for Liverpool and Merseyside and became the face of Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture year in 2008. Liverpool’s success inspired the UK City of Culture programme which he has chaired since 2011, and more recently has also become Chair of the new Town of Culture competition. 

He was awarded a CBE in 2004 for services to drama and a Knight Bachelor for services to broadcasting and regional arts in in 2020.