OFCOM to renew all franchises

The other two threads are not archived.

http://www.tvforum.co.uk/thenewsroom/latest-ofcom-proposals-itv-39040/

http://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/ofcoms-report-ch3-ch5-licence-renewal-33314/

Ofcom has announced its decision to renew the licenses of ITV, STV, UTV and Channel 5 for a further 10-year period commencing from 1 January 2015.

The move prevents the licenses from expiring at the end of the year and dovetails with a separate determination of the areas covered by the individual channel 3 licenses.

This will see Ofcom create a separate license for Wales together with a West and South West of England license, both of which must be accepted by the license holders at pain of having them revoked

* http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/02/11/ofcom-renews-itv-stv-utv-and-channel-5-licenses-10-years

* http://www.stockmarketwire.com/article/4754414/ITV-licences-renewed.html

* http://www.a516digital.com/2014/02/ofcom-renews-channel-3-and-5-licences.html

* http://news.stv.tv/west-central/263689-stv-welcomes-renewal-of-broadcasting-licences-for-another-ten-years/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

They're licences not franchises, important difference.

So another epic display of OFCOM's muscle (or lack thereof) then - historically HTV operated a Wales & West dual region franchise with a mandate to provide a separate service for each part of the region, whilst Westcountry operated a South West franchise. Thus the two companies between them provided 3 separate services run from Cardiff, Bristol and Plymouth. Through various takeovers both of these licences end up being owned by ITV plc who ignore the service these licences are supposed to provide and instead restructure so that Wales operates independently, the South West operation is simply shut down, and to plug the gap the West region is extended to cover the South West too.


To me, this would seem to be a serious breach of these licences as they are not providing the service as set out in the licence. OFCOM's response to this: 'we are going to restructure the licences to reflect what you've already done. Oh, and don't worry about not bothering to ask us before doing it'.

If OFCOM are still serious about regional news provision then I would have thought re-instating a separate South West service, run from within the region and not from Bristol would be a basic requirement.

No doubt ITV will continue to laugh at the regulator 'getting tough' with them in the certain knowledge that they can continue to do whatever the hell they want.

Personally, I think the decision to create a separate license for Wales is a good thing. Not only does it recognise Wales' standing within the UK as a separate nation, but it also brings the Channel 3 service into line with the BBC's approach and is effectively what ITV has been doing anyway. If anything, I'm surprised the issue wasn't addressed earlier, around the time of devolution.

Odd that there isn't anything re Border Scotland or getting rid of Scotland North and expanding Scotland Central northwards.

Why would they expand Scotland Central northwards when there is already two licences - one for each area?

As in make it one whole licence.

And why would they want to do that? It's fine the way it is...

I think they maybe meant southwards, i.e. put Border Scotland into Scotland Central.

Your statement 'we are going to restructure the licences to reflect what you've already done. Oh, and don't worry about not bothering to ask us before doing it' simply isn't true.

Although OFCOM were inevitably going to let them do it, ITV had to get permission from OFCOM before they could merge Westcountry and West (as well as merging Border with Tyne Tees, Thames Valley with Meridian, and merging sub-regions, etc).

Wouldn't that move a chunk of advertising revenue from ITV and give it to STV? That could be quite a tricky thing to do...

Isn't there already a precedent for this though? I'm sure that, way back in the mists of time, the Belmont transmitter was originally part of Anglia Television's patch before later being reassigned to Yorkshire Television.