DIGITAL BRITAIN REPORT OUT TODAY.

I'm surprised there's no comments about this on TVF.
Does anyone care how TV is funded?

I, and I suspect others were waiting for the report's publication prior to commenting.

IS THERE ANY NEED FOR THE SHOUTING

Bah, where's your sense of adventure? Speculation is invariably more fun. I predict C4 will be forced to merge with Babes TV in a move that will surprise Countdown's audience base.

So nothing concrete at all, more DAB speculation, no firm decision on top slicing the licence fee and encouraging the ongoing Channel 4 BBC Worldwide discussions. Some piracy legislation to follow


............ next

50p a month levy on all phone lines to fund next generation broadband. Clamp down on piracy so no one will need next generation broadband.

HD YouTube? iPlayer and similar?

I watched some of the debate in the Commons on Sky News. The Tories asked them about why smaller places in America have upto 8 local news programmes and large places in the UK have none. Good to see that getting some mention.

Nothing too revolutionary showed up from my reading over this before. The main points broadcasting related seemed to be:-

* A portion of the BBC Licence will go to others to fund PSB, though this isn't to happen until near end of switchoff (it's coming from the money being used to fund Digital for the aged). Another long consultation will now follow to work out who gets the money.

* ITV will have it's PSB restrictions and licence payments cut faster, probably ahead of the original plans around switchoff. There seemed to be a lot of acknowledging of 'passionate' feelings of the public to regions/nations, but little impact on the government's position.

* Despite ITV plc wanting otherwise however, the govt want to maintain status quo on the role of UTV and STV within the network, and what ITV plc are obliged to provide them.

* Channel 4 is looking set to get a much wider remit to branch into new media rather than just broadcast. They're also planned to be the main leader for non-BBC youth and children's content produced in the UK in the future.

ITV seem to have given up completely on kids programmes on ITV1 at least at the moment - nothing at the weekends at all, apart from the GMTV slots.

C4 getting a wider remit to compensate just defeats the purpose of C4 IMO - they certainly shouldn't move too much into children's programmings at the expense of the teen programming which has long been catering for, and to a certain extent still is, a market neglected by the BBC and ITV.

.....................

Plurality? Competition?
Will the BBCs coverage be as good without a competitor? Doubt it personally.
Regional news is surely one of the best examples of PSB. This is a tiny proportion of the licence fee to secure the future for an important service.