Public service broadcasting and the Digital Economy Bill
Published on 25 Nov 2009 at 3:08 pm.
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Filed under Misc, Broadcasting, AVMS Directive, Digital Britain.
Blog Author: Tony Ballard
The Digital Economy Bill proposes a reformulation of the public service broadcasting principle.
Not so long ago, the Government spoke of digital television bringing about the end of television as broadcasting and the beginning of electronic communications as a seamless web which transcended the old distinctions between television, computer and the telephone. It foresaw a future where broadcasting regulation was based in the first instance on competition law with a reduced set of distinctive media rules added only where strictly necessary. The upshot was the Communications Act 2003, which withdrew almost all specific content regulation from the internet, and a campaign in Europe to limit the scope of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.
What was to some extent foreshadowed in Digital Britain and what we see now in the Digital Economy Bill is something completely different. Quite apart anything in the Directive, which will impose on the VOD industry some minor consumer protection requirements and regulatory costs, the Bill has ambitions to embrace the internet in seeking to achieve one of the oldest ambitions of public service broadcasting, which is positively to provide wide-ranging programmes of quality to the public in the UK.
Under the Communications Act, Ofcom has a general duty to secure the availability throughout the UK “of a wide range of television and radio services which … are both of high quality and calculated to appeal to a variety of tastes and interests”. This is one of the sacred texts of broadcasting law handed down ultimately from the 1920s and Lord Reith, albeit adapted to today’s markets. A change in this duty can be expected to be a bellwether of Government thinking. And the Bill proposes just such a change. It would change the duty so that it was not just to secure a wide range of television and radio services, nor a mere extension to cover VOD to reflect the emasculated Directive, but a full-on extension to the internet. If the Bill is enacted, the duty will extend to other services provided by means of the internet. It would cover every conceivable service on the internet subject to just one condition - that there is a person who exercises editorial control over material included in the service. The new formulation of the duty will substitute “media services”, widely defined to include VOD and these other internet services, for “television and radio services” so Ofcom’s duty would be to secure the availability throughout the UK of a wide range of high quality “media services” calculated to appeal to a variety of tastes and interests.
The immediate practical consequences of the change are mainly confined to Channel Four, whose new remit would be to invest in (or otherwise procure), make and distribute “relevant media content”, which would be material included in these widely defined media services. In other words it would have a remit that extended expressly to material included in internet services of every kind where editorial control was exercised. Similarly the new providers of regional or local news will be appointed to provide material of this kind, including material capable of being included in such services.
More generally, Ofcom would now have to review and report on the extent to which material included in these “media services” contribute towards the fulfilment of public service objectives, which would be assessed not by reference only to the traditional public service broadcasters (as at present) nor even to them and other broadcasters and VOD providers but instead by reference to all such services and all other services provided by means of the internet where there is a person who exercises editorial control. This is a new, holistic approach to public service broadcasting which was not entirely foreshadowed by Digital Britain.
The editorial control requirement indicates, however, a certain timidity in this otherwise bold step into cyberspace. Quite what it will mean in practice remains to be explored but it might be characterised as confining the new approach and the new remits of Ofcom and Channel Four to Web 1.0 services. 4oD okay but 4iP may yet be a step too far for this Government.
Nevertheless, the new Bill indicates an abandonment of the old dream of broadcasting regulation based in the first instance on competition law with a reduced set of distinctive media rules. Instead, the tide has turned and the trend is now in the direction of expanding regulation so as to embrace rather than exclude the internet.