ITV Chairman Calls For Flexibility In TV Industry

On the day that the Broadcasting Bill begins its final stages in the House of Commons, the Chairman of the ITV Association, Mr Les Hill, today called for greater flexibility in the future regulation of the television industry.

Mr Hill says that the challenge is for regulators and Government departments to give British broadcasters “a fair wind into the future”, ensuring that the new Broadcasting Bill will be able to live up to the spirit as well as the letter of what he believes is a vital, broadly progressive piece of legislation.

He says that ITV now needs both greater freedom to schedule its programmes as it wishes and to have similar regulations to that of cable and satellite in areas such as European quota, airtime minutage and sponsorship. He also wants the “burden of special tax payments to the Treasury to be shared by all commercial broadcasters” and a “sensible review of excessive licence payments”: fair competition throughout the industry would also “signal the arrival of a less benign approach to the now-profitable BSkyB.”

The Broadcasting Bill today goes through its 3rd Reading (Report Stage) in the House of Commons, with passage through the Lords around mid-July. It is hoped that the Bill will receive Royal Assent and become law by the end of this month.

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