Carlton Calls For Licence Fee Cut To Boost Digital Take Up

A senior ITV executive last night demanded that the government commit to encouraging the consumer take up of digital terrestrial television by significantly reducing the estimated £200m in annual licence fees paid by commercial broadcasters.

Speaking at the Royal Television Society last night, Nigel Walmsley, deputy chief executive of Carlton, questioned the licence fees paid for Channel 3’s regional broadcast licences, saying that they drained resources which could be used to subsidise the digital take up.

“What is the point in asking the private sector (largely the ITV companies) to finance the build of a national digital terrestrial infrastructure while charging ITV £300m a year in extra taxes/” he said. “Channel 3 will pay £1 billion in these charges over the next five years. This is equivalent to providing 5m homes or 15-20% of the population with free set top boxes or subsidising IDTVs.”

Walmsley also criticised the Department of Trade and Industry’s Radio Communications Agency for falling short on the assignment of spectrum to ONdigital that had been promised when the digital terrestrial platform launched in 1998. He urged the government to: “Provide more frequencies and more power increases, and sweep away the red tape to ensure that faster progress can be made.”

Walmsley’s comments follow claims from ITV boss Stuart Prebble that the Government is not doing enough to promote the digital switch over (see Prebble Demands Government Commitment To Digital), and could raise doubts over the future of struggling pay-per-view platform ONdigital, which would undoubtedly benefit from the extra revenue freed up by a cut in licence fees.

Shareholders called for ONdigital to be scrapped earlier in the week (see Granada Pressured To Close ONdigital) and Carlton chief executive, Gerry Murphy, has reportedly signalled that ONdigital’s co-owners Carlton and Granada would consider looking for a third partner if a switch off date for analogue broadcasting was not set.

Carlton: 020 7663 6363 www.carlton.com Granada: 020 7620 1620 www.granada.co.uk ONdigital: 020 7819 8000 www.ondigital.co.uk

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