Channel 4 Releases Response To Forthcoming Communications White Paper

The channel’s response began with an expression of support for the appearance of the white paper. “Channel 4 is in favour of a radical re-appraisal of communications regulation to recognise that convergence is a reality,” it began. “We believe there is a need to supplement competition law with specific regulation to guard against the abuse of a dominant position in the relationship between platform and content provider, to ensure a continued diversity of programme suppliers and platform providers and to ensure adequate consumer protection and information in the market for hardware and services.”

While the channel said that it felt the primary role of the content regulator was to “ensure clear consumer information and a complaints procedure for viewers who feel they have been offended or misled”, it later went on to support the idea of a measure of self-regulation for channels with regard to content, in the form of a commitment made to viewers and users.

Channel 4 added its support to the view that the BBC should be included under the competence of the regulator. “In a world of convergence, to continue to allow the major public service broadcaster to operate under an entirely anomalous system of regulation is to risk marginalising and ultimately ghettoising it, to the great disservice of consumers and the industry,” it stated.

The issue of public service broadcasting is among those raised in the white paper. Channel 4 has stated that it is “strongly in favour” of remaining a public service broadcaster, and that the same remit should continue to apply to all five terrestrial channels. It went on to say that access to public service broadcasting services should be made available to viewers on all main platforms at no extra cost.

This “impartiality of access” is likely to become more of an issue as the digital switchover progresses. Channel 4 expressed what it sees as a need for “transparent and objective market information” as a “basic civil right” for the new platforms, ensuring viewers know what is and isn’t available to them on choosing a particular platform.

While the channel sees the development of video streaming on the internet as an opportunity to create trans-national partnerships, it expresses its “strong reservations” regarding the concentration of ownership within this country. It points to its submission to the Competition Commission on the then proposed United/Carlton merger, where it argued that the merger would “have a damaging impact on the ability of other terrestrial broadcasters to secure the advertising revenue necessary to offer high quality programming to audiences, and that there would be no discernible benefit to viewers in the shape of better programmes or to the UK in the shape of a more competitive industry if the merger was allowed.”

Once again, a single regulator was cited by Channel 4 as the only logical response to the process of convergence. It pointed out the success of the telecoms regulator in enforcing a “level playing field for new entrants.”

The Communications Reform White Paper is due to be released on 12 December this year.