ITC Chief Outlines Regulation Priorities

Patricia Hodgson, chief executive of the ITC, has set out what she feels should be the three key priorities for a “lean and mean” new communications regulatory framework.

In a keynote speech at last week’s European Media Forum seminar, Hodgson said that the priorities for regulation should be investment friendly regulation, competition and a new settlement for public service broadcasting.

In order to achieve the first priority, she said, there is a need to focus on investment in content and not just infrastructure. “It will be content and services that grow broadband, and in the consumer market, these are likely to attach themselves first to digital TV, where there’s a clear demand for a service soon to be in half of homes.” she said.

In terms of the second priority, the ITC chief said that the aim should be to use competition rather than regulation to deliver what the customers want, saying “Regulatory structures must not impose unnecessary burdens.”

She continued: “Communications has its natural monopolies and the cost of broadband and digital may mean consolidation and a few dominant networks. We must be realistic. Recognise where investment duplicated is investment wasted. Don’t fear the global players.”

With regards to public service broadcasting, Hodgson took the commonly held line that quality,range and creativity must be preserved alongside the need for competition. However, the details of what she terms this “new settlement” for PBS remain an unresolved issue for the industry at the moment. David Liddiment ruffled BBC feathers with his GEITF lecture in the summer, fearing for the “soul of British television”. The minister for Culture, Media and Sport has had her ability to define what PBS should be questioned, despite blocking what many saw as the BBC’s populist digital youth channel. Even today, in the Financial Times’ Creative Business Peter Bazalgette points out that in the last session of the Royal Television Society convention this year, the collective brain power of eight television executives failed to define public service broadcasting for the digital era. There is, it seems, much debate, but few answers.

ITC: 020 7306 7743 www.itc.org.uk

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