In its submission to the BBC Funding Review Panel, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) has voiced strong opposition to the introduction of a higher licence fee for digital television (DTV) viewers. The Commission today said:
“Digital television is an important growth area in which there is currently considerable UK leadership. If this is to be sustained and developed, and future gains realised, then this further investment must be made at an early stage and sustained over time. Against this background it would be perverse for Government to introduce a new and additional financial barrier to viewers contemplating the move to digital television.”
Although the introduction of a digital licence fee has never been formally proposed, John Birt, director-general of the BBC, raised the possibility in a Financial Times article. The notion was immediately jumped upon by a range of broadcast executives (see UK Broadcasters Oppose BBC Digital Fee Increase) who wrote to the editor of the FT saying: “We are strongly opposed to this idea because, as the chairman of the BBC Funding Review Panel, Gavyn Davies, has himself argued, it would represent a substantial disincentive to the take up of digital television.”
The ITC says that such a fee would be inconsistent with Government policy, which has sought to expedite the introduction of DTV through certain subsidies and financial incentives for broadcasters. The watchdog also says that a digital fee would set back the date of the analogue switch-off.
Furthermore, the Commission has strongly objected to the use of advertising and sponsorship being used to supplement the income of licence fee funded services. “Television advertising is not sufficient to fund BBC1 and 2 as well as Channels 3,4 and 5, and provide supplementary funding to cable and satellite channels. Were this to be attempted it would mark the demise of public service broadcasting on these channels,” warns the watchdog.
If substantial and sustained pressure were to be introduced to the commercial public service broadcasters, “there can be no doubt that commercial considerations would prevail and public service requirements would be driven out. No regulator in the world could prevent that,” says the ITC submission.
Earlier in the year the Institute for Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) accused the BBC of acting more and more like a commercial broadcasting in such a way that is starting to have a “restrictive effect on the commercial sector.” For this reason, the IPA opposes the idea of supplementary funding for the Corporation in its present form (see ‘No Case For Supplementary BBC Funding’ Says The IPA). Conversely, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) has called for spot advertising to be introduced to the BBC if the Corporation is to maintain its standards of quality and diversity (see ISBA Suggests BBC Uses Spot Advertising To Increase Revenue).
Independent Television Commission: 0171 255 3000
