Shadow Culture Secretary Welcomes DTT Licence Decision

Shadow Culture Secretary, Tim Yeo, has welcomed the ITC’s decision to award the digital terrestrial TV (DTT) licences made available following the collapse of ITV Digital to the BBC and BSkyB (see

However, he warned that awarding the licences to a consortium comprising of the two “most powerful” groups in television means that the Government must take great care to preserve a proper competitive market place.

Yeo also called for the transmission difficulties experienced by ITV Digital to be addressed “at once” and said that DTT set-top boxes sold to consumers should include a pay-TV upgrade facility to prevent viewers becoming second “class citizens”.

The BBC and BSkyB consortium, which saw off five rival bids to secure the licences (see Four Bidders Emerge For Digital Terrestrial Licences), will launch a free-to-air digital offering made up of 28 channels. All eight of the BBC’s existing digital channels will be carried on the service, along with BSkyB’s Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Travel.

Broadcast Minister, Kim Howells, recently criticised DTT services for being unreliable and called on broadcasters to work to convince consumers of the value of the medium (see Digital TV Has Been Under-Promoted Says Broadcast Minister). He said that unless the industry works to nurture creative and original programming there will always be a proportion of the population uninterested in digital TV.

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