UK Regulator Wants New Competition To BBC

In a rather remarkable move, UK’s media regulator Ofcom has suggested setting up a new public service broadcaster (PSB), with a budget of 300 million GBP, to rival the BBC. At heart is the debate about what the remit of a public service broadcaster should be, and how BBC’s power could be counteracted…

The new broadcaster would be required to commission innovative content and to distribute it as widely as possible via broadband internet, PVRs, mobile phone networks and cable, satellite and digital terrestrial TV.

It is a slightly vaporware and esoteric concept, maybe a little too far ahead of its time, or even too difficult to implement…but if they’re able to pull it off, it may be turn out to be the way TV and video is distributed in future…

The formation of this new service would come through a competitive bidding process: A winning bid could come from any current broadcaster, any media company (except the BBC), an independent producer, infrastructure operator — or a consortium of such companies.

() For a the full PDF report on the role of PSB in the digital age, click here

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