[Community Television] Ofcom chief defends plans for PSB (Modified by Michelle McGuire)

[Chris Haydon]

Response to Stephen Carter
from Chris Haydon
Director, Community TV Trust


£150,000 per hour for public service broadcasting/programming ...

My God and I ran an innovative project for less for a YEAR !
It reached and touched the lives of fifty organisations and
schools and still stands today doing its work and will do so
for years to come. It gave training, made equipment grants,
helped people break through fear, doubt, reluctance, and other
familiar stumbling blocks.

Is it not a thought that in this age of new media and self-
generated media that funding be considered that empowers
individuals and groups and also encourages media literacy and
creativity ?

Having just had a 100% funding reduction for this innovative
work (that has attracted superb testimonials and so on), there
may be an edge to these comments. Pennilessness however can
sharpen perception.

I ask Stephen Carter if he might re-consider his allocation of
funding. There is a way to have the public produce its own
prgramming instead of requiring 'the Media' to intervene and
show them how the world is. Now that would be a Public Service.

Ordinary people everywhere are proving that technical and
conceptual barriers between them and media makers are less
and less significant. The digital revolution has enabled this
transformation of possibility.

Ofcom, please consider the broadband market as well as the
broadcast market.

We really should be talking about Public Service Media anyway,
not limiting ourselves to a 'broadcasting' debate.
- - - - -
www.communitytvtrust.org
www.southwark.tv



Michelle McGuire wrote:

> + Community Television +
>
> Ofcom chief defends plans for PSB
> Paul Revoir
>   04 October 2004 12:53
>
>   Ofcom chief executive Stephen Carter has defended controversial plans
> to create a new £300m public service broadcaster, saying it will keep
> the BBC competitive and help promote innovative programming.
>
> Carter, in an article in today’s Guardian, admitted there had been a
> "mixed response" to the report, published last week. But he said the
> Communcations Act had been "unambigious" that Ofcom should look at how
> PSB should be "maintained and strengthened".
>
> He added: "At the end of the debate, the nation may decide that
> parliament set Ofcom the wrong exam question and that we should spend
> less on and get less of public service television."
>
> He also said the £300m ear-marked for the new publid service publisher
> would stop the money "bleeding" out of the PSB system, although he
> added the funding mechanism for the channel would be a matter for the
> government. This could include general taxation, an enhanced licence
> fee or from a levy on broadcasters.
>
> The Ofcom chief said the outline plan for the service could see
> three-hours-a-day of programming, at the cost of £150,000 an hour,
> which would have re-versioned content for mobile phones and spin-off
> material like interactive and archive.
>
> He highlighted the genres of high-quality drama, comedy, natural
> history, documentary and current affairs and said that the programmes
> could be multiplexed creating something like a "video-on-demand" model.
> It could also be showcased on other channels.
>
> Carter said: "We believe that competition for quality and innovation
> will refresh this country’s public service broadcasting in the digital
> and multimedia age; and that a competed-for public service publisher is
> the best way to inject those virtues."
>
>   Source: broadcastnow.co.uk
>
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