[CMA TV] Ofcom secures support for PSP

[Editor, Airflash Magazine]

Ofcom secures support for PSP
Yvette Mackenzie
12:00pm


Ofcom's plan to introduce a Public Service Publisher (PSP) has been  
backed by the majority of respondents to its initial consultation.

The majority of the 76 people and companies that responded agreed  
that online delivery will be a valuable new way of accessing public  
service content. Overall they said they supported the case for  
intervention.

Ofcom believes that there is likely to be insufficient provision of  
public service content from and for television after digital  
switchover and has proposed the PSP as a remedy.

The regulator said it would do more work to clarify exactly where the  
market shortfall would occur and look harder at the types of content  
which would be needed.
Questions of funding

Ofcom will also address questions of funding and scale. Most  
respondents agreed that this should be considered in the context of  
the new media market rather than learning lessons from traditional  
broadcasting.

There was no consensus, however, over the required scale or source of  
potential funding.

The regulator has suggested a series of seminars for broadcasters and  
online investors this summer to debate the PSP.

It has also commissioned an external review to assess to economic  
impact of market intervention and aims to provide further analysis on  
the sort of content the PSP should provide.

Once these areas have been explored the information gathered will  
feed into the next public service broadcaster review. This is  
scheduled to begin in autumn this year.

Source: Broadcastnow

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcastnowArticle.aspx?intStoryID=169462



-
Michelle McGuire
Editor, Airflash Magazine

Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk

"Access to the media for people and communities"