[CMA TV] BBC wants digital dividend safeguarded

[Editor, Airflash Magazine]

BBC wants digital dividend safeguarded
Ben Bold
20 March
The BBC has opposed Ofcom's plans to sell off the spectrum released  
by the digital switchover.

It has also called for an allocation of the digital dividend to be  
given to public service broadcasters to develop free-to-air high- 
definition digital channels.

The BBC said there was no business model that would enable it to  
afford the likely auction prices for the spectrum in order to supply  
free-to-air HD on digital terrestrial television.

Viewers are increasingly turning to HD sets in the build-up to the  
switch to digital, which commences this year and will continue region  
by region until 2012. It is forecast that 10 million households will  
have HD-ready televisions by 2010.

However, the BBC claims that auctioning off the spectrum released at  
the end of 2008 would "foreclose the option for HD channels for up to  
18 years" - the licence period proposed by Ofcom.

It is calling for a minimum of one-third of the digital dividend to  
be allotted to public service broadcasters to enable them to provide  
a strong HD free-to-air service.

Director general Mark Thompson said: "If pure market mechanisms are  
applied to the whole digital dividend, our fear is that it will  
jeopardise the success of universal access to high quality public  
service broadcasting, free-to-air on all main platforms and also lead  
to an erosion of the digital terrestrial platform and its ability to  
compete."

As part of the its digital dividend review, Ofcom is proposing to  
auction off part of the existing analogue frequency spectrum.

Earlier this month it emerged that media secretary Tessa Jowell was  
facing increasing political pressure to overrule Ofcom's auction  
plan. A cross-party group of MPs argued that the sale of spectrum  
freed up by switch-over would prevent terrestrial broadcasters from  
meeting demand for high-definition television.

Ofcom has said that putting the spectrum on the open market is the  
only way to ensure it is used to its full potential.

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Source: Broadcastnow

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcastnowArticle.aspx?intStoryID=167946





Michelle McGuire
Editor, Airflash Magazine

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

"Access to the media for people and communities"