1.9
Our analysis of the funding available to the commercial PSBs for public service content, reviewed for this phase, shows they will continue to deliver much UK public service content, often for commercial reasons. The regulatory assets identified in phase 1 used to fund provision of this content, such as access to reserved spectrum, will retain some value beyond the completion of digital switchover in 2012.
Commercial public service broadcasting under the current system will not survive the transition to an all-digital world
Trevor Lockwood on 28 November 2008 at 8:44am
Commercial stations have hidden behind the cloak of advertisers who have provided the income that allows such stations to operate.
If the same situation operated in, say, the world of the theatre or opera, where we could all visit the theatre, at no charge at point of entry, then perhaps more folk would visit such places and they would thrive.
If commercial stations were forced to make folk pay, before they watched, for every programme then would they survive?
There's a broader problem. The provision of continuous broadcasting, which for the viewer is a passive activity, means we have created an indolent population whose only form of extra-curricular activity is to slump on a sofa with a glazed expression and a lump or bottle of something sweetly fattening.