« Paragraph 1.1 | Read the full summary | Paragraph 1.3 »
In the first PSB Review, we defined public service broadcasting by its purposes and characteristics. Our research shows that audiences across the demographic spectrum continue to believe that those purposes and characteristics are vitally important. Television – and the public service channels in particular – are seen to have an essential role to play in delivering the purposes of public service broadcasting.
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On this experimental site we encourage you to leave informal comments alongside the Executive Summary of Ofcom's Second Public Service Broadcasting Review - Phase One: The Digital Opportunity, published on April 10th 2008.
Alternatively, you can download the full consultation document, and/or respond formally to the consultation (closing date 19th June 2008). You can also follow the debate over the next few months on the PSB Review blog.
Martin Curry on 10 April 2008 at 1:38pm
I should like to see sport included explicitly, rather than implicitly, as one form of public service broadcasting.
The Government clearly feels that some sporting events are part of PSB, which is why they are listed and must be made available to Free to Air broadcasters with national coverage.
Attempts to define PSB in terms of market failure are in my opinion misguided and seek to benefit the suppliers of pay TV.
PSB broadcasters should, in total provide sufficient information, education and entertainment (to use the old definition)for viewers that they do not feel the need to subscribe to pay TV, but may do so out of choice for additional pleasure or benefit.
Alan in Belfast on 12 April 2008 at 1:19pm
While television is incredibly important and the basis of the need for a PSB review, radio needs to be given an emphasis too. With a converged media environment, where TV, radio and online all rely on and thrive from each other, is it not important to look at the totality of the media landscape that is engaged in public service broadcasting?
jill waters on 6 May 2008 at 12:23am
I am confused : this document seems to only define public service broadcasting as related to television. Because listeners get radio for free what many people including government and the regulatory bodies seem to overlook is that it does in fact cost money to produce. There exists an independent radio sector, struggling to thrive in the same way as its TV cousins, with lots of small production companies producing work of extraordinarily high quality : but Ofcom is doing nothing to encourage the infrastructure to support it. If radio is to thrive in the future then it needs to be placed on the same footing as television in terms of how it is regulated. The 20% output quota that the BBC has to guarantee to the independent sector in terms of television should be extended to reach across all the BBC's PSB output including individual radio networks, digital and analogue (instead of the voluntary paltry 6-10% of 'available output' that currently obtains). Only then will public service broadcasting in the digital future begin to tap into the full range of creative talent that is available, and, as per the previous post, opportunities be extended equally across all platforms in a way that benefits listeners and viewers everywhere.