...against a background of growing access and use to digital and on-demand TV platforms:

Source: Ofcom

In accordance with the Communications Act 2003 (the Act), we will carry out our second Review of Public Service Television Broadcasting (PSB Review) between September 2007 and early 2009. The Act calls on us to carry out such a review at least once every five years. It requires us to report on the extent to which the public service broadcasters (PSBs) have fulfilled the purposes of public service television broadcasting, and to make recommendations with a view to maintaining and strengthening the quality of PSB in the future.

The specific objectives of this Review will be:

• To evaluate how effectively the public service broadcasters are delivering the purposes and characteristics of PSB, particularly in the light of changes in the way TV content is distributed and consumed;
• To assess the case for continued intervention in the delivery of TV content to secure public service purposes;
• To consider whether and how the growth of new ways of delivering content to consumers and citizens might create new opportunities for achieving the goals of public service broadcasting, as well as posing new challenges; and
• To assess future options for funding, delivering and regulating public service broadcasting, in light of these challenges and opportunities, and uncertainty about the sustainability of existing funding models.

We carried out the first PSB Review from 2003 to 2005. The third and final phase was published on 8 February 2005. A final statement on programming for the Nations and Regions was published in June 2005.

The first PSB Review concluded that:

• There was continued demand by consumers and citizens for PSB, although the ways in which they access and consume PSB content may change;
• The market would not meet all PSB purposes, even in an all-digital environment;
• The existing commercial PSB model would not be sustainable in a wholly multichannel world;
• The BBC should remain the cornerstone of PSB, but should not be the only provider;
• There was likely to be a need for:
  
  
  • continuing but evolving roles for ITV1 and Five. We identified the priorities as continued commissioning and broadcasting of original UK programmes and (for ITV1) continuing to show national and international news, current affairs and regional news;
  • new funding models for PSB, particularly for Channel 4, whose existing funding model was likely to come under increasing pressure;
  • new intervention to address deficits in the existing linear PSB model and serve public purposes in online and interactive media, potentially through the medium of a public service publisher (PSP).

The analysis we conducted in the first PSB Review showed that existing commercial funding models for public service broadcasting would become unsustainable after digital switchover. The obligations on commercially-funded PSBs would become increasingly untenable, because the cost of meeting them would exceed the value of the benefits the broadcasters derived from access to scarce analogue broadcasting spectrum. Our analysis concluded that beyond switchover, we would no longer be able to ensure the delivery of the commercial broadcasters’ obligations at the same level as previously.

These findings were supported by our subsequent full financial review of Channel 4, which was conducted in 2006-2007. This review concluded that Channel 4 is likely to face increased financial pressures in the medium-term that could constrain its ability to deliver its public service remit."