Digital, Interactive and Web TV

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Regulatory & Standards Bodies

UK

At present public service television channels, commercial television channels, telephone and cable are all regulated by different bodies and different legislation. For example, television comes under the Broadcasting Act. The Government is proposing an all embrasing Communications Bill. Additionally, actions by organisations and companies can be subject to general commercial laws such as the Competition Act covering restrictive practices as well as investigations into potential monopolies. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is responsible for enforcing the Competition Act.

Independent Television Commission (ITC) is responsible for the regulating the content of television and for awarding the various digital TV licences to the commercial sector.

With many new distribution channels for television the ITC is reviewing the role of public service broadcasting. Whilst digital channels are not required to provide any public service broadcasting, the ITC does insist through the licence conditions that commercial channels do provide such material. In preparation for providing input into the Government's proposed Communications Bill, the ITC is canvassing public opinion as to the role of public service broadcasting.
In March 2001 the ITC slashed the licence payments to the Treasury in a move designed to increase the roll-out and uptake of digital TV. As soon as 95% of the population switches to digital then the government can auction off the analogue spectrum. Providing digital targets are met (see controversy) then licence payments should reduce from £350m in 2000 to £250m in 2002. Over the renewed licence period of 10 years, starting 1 April 2001, the companies will save a £1bn. The lower fees also reflects the more competitive environment in a multi-media world with satellite, cable and internet competitors.

Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) is responsible for the regulating the telephony service including standards. Oftel was also given responsibility over digital TV in the areas of conditional access (CA), interactive services, and the standards for the electronic programme guides (EPGs).

The Digital Television Group (DTG) is a consortium of companies with a commitment to digital terrestrial broadcasting in the UK. It has over 80 members. The DTG is responsible for the technical standards for UK digital terrestrial television consistent with the European Union Directive on Television Transmission Standards. It has decided on the MHEG-5 standard.

New Broadcasting Proposals - The Communications Bill

On 12 December the Government issued it long awaited White Paper on the future of regional television. The paper proposes:

a new regulatory body, Ofcom, will combine media and telecommunications. The ITC, BSC and Radio Authority would be incorporated into Ofcom.
removing the rule that no one ITV company can have more than 15% of audience share - i.e. there could be a single independent television (ITV) company.
there should still be a need to comply with Fair Trading Legislation (i.e. there could be no monopoly in TV advertising).
a new regulatory and complaints body for ITV.
a review of the remit of Channel 4, the commercial channel with a public service duty.
all current free-to-air channels will have to be available on all platforms.

Unexpectedly there were no proposals:

concerning limits on cross-media ownership but comments were welcome.
to reduce the powers of the BBC Governors (its effective Board), particularly in the area of complaints handling excepting viewers would be able to appeal to Ofcom.

Legislation was expected to be placed before the 2001-2 session of Parliament but the election change all that. In fact there was no mention of the Communications Bill in the Queen's Speach for the 2001-2 session. So it will be at least 2002-3 before the bill is presented and enacted. See Year 2003 likely to be a battle ground for Media and the Euro with Murdoch a key figure. What was mentioned in the Queen's Speech was the proposal for a new regulatory body Ofcom (see above).

Europe

The Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is an European consortium of 170 organisations from 21 countries. It represent industry, broadcasters and users and aims to agree standards for digital TV.

Additional to broadcasting and technical regulations, the European Commission has juristriction where there are actual or potential monopoly considerations. For example, in March 2000 it extended its Microsoft anti-trust probe into the software company's acquisition of a 29.7% stake in Telewest Communications. It was particularly concerned over the provision of software for set-top boxes and it's possible use to restrict consumer's choice of services and also the possible blocking to application developers of access to technical standards. This is despite the fact that Microsoft is not at all strong in this market.

In June 2000 the EC opened 2 inquiries within days of each other. One was a four month inquiry into the planned merger of AOL and Time Warner and the other the planned joint venture between Time Warner's music operation and the UK's EMI. The EC said there were concerns with the vertical integration of TW content with AOL's online services, especially in the light of AOL's joint promotion, distribution and sales arrangements with Bertelsmann. And in respect of the TW-EMI merger there were competition concerns as the number of major music companies would be reduced from 5 to 4. On 6 October 2000, a few days before the expected EC decision, Time Warner and EMI called off their planned merger when it became apparent that the EC wanted substantial concessions. However, the EC was more positive about the Time Warner -AOL merger and approved it a few days later. See Controversy: Two massive world mergers to be investigated by US & European authorities.

US

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the main US regulatory body. See See US Regulators relax same media ownership rules and to review cross media ownership.

See the next section on Controversy for issues surrounding industry regulation.

External References

Note: This sub-section was originally part of the Player section, where many references are to be found.
Lister, David, & Moyes, Jojo, 2000, Ministers clear way for ITV giants to merge, The Independent, 13 December 2000.
Lister, David, & Moyes, Jojo, 2000, Smith lets BBC off the hook in broadcast shake-up, The Independent, 13 December 2000.
Moyes, Jojo, 2000, Digital may mean TV channels lose public service role, The Independent, 10 May 2000.
See the full list of resources for this web site for other related resources.

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