Kate Bulkley, Media Analyst.

TV should bet on broadband

By Kate Bulkley

Broadcast News

For Broadcast February 04, 2009

Carter may not have it all worked out, but this is a good starting point.

There is no easy formula for how the best parts of Channel 4 and the useful bits of BBC Worldwide can be made into a workable whole. Various comment pages have been full of ideas about how to make PSB2 more financially viable than Channel 4, and its success may require something more in the financial mix.

Adding all of UKTV would give PSB2 a bigger UK channel portfolio and more leverage with advertisers. But there is a danger of simply creating a bigger version of Channel 4.

The big change that PSB2 and the rest of the media industry is facing is how media is being consumed and paid for. Sly Bailey, chief executive of newspaper group Trinity Mirror, slammed the Digital Britain report for failing to bin merger restrictions that she says need to be scrapped for newspapers to survive in the digital age.

This is a bigger-is-better argument, but for Lord Carter, it seems (universal) broadband is better.

Carter finessed a lot of issues in Digital Britain, but he made it clear that universal access to broadband is fundamental and that a speed of 2Mbs is a starting point, not a ceiling.

How all this broadband gets built and is delivered has to be worked out, but the baseline of universal access to broadband has been set. And it is crucial that PSB2 takes this part of the new digital economics into its DNA.

We are talking about a new broadcast platform that will accommodate new broadcasters. There is money in this new digital system, it's just a question of digging it out. With a nod to Michael Grade, maybe there is a way to tax Google on its UK search ad sales, with the funds put into a PSB2 programme-making pot?

The key is the new broadband platform, available to everyone. It's no big surprise that Sky's newly discounted HD set-top boxes have a broadband connection in the back. And the rationale of BBC, ITV and BT Vision working together under the umbrella of Project Canvas to create a broadband version of Freeview becomes clear when broadband access is available to the whole population.

Lord Carter may not have the whole route map worked out, but in the era of digital economics, the boon of universal broadband access backed by the government is a pretty good place to start.

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