Published Date:
15 June 2009
By ROSS LYDALL
POLITICAL EDITOR
MONEY raised from the BBC licence fee could be "top-sliced" to help pay for regional news on commercial channels such as Scottish Television.
A report due this week from UK broadcasting minister Lord Carter is expected to recommend that up to £100 million of licence fee revenue is to be earmarked for redistribution to subsidise news bulletins on ITV.
It follows concerns that the collapse in TV advertising revenues will result in ITV plc, which produces the vast majority of programmes for the network, renouncing its public service obligations in a bid to survive.
Earlier this year, STV cut back its news programming from five hours 20 minutes to four hours per week. The company has warned of a "funding gap" as it attempts to compete with the BBC on news and respond to the changing media landscape, with Scotland due to be fully converted from analogue to digital TV transmission by 2011.
An STV spokeswoman said: "We remain committed to maintaining our valued news service and hope that Tuesday's Digital Britain report will address issues of funding in this area. We are supportive of the idea of an independently funded news consortium as suggested by Ofcom and have offered to pilot such a service in Scotland."
The SNP has argued strongly for more of the £320m a year raised in Scotland from the licence fee – currently £142.50 a year for a colour set – to remain north of the Border. It estimated up to £180m a year is redirected to the BBC in London.
Lord Carter will present his final Digital Britain report to Cabinet tomorrow, with the document being published this week. The interim report, which came out in January, made clear the UK government's belief that having the BBC as the only "publicly-secured provider" would not be sufficient.
It said the government needed to "aim" for different sources of high-quality news at local, regional and national level, "including the nations as well as the UK as a whole".
The interim report said: "The wide range of sources of news at national, regional and local level, and particularly a range of sources of widely available impartial news is not something that we can any longer take for granted."
Lord Carter, who announced last week that he would step down from government next month, is set to propose the biggest shake-up of British broadcasting for a generation. At the same time, he will drive forward a commitment to roll-out high-speed internet broadband access across the UK by 2012.
The SNP's culture minister Mike Russell said: "If any money is to be top-sliced from the licence fee, some of it must be used to properly fund output north of the Border, including the recommendation from the Scottish Broadcasting Commission for a Scottish digital network.
"Scottish licence fee payers are currently being short-changed, and the Scottish Parliament voted unanimously last year for the digital network to be put in place. This is now essential."
The BBC's position has come under scrutiny as its commercial rivals have struggled in the economic downturn.
Last month a Conservative bid to freeze the licence fee for one year was defeated in the Commons.
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Last Updated:
14 June 2009 9:31 PM
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Source:
The Scotsman
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Location:
Edinburgh
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Related Topics:
ITV
,
The BBC
