Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
The Communications Minsiter, Stephen Carter, launched the much anticipated report last week at the RSA. It was filmed, and his 20 minute presentation is well worth watching. You can see it here.
Or you can download a copy from the DCMS website here. The report itself is balanced but ambitious and wants to drive up the quality of the digital infrastructure in the UK. The digital ‘minimum wage’ will be 2 mgbts which he determines is the minimum connection speed for subsistence survival in the digital age.
Contestability for the Licence Fee is also in the report for the nations and the regions. He defines the Licence Fee as the funding mechanism for the BBC but one for public media content which happens to go to the BBC. What he is proposing is that the current 3.5% allocation of the Licence Fee for digital switchover, should be retained and used for local content creation, once the digital switchover is complete. He is consulting on this.