uk: TV waits to see a preview of its new world

This week, two major reports will set out the shape of broadcasting’s future. James Robinson and Richard Wray of The Observer explore who the winners and losers will be in a radical overhaul of the industryBritain likes to claim it makes the best TV in the world, but that reputation is under threat at a time when broadcasting is undergoing unprecedented change. In the old world, viewers watched the BBC and a handful of commercial channels that were given free access to the airwaves in exchange for broadcasting a range of worthy programmes. In the new multi-channel universe, where increased competition and new technologies are undermining profits, the BBC is protected by the licence fee, but its competitors argue they can no longer afford to meet those expensive public service obligations.By the time the government switches off the analogue signal in 2012, more of us will be watching TV online, on mobile phones, or on “catch up” services. The arrival of faster broadband could even make the TV set obsolete.What will this new world look like? That will become clearer this week, when media regulator Ofcom publishes its long-awaited report into the future of public service broadcasting, which will make recommendations to the government about how best to preserve the current system. The following week, broadcasting minister Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report will set out the government’s thinking, and ask how new technologies will affect the industry. Both documents will shape British broadcasting for a generation. And, crucially, both will seek to safeguard thousands of hours of public service television by ensuring a broadcasting framework with its origins in the last century can survive well into this one. Major broadcasters and new entrants to the industry each have their own hopes – and fears – about what the reports will say.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/18/lord-carter-digital-britain-broadcasting