PREBBLE SETS OUT PLAN OF ACTION

STUART Prebble, Chief Executive of ITV, has set out a plan of action to ensure that digital switchover happens within the Government’s timetable.
Giving the Annual Goodman Derrick Lecture at the Royal Society of Arts and Industry, he said: “The Government will not get the rewards of switchover if it leaves it to industry to make it happen; it won’t get the jobs and it won’t get the money. It is the Government that now needs to take the lead.”
He set out eight points for the Government. They should: publicly recognise that only switchover to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) will allow a spectrum auction that could bring in billions to the Treasury to fund schools and hospitals; take responsibility for using the most powerful medium – television – to deliver a Government public information campaign on digital switchover; set a public target date for switchover to encourage consumers and industry to take action; give the DTT platform the same freedom to cross-promote enjoyed by satellite and cable and not interfere politically in the OFT’s enquiry into BSkyB’s abuse of their dominant market position; support proposals that the EU should require that all widescreen TVs sold after a particular date should include a digital tuner; lobby Brussels to reduce the rate of VAT on digital TVs, giving consumers a sign that the digital switchover is being made affordable; streamline the process of achieving roll-out of digital terrestrial transmission, and commit the resources to deliver it; and appoint a ‘digital champion’ to drive that plan forward and give them the tools to do it.
Prebble also encouraged all of the public service broadcasters to throw their support behind the DTT platform. He said: “Firstly, they own their own band-width, secondly, they have control of the way they present themselves to the public, and thirdly, it’s the only alternative to being distributed courtesy of Rupert Murdoch”.
He said the BBC should stop using licence payers’ money to develop and promote enhanced sports services, which distorted the commercial market place because they are only available to satellite viewers.
Prebble claimed that the constant bombardment on BBC1 and BBC2 of trailers promoting the BBC’s Wimbledon enhanced service on satellite provided an unfair commercial advantage to BSkyB’s already dominant platform and should be prevented.
He said: “This is a totally inappropriate way to spend the additional licence fee, given to the BBC to fund its digital services, and paid by all. That money could be better spent strengthening the BBC’s dedicated digital channels rather than on providing and promoting services available on only one of the commercial platforms. This is hardly platform neutrality.”
(CD)