Local TV coalition attacks Ofcom
- Published: 19 August 2008 11:36
- Author: Robin Parker
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- Last Updated: 19 August 2008 12:05
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A coalition of local TV operators has complained that Ofcom has ignored public support for regional programming on the Freeview platform.
In an open letter to outgoing Ofcom chairman Lord Currie, United for Local Television accuses him of failing to acknowledge that around a third of public responses to its PSB review support the extension of PSB status to local TV.
ULT accuses Ofcom of entering the PSB consultation with "strongly predetermined views" that ignore the market failure in the provision of local TV.
The coalition takes issue with a speech Lord Currie gave to the London Business School last month, in which he made no mention of an Ofcom report last year in which consumers said local television on Freeview was the most popular idea for a new TV application.
An early day motion in support of Local TV to be available on Freeview has been backed by 160 MPs.
"Ofcom is denying the evidence, and this denial has constructed a gaping hole in which demand and supply meet and shout back at them," said ULTV member David Rushton.
"It is important the local TV sector understands why Ofcom is not fully and honestly exploring the policy options for local TV. Lord Currie said he wanted a 'clear sighted debate' - well, let's have it. We've had quite enough of this collective myopia and selective amnesia."
Jaqui Devereux, director of the community media association, added: "Lord Currie's speech, and the recent 'leaking' of the blueprint for public service broadcasting which seeks to shape the future broadcasting landscape around the incumbent broadcasters, would suggest that Ofcom is simply ignoring a significant number of the responses to its consultation.
"This falls far short of the service we should expect from a publicly funded organisation with statutory duties to citizens."
In its letter, ULT brands as "an inconvenient truth" that the UK has one of the least developed local TV infrastructures and raises concerns about ITV1's "total monopoly" in terrestrial TV advertising across the UK's regions.
ULT represents operators and campaigners from the commercial, community and municipal local TV sectors.
