‘BBC to Fund Local TV and Online Services’

The BBC will fund Local TV services as well as the World Service and other new commitments, within a licence fee frozen for the next six years, it was reported yesterday. But the Chancellor confirmed in his Spending Review statement the BBC’s earlier commitment to reduce its online spend and make no further encroachments into local media markets.

George Osborne told the House: “The BBC also agreed to reduce its on-line spend and make no further encroachments into local media markets, to protect local newspapers and independent local radio and TV.”

According to Media Guardian, the BBC will provide a one-off capital investment in local TV and online services of £25m and meet £5m a year running costs for local TV and online content. It will also provide £150m a year for the rollout of broadband to rural areas from 2013.

Meanwhile, Ofcom has this week given the go-ahead to the BBC-backed YouView, the IPTV venture formerly known as Project Canvas. YouView is set to launch in the first half of next year following Ofcom’s announcement on Tuesday that it will not be subject to an investigation.

The partnership between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva will offer subscription-free digital terrestrial channels and internet-delivered TV services via a set-top box connected to viewers’ TV sets. Ofcom had received complaints and submissions raising competition and other concerns from Virgin Media and IP Vision as well as 11 other parties including BSkyB.

Ofcom said it was premature to open an investigation because IPTV was still an emerging sector, YouView was likely to bring benefits to viewers and consumers, and any impact on competition would need to be weighed against those benefits and assessed in light of market developments.

It said:“Ofcom will continue to monitor developments, particularly in relation to YouView’s approach to sharing standards and its effects on content syndication. If evidence emerges that the operation of YouView could cause harm to viewers and consumers in the future, Ofcom may reconsider whether to investigate.”

* In his speech on Local TV to the Royal Television Society last month, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:“My vision is of a landscape of local TV services broadcasting for as little as one hour a day… able to exploit the potential of new platform technologies such as YouView and mobile TV to grow their service and improve their cost-effectiveness.”