Ofcom 'should have been more radical on ITV'

Satdude

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Ofcom 'should have been more radical on ITV'

Outgoing Ofcom chief executive Stephen Carter has expressed regret over the way the regulator treated ITV. Ofcom eased some of ITV's public service requirements following its extensive review of public service broadcasting, but Carter—who last month announced he would leave Ofcom in October—told Broadcast magazine the regulator should have been more radical.

By dropping more of ITV's public service requirements the case for Ofcom's public service publisher—a proposed new publicly funded multi-platform operator—would have been more persuasive.

"The debate about who was going to do [public service broadcasting in a digital-only market] would have therefore been a much more focused, short-term and immediate debate.

"Instead what we did was a measured reduction and we said to everyone that in five years' time we were going to have a problem here so we needed to start talking about replacement strategies for public service programming. Everyone went: 'Nice idea, but we still have Channel 4, and the BBC does lots of this stuff, and ITV is still here'."

Carter's deputy, Ed Richards, is a frontrunner in the selection process for Ofcom's next CEO. Until a successor is chosen, Ofcom chairman David Currie will act as executive chairman, overseeing the regulator's senior policy committee as well as its board.

Regards Satdude. :-rofl2
 
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