Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
These services exist in order to reinforce the UK’s principle of free-to-air public service broadcasting. Non-PSB broadcasters hop on to Freeview and, increasingly, Freely, because it is in their commercial interest to do so. But their actual reason to exist is the ensure the BBCs channels, plus the three commercial PSBs, (plus S4C in Wales and BBC Alba in Scotland), have prominent, near-universal carriage across the UK.
ITV’s sale makes no difference to these platforms whatsoever. Indeed, if Comcast/Sky were to relinquish ITV’s public service licence, all that would happen is that ITV would lose channel 3 status and Ofcom would launch a new auction for a broadcaster wanting to a PSB licence with the privileges and obligations that come with it.
I don’t think they will want to relinquish the PSB licence though. Aside from soaps, police procedurals and reality/gameshows, ITV is good for nothing and is a pale shadow of what it was achieving when it was constituted of regional networks back in the mid/later 20th century. Losing the high spot in the TV guides where it can pick up casual viewers and opportunities to promote the niche stuff it shows on its 2 3 and 4 channels would be a disaster.
ITVs 2-4, however, I could absolutely see disappearing behind a paywall of one sort or another. There are people stupid enough to pay to watch Love Island. I live with a couple of them.  |
I don't see the PSB licence being handed back, but Sky has always hated any platform other than their own and I question their commitment to Freeview/Freely. No mention was made of these by the Sky boss yesterday in interviews. I thought that omission was interesting.
With the government targeting the likes of Youtube and wanting PSB prominence on there, if that happens and we start seeing PSBs pop up on other American platforms, that I reckon could kill Freeview/Freely.
I think this move by Sky is two fold: to kill off a competitor and kill off a competiting platform, but the PSB bits give Sky some adavantages that they don't currently have.
Sky's boss spoke a lot about sport yesterday and the protected sports rights that Sky can't access, until now. She was also very keen on the massive audiences that the World Cup was giving ITV, so I reckon Sky will use ITV as a lever to try and persuade as many people as possible to pay for Sky's services while keeping the ITV's services free, at least until 2034.
On ITV's shows, I agree they are a shadow of what they used to be and some pundits were saying yesterday that the separate ITV Studios arm that Sky won't get could be gobbled up by the new Banjay/All3media production giant or even someone like Netflix.