A secretary of state armed with a Green Paper…

Raymond Snoddy on Jeremy Hunt’s Green Paper: Sensible doesn’t add up to headlines. He may be condemned for not being radical or visionary enough. That’s what you have to watch out for – something dodgy and dangerous thrown in at the last minute to gain political attention…

You can be entirely forgiven if you had completely forgotten but sometime soon the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to publish a “substantial” Green Paper in preparation for a new Communications Act – designed to last for a decade.

This being the government, “soon” is a flexible concept. The consultative document was due by the end of last year. After Easter means it would be a tad embarrassing if it didn’t make it before the summer recess.

In media terms it is understandable that this feels like the Green Paper that never was. The headlines have been hogged by Leveson and all his associated works coming on a daily basis. The resignation of James Murdoch as chairman of BSkyB is merely the latest example.

All the signs are that most of Hunt’s early radical enthusiasms have been undermined by growing knowledge and the unfortunate habit of facts getting in the way. Yet it’s probably time to pay attention, just because a secretary of state armed with a Green Paper almost inevitably unleashes the laws of unintended consequences.

You can’t just have a Green Paper with nothing in it, can you? At the last RTS Cambridge convention delegates were asked how many wanted a Green Paper and not a single hand went up.

But get one you will… although as things stand with imperfect knowledge the paper does not look too bad. The secretary of state seems to have accepted – shock horror – that the present broadcasting system in the UK doesn’t work too badly on the whole. This is very perceptive and an insight that should be praised.

So what are we going to get?

You can be sure that secretary Hunt will continue to gnaw away at his very favourite bone – “micro-broadcasting” or local TV. This is a very fine idea – except if you happen to think that there is no business case for it aside from subsidies scooped out of the BBC licence fee. An odd business for an entrepreneurial politician to get involved in, even before you consider the problem of potential damage to existing local media that does actually work.

A while ago you might have speculated that a radical Hunt might have cut regulation and questioned whether impartiality obligations were relevant any more. With the expansion of multi-channel television you can make a good case for freeing commercial broadcasters from impartiality rules while protecting balanced news on the BBC. Not a bit of it… Hunt has long made it clear he regards the existing impartiality rules as important and something in need of protection.

A year or so ago there was much loose talk about the Shoreditch Roundabout as if a roundabout in London could somehow be turned into the equivalent of San Francisco or Silicon Valley. The implied way that this miraculous thing could happen would involve a relaxation of historical irritants such as copyright.

Luckily such a fantasy was an easy delusion to counter and now Hunt is expected to try to take action to protect the music industry from piracy rather moving towards deregulation.

Hunt is also true to his word in looking at all aspects of regulation – by seeking a way of extending regulation to TV equivalents such as iPlayer and You View. It’s perfectly sensible but hardly amounts to a bonfire of regulation.

In fact in some ways there could be an extension of regulation. Both Hunt and Ofcom felt constrained in handling the News Corp bid for total control of BSkyB. It became clear that although there were powers to block a merger little could be done about market dominance achieved by organic growth in existing properties. The Green Paper could tackle that “problem” and the Murdoch response could in the circumstances be muted.

Watch out for further measures to try to protect children from coming across undesirable material by accident online or elsewhere. A perfectly sensible aspiration though slightly more difficult to arrange in practice.

One perfectly sensible piece of deregulation would see Hunt easing the CRR straight jacket on ITV advertising – perhaps in return for a continuing adherence to public service obligations.

Any strong-arming of ITV on licence renewal would not go down well. Although ITV would much prefer to stay within a public service broadcasting system, if pushed the company has the freedom to reject any licence that comes with onerous terms and broadcast directly to the public.

The biggest silence of all involves the BBC. BO – before office – Hunt was talking for a very short time about being prepared to rip up the BBC’s Royal Charter. Now, while there will clearly be tough negotiations about the terms of renewal, there seems little sign that the basic structure of the BBC or the licence fee which funds it will be seriously questioned.

In an uncertain media world the overall quality of BBC programmes stands out from the rest. This time round James Murdoch can be guaranteed not to argue that only the free market can protect freedom of information.

If Hunt doubts the importance of BBC programmes he should just talk to a waitress in The Stage diner in New York. As she served up the killer breakfast specials she said she spent most of her viewing watching BBC shows. “I even watch re-runs of Are You Being Served,” she said.

All of this adds up to a potential problem for Jeremy Hunt. Sensible doesn’t add up to headlines. He may be condemned for not being radical or visionary enough.

That’s what you have to watch out for – something dodgy and dangerous thrown in at the last minute to gain political attention for someone who probably hopes to move on to higher things after the Olympics.