Raymond Snoddy is disappointed with the Digital Britain report

Raymond Snoddy sees Channel 4 as the big loser from yesterday’s Digital Britain report with “hard choices largely ducked”.

“Helpfully the Government added in a very odd phrase indeed that perhaps Channel 4 was ‘too-television centric’. Many people will think that is because it is a television company…”

Thank God for the 50p broadband tax on telephone lines. Otherwise what would the headline writers have come up with this morning on the Digital Britain report? Without that little wheeze the report would amount to very thin gruel indeed. As for the rest of the 230 pages most of it amounts to consultations and aspirations with hard choices largely ducked. High quality consultations and aspirations naturally but not quite what was expected from what was billed as an example of how you could come up with quick and dirty joined-up policy making. First impressions? A bit of a disappointment – at least for now.

As for the broadband tax even that unexpected morsel of clarity could have unintended consequences. When it comes to new taxes consumers are often bloody-minded and do their best to avoid even trivial impositions. In the eighteenth century when they introduced window taxes, windows were rapidly blocked up.

Will the new tax on copper fixed lines, even though it is only £6 a year, push people more rapidly in the direction of mobile-only communication somewhat undermining the purpose of structural development? That’s amusement for another day. The real disappointment in Digital Britain is that so little has actually been decided.

With no noticeable sense of irony Chapter 3(b) Radio: Going Digital is headed by a quote from Thomas Carlyle:

“We must verify or expel his doubts and convert them into the certainty of a Yes or No,” as the great man put it.

The comment might just be appropriate for Digital Britain’s policy on radio, though given the hundreds of millions of analogue radios out there is there just a hint of a ‘maybe’ in the statement: “The Government is proposing a Digital Upgrade timetable for digital radio, to be completed by the end of 2015.”

Carlyle might have been in trouble finding too many Yes and Nos, rather than Maybes, in the central chapter in the report Public Service Content in Britain.

Is the BBC licence fee going to be ‘top-sliced’ after 2012? That’s a matter for consultation.

Will there be full-blown joint ventures between BBC Worldwide and Channel 4? Well that depends on whether commercial terms can be agreed between the two parties, but the Government will certainly encourage such a thing and make any necessary constitutional tweaks.

Are there going to be new local television news franchises to do something about the ‘acute’ challenge faced by commercially funded local and regional news providers? Well not quite yet although the Government will discuss with the BBC whether some of the unspent money from the digital switchover could be used to fund three pilot schemes. If they work will there then be a national plan? Well that depends how consultations go with the BBC on the creation of a Contained Contestable Element of the Licence Fee post 2013.

You don’t have to have unusual gifts for telling the future to know that these talks will go badly. BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons has already denounced any attempt to turn the BBC licence fee into what he called “a slush fund”. Sir Michael is fine with the concept of using leftovers from the digital switchover for broadband infrastructure but is dead against using any of the money for funding commercial rivals. So some interesting conversations to be had there then.

Is the Government going to dramatically change competition rules to ease the path to more mergers between struggling local and regional media organisations, particularly newspapers? Well not exactly. The Government has decided that the existing ‘evidenced-based’ competition regime is robust enough to cope with these challenging times. But let’s call in Ofcom to add some of its market impact expertise. Overall this may be a report that will ultimately add up to less than the sum of its parts.

The big loser? That has to be Channel 4. After years of campaigning, some thought far too enthusiastically, for financial support the Channel has come away with its begging bowl completely empty unless it manages to reach a deal with BBC Worldwide. It might get modest funds from a Contained Contestable Element of the Licence Fee for more programmes for older children and young adults but that would only be to pay for an enhanced obligation to make such programmes.

Helpfully the Government added in a very odd phrase indeed that perhaps Channel 4 was “too-television centric”. Many people will think that is because it is a television company. The Government may not have grasped the point that if it becomes less television centric its advertising yield will drop like a stone.

The BBC will also see itself hard done with the proposal that the 3.5% of licence fee set aside for analogue switch-off may now become a permanent feature to fund commercial rival public service broadcasting. How contained will Contained be in future will be a central question as the Corporation worries that an important principle would be breached and the licence fee dipped into at will by future administrations.

Maybe we all expected too much of this effort. It’s only a White Paper after all and they will have to come up with something definitive this side of a general election won’t they?

Perhaps during the consultations they could think again about window taxes. They haven’t been tried for several hundred years and there are a lot of them.

Do you agree with Raymond? Send us your opinion – news@mediatel.co.uk