ITN claim new BBC services will 'stifle innovation'

ITN has warned that the BBC could stifle the growth of innovation in new media markets where British firms are emerging as world leaders unless there is tighter regulation of its new activities.
Mark Wood, Chief Executive of ITN, told The House of Lords Select Committee on BBC Charter Review that the BBC was planning the launch of new services for mobile devices and broadband markets without any assessment of the impact they would have on existing commercial vendors.
British firms, including ITN, had become world leaders in these new markets and were centres of innovation which were benefiting the whole UK economy, Wood said. ITN manages the world’s largest video archive business and is also a leader in provision of video content, including news, to 3G mobile phones.
“Our concern is that the BBC is planning new services in the mobile and broadband environment without, as far as I can see, any new service licences or remits. I would hope, under the new Charter, it will be more straightforward to insist there are service licences and they are kept to specific remits.
“The problem is that the BBC is doing it now and moving into new territory before the new charter comes in. We have challenged them on this and their answer is to say that it is an extension of their existing online remit,” he continued.
Wood noted that the regulatory structure for the BBC proposed in the government’s Green Paper was woolly and inadequate in terms of establishing clear and transparent regulation of new BBC activities.
He said the proposed BBC Trust, as new BBC regulator, needed to be entirely separate from the BBC itself. The new regulatory framework should also involve a much greater role for Ofcom, which regulates UK commercial broadcasters, and had depth of expertise in assessing competitive markets.
Giving examples of BBC commercial activities which had distorted the market in recent years - from in-flight and commuter train news services to poster sites - ITN said the Governors’ responses to complaints it had made under the Fair Trading Commitment had at times been cursory, with little evidence provided that the complaint was properly investigated.
“This is why we believe Ofcom should have a role to provide an element of external scrutiny and enforcement of the Fair Trading Commitment in addition to the Trust.
“We don’t want to stop the BBC developing new services and offering value to the British licence payer. But we have past experience of the BBC damaging ITN commercial services and have found it difficult to get the Governors, as current regulators, to take such issues seriously. This needs to change.” Wood concluded.
(GB)