I still haven’t read the entire BBC Charter Review white paper yet. But, I woke up this morning and read most of the press coverage and tried to put it all into perspective. What initially strikes me is the conceptual notion of separation.

In the case of the BBC, we are told that the BBC Trust will be clearly separated from the BBC Executive Board. The Trust will mimic–in many important respects–the role of an external regulator. But not in all respects. There will of course be overlaps, gaps, and other frailties, as there are with most regulatory and/or governance schemes. Only time will tell if the decision to create the BBC Trust will be as effective as the process it is intended to mimic: true external regulation by Ofcom.

While I probably should not stretch the comparison too far, I also find it interesting that the preferred governance / regulatory remedy for BT was also a form of separation. In the case of BT, the company was forced by Ofcom to create Openreach, a new network-owning division which is separated by legal instrument from the remainder of BT. But not in all respects; Openreach remains a part of BT. Openreach was designed to mimic a different form of regulation: the invisible hand of the marketplace and a firm’s incentives when it transacts business at arm’s length.

So, DCMS and Ofcom, in their respective efforts to tackle problems of dominance and near-monopoly in the provision of media and telecoms services in the U.K., have each opted–at least partly–for a remedy based on the notion of separation which creates structures that mimic a regulatory function. DCMS and Ofcom could have each gone further and more boldly addressed the problems associated with the BBC and BT.

This raises a few questions: Did DCMS and Ofcom opt for the easy-way-out; did they simply go with the solutions that avoid confrontation and controversy? Or are these notable examples of newer forms of regulation that are more flexible, more targeted, and less costly whilst still delivering benefits? Will any of this permit the reduction of regulation? Or is this just creating double-layers and more bureaucracy?

And what are the implications of all this? The BBC remains publicly-owned and publicly-subsidised. BT–through Openreach–still controls a vast amount of network capacity. Is anything really changing or will the BBC and BT continue to endure as extremely powerful (and therefore sometimes harmful) presences in the British media and communications landscape?