By: Russ
Channel 4’s new target audience … Ofcom and the BBC licence fee!
The most cogent insights in the history of regulatory theory came from the Chicago School. In particular Nobel winner George Stigler famously observed that firms often acquire policy or regulation so as to serve their interest, not the public interest.
Ofcom’s Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) review looks like it could be headed directly down this path. The regulator paints a dire picture of the future of quality television broadcasting and strongly suggests a state subsidy should be offered. The likely beneficiary? Channel 4. Ofcom say Channel 4 ‘will need greater certainty in its funding model’.
‘Greater certainty’ in this context = money. And the likely source? The BBC licence fee.
About the only thing the public can be certain of in this debate is that Channel 4’s CEO Andy Duncan will continue to press Ofcom for some of that BBC money. And why not? Andy Duncan is a clever man. Even a smallish regulatory victory at Ofcom for Channel 4 — something in the order of 100-150 million pounds — would be the financial equivalent of smash-hit television programmes like Friends or Big Brother.
In this debate, it’s always good to make friends with big brother!
(Stigler would be proud, no?)
Apr 15th 2008
This is wholly accurate. However the BBC is a powerful lobbying force. Do not discount the possibility of an alternative route being found: either a central fund or worse still, a compulsory public service levy on the commercial sector. That the C4 funding ‘gap’ is largely a myth seems to have esacaped Ofcom’s notice!
Apr 17th 2008
I think C4 going down this route is a mistake. Even if they get the money they then saddle themselves with unweildy accountability machinery that they’ve never had to deal with before. Their thinking seems defensive and very “old media”. See this post from my blog:
http://nickreynoldsatwork.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/odd-goings-on-at-channel-4/
Apr 18th 2008
I NEED A LICENCE TO OPEN A TV CHANEL .
thanks