The boss of OfCom, Ed Richards, has said that the media regulator may remove ITV and Channel Five's public service obligations by 2014. As previously reported, both commercial broadcasters have said of late that the public service commitments in their analogue licences - which include compulsory quotas on things like news and children's programmes, and, for ITV, local programming - make it hard for them to properly compete against the plethora of newer digital broadcasters, who have no such obligations.
OfCom have aired caution about just dropping the analogue networks' public service commitments overnight, while some industry experts point out that public service programming - while maybe not so profitable in terms of direct advertising and sponsorship - enhances the overall brand reputation of the broadcasters. But OfCom do recognise the increasingly competitive market ITV and Five operate in, and have committed to reviewing the public service components of their licences.
In a speech at the Royal Television Society, Richards gave something of a timeline for that review. He said: "Between now and 2014, ITV1 and Five should retain important public service broadcasting roles but focused on UK origination and news, and the nations and regions. [After 2014] the arguments for retaining their public service benefits and obligations are more evenly balanced - the costs of providing public service content will [eventually] outweigh the value of [broadcasting on] the analogue spectrum - and well before switchover [from analogue to digital] is complete and in some cases imminently".