Digital Britain Reax: Some Sense Opportunity, Others An Opportunity Missed

You can’t please all of the people all of the time – sure enough, Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report is drawing a mixed response, if one slightly warmer than met the January interim version…

BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons: Vociferous: “Opposes top-slicing” licence fee to fund “other interests, including regional news organisations”. It “would damage BBC output, reduce accountability and compromise independence”. “The licence fee must not become a slush fund to be dipped into at will … to help fund the political or commercial concerns of the day … The Trust will not sit quietly by and watch this happen.” Wants underspend from Digital Switchover Help Fund given back as a rebate to licence payers rather than to fund broadband and new regional news consortia.

UK Music CEO Fergal Sharkey: “Cautiously optimistic” – notifying and bandwidth-throttling repeat infringers “will still not be enough to meet their stated ambitions of reducing filesharing by 70 to 80 percent within two to three years”. Instead, Sharkey proposes a five-point plan including 72-hour account suspension for third-time offenders, one-month suspension for a fourth offence and a two-month suspension for a fifth time.

ITN CEO John Hardie: Wants to supply those new local multimedia news consortia: