Puttnam: ISPs and digital giants should fund public service content
Lord Puttnam’s Future of Public Service Television report has called for the creation of a public service content fund that is bankrolled by digital conglomerates and internet providers.
The proposal is that a 1% levy should be placed on UK revenues of digital intermediaries such as Google and Yahoo and internet service providers such as BT or EE.
That money would then be made available to the UK’s “brilliant cultural institutions” and bodies outside of the traditional broadcasting sector.
It could be accessed by museums and performing arts colleges, for example, which the report said are now producing video content “of public service character”.
They would be able to apply for a series of public service grants and partner with public service broadcasters and digital platforms such as the BBC or Netflix to take their content into mainstream television.
Puttnam said: “This should not be seen as a threat to our current television model, or as giving broadcasters an excuse to opt out of making programming in certain fields, but as way of enriching content for audiences and harnessing the creative ambitions of some of these brilliant cultural institutions.”
The funds would by distributed by a newly established independent public media trust, possibly overseen by Ofcom.
Written by Miranda Blazeby
SourceL Broadcast Now