6th Jul 2016 07:26
LONDON (Alliance News) - The UK government has opened the door to allow broadcasters ITV PLC and Channel 4 to charge retransmission fees to pay-TV broadcasters, though ministers said they did not expect this to happen.
As part of the new Digital Economy Bill, ministers will scrap section 73 of the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act. This was introduced in the 1980s to encourage the growth of pay-TV providers, but terrestrial broadcasters have long argued this is out-dated and has allowed companies such as Sky PLC and Virgin Media to get free access to commercially-valuable content.
The scrapping of the act will allow transmission fees to be charged by ITV and Channel 4, which have led the charge to get the law changed.
The UK government, however, said in a separate response that it does not expect broadcasters to start charging.
"Government considers that the commercial public service broadcasters are fairly compensated for their licensed channels. Government therefore expects that there will continue to be no net payments between all platform operators and the public service broadcasters for carriage of their licensed channels going forward," the Department for Culture, Media & Sport said.
"If this situation appears to be at risk, government will consider again whether legislative change is required," it added.
ITV, however, said it plans to press ahead with charging the retransmission fees. "We have consistently called for major pay-TV platforms to pay UK Public Service Broadcasters fairly for the 'transmission' of their channels ending what is effectively a multimillion pound subsidy ? and this is clearly a welcome first step in that direction," it said in a statement.
ITV shares were up 1.2% to 170.90 pence early Wednesday.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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