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Ofcom's chief executive has said public service broadcasting should be "enhanced" by on demand services.
Ed Richards outlined questions and issues surrounding the future of PSB in a speech to the Royal Television Society last night.
The regulator is currently reviewing the public service model and will next month publish a range of options before consulting on a firmer plan, expected in the autumn.
One of the issues Richards raised was the role of online and non-linear services as PSB. He killed off previous Ofcom proposals for a public service publisher focusing on online, citing the provision of PSB online by existing mainstream broadcasters.
However, Richards said several of the questions for PSB's future relate to online, in particular "how the value of existing broadcast PSB output can be enhanced by making current and archive content available on demand and in different forms through a variety of media."
The chief executive also said the PSB review should "give clear messages" to Channel 4, ITV and Five about "what we see as their roles".
"For the first time since their creation, the range of questions about ITV and Five will concern not only the nature of their PSB obligations, but also whether they can or indeed should play a central role in PSB in the future – a question inevitably for their shareholders as much as for policymakers," he said.
Richards welcomed Channel 4's moves to outline its future - it will reveal its ideas tomorrow - and said: "Channel 4's challenge is to reinvent itself with the same ambition and panache with which it was launched 25 years ago."
He suggested next month's document would set out a range of possible models ranging from "a very open system of PSB, potentially with a number of delivery mechanisms" to one where the BBC retains its dominating role.
It would then have to be decided whether it is "modest evolution" or "more radical redesign" that is needed.
