In quotes: Industry leaders, DS readers on PSB

Industry leaders and Digital Spy readers have been quick to have their say on the future of public service broadcasting following the launch of Ofcom's PSB review yesterday.

The launch of the review signalled the start of a major debate covering the role of players including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

There will now be several months of the industry, audience and policymakers exchanging views before the regulator starts to make firm decisions in the autumn.

> Click here to see the options for PSB according to Ofcom

Here is a selection of views from the industry and the DS broadcasting forum:

Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for culture, media and sport: "Once we agree on what public service broadcasting should look like, we can look at how that can be achieved, and the time may be coming when we need to make difficult choices about how much broadcasting can be supported by public funding.

"I have an open mind on redirecting money from the licence fee. If we decide non-BBC public broadcasting is important, I don't think that funding it necessarily has to come at the price of cutting back the BBC."

Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan: "We recently presented our own strategic blueprint for Channel 4’s role in the digital future in Next on 4, in which we made the case for the key role we believe we should continue to play in providing public value to our audiences and competition to the BBC.

"We are pleased that most of the models for debate proposed by Ofcom for the future delivery of public service broadcasting would include a major role for Channel 4.

"We strongly agree with Ofcom’s view of the urgent need for new legislation and for action now to resolve the best funding solutions... The current process would need to be accelerated if their proposed deadline of 2011 is to be met and we believe Government and Ofcom should explore ways of introducing new legislation even earlier."

Graham McWilliam, Sky group director of corporate affairs: "Ofcom shouldn't swallow the argument that Channel 4 and ITV would stop producing original programmes if they didn't get public money. Most of what these broadcasters provide is a result of market forces, not regulatory intervention."

Anna Home, chairman of the Save Kids TV campaign group: "We deplore the lack of commitment to implementing short-term solutions. The children's audience needs action now."

davidweller, forum member from Wallington, Surrey: "Whilst I can accept part of the licence fee going to museums, art galleries and community channels - should it be used to pay for the PSB requirement of commercial channels like ITV? To me that would look like the tax payer (you and me) subsidising the shareholders' dividends."

Lawrencetero, forum member: "If Channel 4 have a massive funding gap due to them making great PSB (did you catch Make Me A Muslim? - brilliant broadcasting), why should they have to stop making that type of show because the BBC waste money on DIY SOS?"

IanP, forum member: "It's the same people calling for top slicing the licence fee that'll be complaining about the increased repeats on the BBC if it happens. The cause of the funding problems for the commercial PSBs is the Government drive to sell off the analogue TV spectrum. The increased number of channels means lower ratings for the commercial PSBs so lower revenue. Being a PSB used to mean exclusive access to the terrestrial TV spectrum and the PSBs were the only TV source for the majority.

"With FTA digital and pay TV now widespread there's a lot of what used to be the preserve of the PSBs available from other channels, some of it free and some subscription. Maybe it's time to reduce the PSB requirements of the commercial PSBs to a minimum with only genres not being adequately catered for by other channels in the remits."

Mlt11, forum member: "If bits of the licence fee are top sliced for PSB on news channels, nobody will watch (like Al Jazeera). So if Ofcom wants to fund PSB outside the BBC, the only realistic option is subsidies for existing mainstream channels - i.e. ITV/C4/C5 (and possibly Sky?). The question is - how big a subsidy will the likes of ITV want to show PSB instead of popular programming? As time moves on, the required size of subsidy is likely to increase making it ever harder to justify.

"It really is very tricky. What it amounts to is that the "establishment" want people to watch programming that they're not really interested in. Market forces are making it more difficult so more ingenious ways are having to be thought of in order to do this. I suspect that whatever is decided, after a few more years it will be seen to have failed and finally in about 15 to 20 years everyone will just give up."

> Click here to join the debate