House of Lords Report Calls for Partial Sale of BBC Worldwide

LONDON: The House of Lords’ Communications Committee has issued a report on strengthening the British film and television industries, with recommendations that include the partial privatization of BBC Worldwide.

The report notes that the majority of original British television content is produced by public-service broadcasters—whose spending on local output fell by 15 percent in the five years to 2008. "The commercial PSBs are facing serious financial pressures, largely as a result of falling advertising revenue, and this is impacting on their program budgets, particularly for certain program genres," the report notes. In order to reverse this decline, the role played by BBC Worldwide in distributing British content worldwide could be expanded, the report continues, to boost revenues that could then be reinvested in content. To this end, we recommend the sale of a part of BBC Worldwide, to create a public private company. We believe that such a company, with a continuing link to the BBC, would be capable of becoming a major global brand for distributing U.K. content, producing additional profits, employment and opportunities for British production companies."

The report also suggest a tax credit for TV production, beginning with a trial in the kids’ programming genre. Other possibilities include the use of the proceeds of spectrum sale and sharing part of the BBC licence fee. The Communications Committee also cites the potential rewards of online video-on-demand revenues. However, with Project Kangaroo blocked by competition authorities, "American companies may soon take the lion’s share of this value. We recommend government intervention in any similar cases in the future, to ensure that the full implications for the television industry are taken into account."

Referencing the threat of online piracy, the committee said it supported the government’s decision to introduce measures to combat illegal file sharing. "We also recommend new legislation specifically targeted at making the recording of a film in a cinema by camcorder a criminal offence."