Now that the Conservatives have finished off the £6 a year telephone tax, the tiny levy designed to pay for the good idea of high speed broadband for all, we can marvel at the utter wreckage of Labour’s Digital Britain plan.
Here’s what hasn’t been sorted out
- Paying for fast broadband to rural areas
- Securing the commercial future of Channel 4.
- The future of regional news on ITV
- The correct size, scale and governance of the BBC.
- A clear strategy to get to ‘fourth generation’ mobile phones
- Tax breaks to fund investment in media (other than for games)
- A viable strategy to deal with music piracy (disconnection, an unlikely cure-all solution, isn’t even agreed yet).
- Switching from analogue to digital radio.
On the other hand, critics might ask: does this matter? Tonight you can watch Embarassing Bodies on C4; listen to the rather good Radio 4 on my FM radio on the way home in my car. You can argue with the missis over your mobile phone, or surf the internet from a trendy London bar with a laptop, or fail (again) to watch ITV’s regional news — and, ooh, play violent computer games any time you like.
There may be a recession on, but when you look at the choices for the consumer, the media industry ain’t broke (even EMI has not gone under), or short on ideas and content judging by the choice on the magazine rack, at the Amazon store or on the Sky remote.
I caught up with Jeremy Hunt the other day, and he told me that the Conservatives are unlikely to even bother with a new communications bill if they win, reckoning that frankly, only a handful of the problems that Labour thought were important are even worth bothering about.
Expect Tory action on using BBC licence fee money for rural broadband, and in about 2011 an attempt to negotiate the BBC’s licence fee down. Oh, and an optimistic scheme to introduce city-based TV stations that nobody in broadcasting thinks is viable. In other words, add it all up and the Blues ain’t planning very much.
All of which goes to make you wonder why we bother with politics at all. After all, creating, enjoying and celebrating content is what it’s all about, not some load of regulatory bollocks. But it is election time, and we all feel much better arguing about it anyway.
PS: here’s a post I wrote a while back, about the implications of the Conservative plans to pay for fast rural broadband from the BBC licence fee. Reckon it’s still relevant.
Sara, I’ve decided to save on my phone bills by changing the grammar…was wondering why I was short on cash this month.
Dan
” Tonight you can watch Embarassing Bodies on C4; listen to the rather good Radio 4 on my FM radio on the way home in my car; argue with the missis over my mobile phone; ”
If I had a missus, why I would I want to argue with her via your mobile phone and not my own? Although it’s kind of you to offer to save on our phone bills in this way.
And think of all the management man-hours in the media industries that’s been wasted on this stuff over the last five years… it’s enough to make you weep.