Summary
DCMS published its Watch This Space green paper in June, consulting on the current market and audience context, prominence of news and public service content, the future of TV distribution and regulation, a new system for public service media, and media literacy. It runs alongside the BBC Charter Review, with both feeding one White Paper this autumn, and closed for responses on 31 August 2026.
Our response argues the government’s diagnosis is right: public service media’s foothold is eroding as audiences move to platforms it doesn’t yet reach effectively. But the answer needs to match that diagnosis in ambition. We answered all 30 questions across the paper’s 8 sections – this page summarises our core positions, and the full submission is available as a PDF.
Our central argument: this Green Paper and the BBC Charter Review are one settlement, not two. Decisions on prominence, distribution and public service media reform will fail if they ignore the funding, independence and permanence of the system’s anchor institution – the BBC.
Key points, by section
1 · Funding
The five production-sector challenges all trace back to one cause: falling PSB spending power. The fix is a funding settlement through the Charter Review, not a production-sector intervention.
2 · Prominence
A workable prominence regime needs to be statutory, not voluntary bilateral deals like the one between the BBC and YouTube. It must reach recommendation feeds and AI assistants, not just smart TV menus, stay open to all public service providers, and be independently verifiable via content provenance.
3 · Media literacy
We back a structured forum with joint delivery over informal coordination – but any new duty needs funding attached, not loaded onto an already-cut licence fee.
4 · Distribution
Set conditions for DTT switch-off, not a calendar date: affordability, coverage, reliability, device continuity and usability, independently verified before switch-off, not assumed.
5 · Regulation
Regulate by what a service does, not how it’s delivered. Video sharing platforms should come inside the same perimeter as broadcasters and mainstream VOD.
6 · Platform-age prominence
Easier discovery of PSM content produces a measurably better-informed, less polarised public. The benefit is sharpest exactly where trust in the wider information environment has collapsed.
7 · A new PSM system
Reform away from broadcast licences is right in principle, but only if it adds new providers to a funded core rather than diluting it. This is where we set out our case for reviving the Public Service Publisher.
8 · Equalities
DTT switch-off’s impact falls hardest on older, disabled and lower-income households. A condition-led, not date-led, transition is what actually discharges the Public Sector Equality Duty.
80%
of domestic UK television commissioning spend came from PSBs in 2024
30%
real-terms fall in licence fee income over the last decade
8,800
hours of first-run originated output in 2024, down from 10,800 in 2014
