大象传媒

Digital and broadband technologies hold enormous potential to bring great benefits to audiences and to the economy, and the 大象传媒 stands ready to play its part in ensuring these benefits are delivered as widely as possible through the UK. We note Lord Carter's invitation to the 大象传媒 to play a leading role through marketing, cross-promotion and provision of content to drive interest in taking up broadband and we look forward to engaging in discussion about this.

Lord Carter's report raises major issues and we will respond in more detail in due course. Today we can make the following observations:

The Trust welcomes the Government's commitment to maintaining a strong fully-funded 大象传媒 at the core of delivering public purposes in Britain's media.

The 大象传媒 recognises it has a responsibility to help sustain the wider public service broadcasting sector. The Trust believes that the most productive way for the 大象传媒 to fulfil this responsibility is act as an enabler, seeking to create new value rather than simply transfer existing value from the 大象传媒 to any new PSB entity. In this spirit, the 大象传媒 is currently working hard to develop partnerships with other PSBs that both create new value for its partners and serve the best interest of licence fee payers.

For example, the 大象传媒 is working actively with ITV on proposals to share 大象传媒 regional news resources, thereby reducing the costs to ITV of maintaining its own regional news services. We welcome Lord Carter's encouragement of these discussions. The 大象传媒 is also working actively with Channel 4 to establish what scope there is for a partnership with 大象传媒 Worldwide, the 大象传媒's commercial arm, to create new value to replace some of the revenue lost to Channel 4 by declining advertising sales.

We welcome Lord Carter's recognition of 大象传媒 Worldwide as a very successful UK international media operator. We also welcome his recognition that Worldwide's success reflects its close proximity to the 大象传媒 licence fee funded public services, the 大象传媒 brand around the world, and its first-look arrangement with the 大象传媒. The Trust is clear that maintaining these relationships are key to 大象传媒 Worldwide's ability to create value.

We note Lord Carter's suggestion that a greater degree of operational and financial flexibility for 大象传媒 Worldwide in the future could be better for 大象传媒 Worldwide as a business, and for the licence fee payer. The Trust, aware of concerns over the competitive impact of Worldwide activities, is engaged in a review to establish the appropriate boundaries to set around Worldwide and the appropriate balance to strike between the 大象传媒's public service mission and its commercial activties. Nevertheless we look forward to hearing more about Lord Carter's ideas on this subject.

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