BT policy chief calls for TV distribution rethink as IP takes hold

Regulation around digital terrestrial TV (DTT) and IPTV “isn’t sufficient”, BT’s Policy & Public Affairs Director Helen Burrows has said. She argued the UK’s current approach does not incentivise cost and energy efficiency or support reliability and quality of service, as well as not being “necessarily inclusive”.

Burrows’ review of the UK’s broadcast TV policy comes as the government makes decisions about its future. Last month, regulator Ofcom published a report commissioned by the erstwhile Department for Culture, Media, and Sport on the future of TV distribution, which found that the industry is nearing a “tipping point at which it is no longer economically viable to support DTT in its current form”.

Audience migration is the driver of this shift, as viewers switch from traditional services to new platforms online. Ofcom has warned that if this ‘tipping point’ is reached, DTT providers are likely to cut costs and investment.

Ofcom has found “widespread support” among stakeholders for the idea that TV services should remain available to all, but there is no consensus about the best way to achieve this. Three models have been outlined, each with commercial and public policy trade-offs.

• Investment in a more efficient DTT service, which would sustain DTT if audience scale is maintained through the 2030s.
• Reducing DTT to a ‘core’ service, retaining a number of core channels but migrating viewers to IPTV for access to other services.
• Move towards DTT switch-off in the longer term, backed by a public awareness campaign to ensure that “no one is left behind”.

BT claims time is right for IP switch

The UK government is considering each of these approaches, and a change is expected by the early 2030s. The government has only committed to DTT support until 2034, although it has reiterated that that does not necessarily mean it will not continue after that point.

In a blogpost in May, Burrows and Chris Bramley, Managing Director for Network Application Services & Architecture at BT, asserted confidence that network infrastructure will not prove a barrier to an IP migration. Rather, the focus should be on adoption. Indeed, the pair pointed out that three approaches identified by Ofcom would take between eight and ten years to implement, allowing for a DTT migration to complete by 2034 if policy is put in place quickly.

Speaking at a Westminster eForum event, Burrows said that whichever model is chosen for DTT, the future will see a very large majority of TV viewing taking place over IP. “That means there is a lot of policy work to be done around how to make IPTV really great… irrespective of the choices around the future of DTT”, she said.

Burrows saw broadcasters and network providers as “pretty well aligned” on the need to increase take-up. However, she warned that it is vulnerable audience groups and the digitally-excluded that stand to bear the brunt of any decisions made on the future of DTT. She cited BT research that has found that these groups find change “very uncomfortable”. But “the digital transition that we’re living through isn’t going back. At some point, as a society, we need to support the people that are struggling to cope”.

She used the example of the slow progress made on BT’s digital voice migration ahead of the switch-off of the Public Switched Telephone Network. There remains around one million BT customers that continue to have a voice-only landline service, with no broadband. “They’ve had 20 years of marketing about the internet, and they would not like to buy it”, she noted. To sell IPTV to this group, Burrows urged the industry to highlight solutions that matter to them such as improved access to healthcare or online banking.

If it’s important, it’s worth funding

BT’s Burrows argued that the DTT issue “is a social policy challenge” and therefore requires a different approach to the economics and investment questions of infrastructure build. “It’s going to need a lot of coordination and effort from many different parts of the private sector as well as the government to bring about a change. But, the promise of change is potentially very exciting”.

She went on to describe the internet as a delivery platform that is dealing with multiple, complex demands, including TV and streaming. “Current regulation wasn’t designed with TV in mind”, Burrows said.

“ At the moment, the regulation around [DTT and IP TV] isn’t sufficient to bring about the collaboration and coordination that’s going to be needed up and down the technology chain. ”

Burrows.

She argued that there are “significant” benefits to having a “well-funded, high quality outcomes-led digital inclusion programme”. “If the government believes that it’s important, then potentially it’s for the government to fund it”, she said.

“ The challenges we know exist can be addressed via good policy making, and the social and economic benefits of doing so are considerable and reach far beyond the TV sector. ”

Bramley and Burrows.