Recommendation 15

The Government has been too slow to act on Ofcom’s 2019 recommendations to update prominence legislation. We are frustrated that the Government expects the process to take a further two years; new primary legislation is urgently needed and the media ecology advances far too quickly for the Government to delay any further. We recommend that the Government prioritise new primary legislation to update the Communications Act 2003 and grant PSBs prominence which extends beyond the Electronic Programme Guide. The Government should seek to publish the Bill in draft in the upcoming parliamentary session, ahead of finding time to introduce and enact this legislation before the end of 2022. To ensure that prominence can be extended to online viewing platforms, such as smart TVs, we also recommend that PSB video on demand players be covered by their public service broadcasting remits.