The report sets out the Government's aspiration to create a second "commercially-based" public service content provider with enough scale to provide an alternative to the BBC, but defers much of the thinking as to how this could be done until the final , due late in the spring.
"It would be a body with public service at its heart, but one which is able to develop flexible and innovative partnerships with the wider private and public sector.
"While it makes sense to begin looking at public sector bodies -- and -- the Government is currently evaluating a range of options and organisational solutions for achieving such an outcome."
The report posits creating the new body by giving Channel 4 a new public service remit and making it the broadcast licensee in a "wider whole operating successfully across the whole range of digital devices and platforms".
The remit would include strong commitments to international and national news, current affairs, documentaries and film, "with the prospect of introducing programming for older children and news for the nations".
A second passage reinforces the impression that a Channel 4 merger with Five is less likely: "In summary, we see the BBC as the cornerstone of our audio-visual public services.
"We could have a vital, second Public Service Content Company, with access to rights and global markets, encapsulating the revitalised remit for Channel 4's public purposes and with the scale necessary to be able to compete in a multi-media, multi platform world.
"In addition there would be and , focused on original UK content, but with a continued commitment to news and in ITV's case, regional news."
The DCMS admits that its aspiration raises a "range of issues" including the governance and accountability arrangements required for any new structure, which it will return to in the final report.
It also acknowledges the BBC's recent partnership proposals for aiding other broadcasters to deliver public service broadcasting as a "potentially helpful step", but says the challenge is to secure plurality of PSC output "at scale and in the medium term and beyond" and the option altering the distribution of the licence fee must "remain on the table".
There are two concrete pledges relating to the media sector in the report.
One was to review the terms of trade between independent producers and the broadcasters to focus on how their relationship and rights agreements could work in a multi-platform digital future.
The second is the Government will invite the and to undertake an exploratory review of the merger regime in relation to the local and regional media sector.
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