Ofcom unveiled its response to the green paper on the BBC charter review, published in March by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport under media secretary Tessa Jowell. The green paper supported the licence fee but replaced the old BBC board of governors with a BBC trust accountable to licence fee payers.
Ofcom is also pushing for a funding review supporting its idea for the Public Service Publisher model, which would establish a public service provider complementing and competing with the BBC. This would necessitate the evolution of the BBC trust into an independent body with responsibilities beyond the BBC.
It wants the government's review of public service funding to be brought forward so that it can be completed two years before the scheduled completion of digital switchover in 2010.
Ofcom believes that the licence fee model could be adjusted to provide for the financing of "new forms" of public service content from outside the BBC. It is putting forward its proposed PSP as a vehicle for such content, while also recommending that the government review the prospects for the future of Channel 4.
It said: "Ofcom believes that -- if the public service system as a whole is to continue to have wide influence and impact in the future -- it is essential that the BBC is not allowed to become isolated in a growing and exclusively commercially focused sector."
The regulator added a request for the government to fill gaps in competition law affecting the sector with the creation of an independent competition authority able to respond quickly to market distortion or abuse.
It proposed that action be taken to make the BBC, and other large players, take more account of their services' effect on competition in the market.
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