The move follows the strenuous efforts of BEIRG, the British Entertainment Industry Radio Group, to alert Ofcom to the threat its plans pose to the future of the UK's entertainment industry, and its campaign to highlight the RF requirements of the PMSE (Programme Making and Special Events) sector.
Ofcom's original proposals were set out in the Digital Dividend Review (DDR) consultation, published in December 2006. In response to the DDR consultation, BEIRG made strong recommendations to Ofcom outlining its concerns about the proposals, including the inability of the disparate members of the PMSE sector to successfully bid for spectrum against global multinational media and communications businesses.
Among the latest proposals, Ofcom states that spectrum could be awarded to a band manager with the incentives and expertise to manage the spectrum efficiently for wireless microphone users and others. The consultation sets out a number of options for achieving this. These include holding a 'beauty contest', or comparative selection process, in which Ofcom chooses an organisation to manage the use of the spectrum for these and other users. The plan is that the licensee would pay fees reflecting the amount of spectrum they use, and have incentives to use it efficiently; another option is to award access to the spectrum by auction after a pre-qualification process that ensures bidders have the skills and expertise needed to manage the spectrum for users in this sector.
Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said: "Ofcom recognises the important social, cultural and economic contribution that professional programme-makers and wireless microphone users make to the UK. Our proposals are designed to ensure that this sector continues to have access to spectrum it needs to allow it to thrive, while ensuring that this valuable and finite resource is used as efficiently as possible." However, this viewpoint was never expressed or recognised in the original DDR and if not for the efforts of BEIRG you wouldn't be reading it now.
Ron Bonner, technical resources manager for PLASA, speaking for BEIRG, has said that while this is an important step in the right direction, there is still a great deal of work for BEIRG to do to ensure that sufficient spectrum allowance is made for the PMSE sector. He went on to say, "whilst to the casual observer this may appear as an Ofcom U-turn as suggested by other headlines recently published, the devil is in the detail and Ofcom still hold the opinion that a market-led approach is still an option for this industry. We must be guarded at this stage and consider the consultation document very carefully. BEIRG will be pushing for a face-to-face meeting with Ofcom as soon as possible to discuss aspects of the consultation which they feel do not address fundamental requirements that need to be observed to maintain the present level of access."
To download your copy of the consultation, which closes on 31 August 2007, follow the link below.
(Lee Baldock)
