UK commercial Public Service Broadcaster ITV has called for major pay-TV platforms to pay UK Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs) fairly for the transmission of their channels, ending what is effectively a multi-million pound subsidy to Sky and Virgin.
The demand for action follows the publication of a report that shows how retransmission payments to broadcasters in the US have contributed significantly to the new ‘golden age of television’ in North America.
In the United States the ‘retransmission consent scheme’, which was introduced in 1992, means free-to-air broadcasters are paid for delivering content to competing platforms.
The research, carried out by NERA Economic Consulting, concludes that introducing payments to broadcasters for retransmitting their content has “contributed significantly to the overall health of the US broadcasting industry”.
