HC Deb 01 July 1996 vol 280 cc565-6

'.—(1) If the public teletext provider has notified the Commission under section 2(4A) of his intention to provide a teletext service for broadcasting in digital form as a qualifying service, he shall submit to the Commission his proposals for providing that service in compliance with the requirements specified in subsection (3).

(2) The Commission shall give their consent to the provision of the service unless it appears to them that the proposed service would not comply with the requirements specified in subsection (3).

(3) The requirements referred to in subsections (I) and (2) are—

  1. (a) that the service includes a sufficient amount of news items which are of high quality and deal with both national and international matters,
  2. (b) that the service includes a sufficient amount of information which is of particular interest to persons living within different areas for which the service is provided, and
  3. (c) that (taken as whole) the service includes a sufficient amount of information (other than news) which is calculated to appeal to a wide variety of tastes and interests.

(4) Where the Commission have given their consent under subsection (2), they shall vary the relevant licence held by the public teletext provider so as to include such conditions as appear to them to be appropriate—

  1. (a) for imposing on the public teletext provider, in specified circumstances, an obligation to provide the qualifying teletext service, and
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  2. (b) for securing that the qualifying teletext service, if provided, accords with the proposals submitted under subsection (1);

and they may include those conditions in any other licence under which the analogue service is subsequently provided.

(5) Sections 6 to 12 of the 1990 Act (general provisions relating to services licensed under Part I of that Act) shall apply in relation to the qualifying teletext service as they apply in relation to the analogue service, but as if the reference in section 12(1)(6) of the 1990 Act to the Commission's functions under Chapter II of Part I of that Act included a reference to their functions under this Part.

(6) In this section—

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Sproat

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Speaker

With this, it will be convenient to discuss also Government amendments Nos. 56 to 66.

Mr. Sproat

The new clause and the consequential amendments fulfil a commitment made to the public service teletext licence holder, Teletext Ltd., that there should be no requirement to simulcast its existing analogue service on the capacity on the channel 3/Channel 4 multiplex reserved for it. That would be unnecessarily restrictive, and would deny Teletext the opportunity to use the new technology to its fullest potential.

The new clause therefore allows Teletext to propose to the ITC a new service to be broadcast on the reserve capacity. That service must meet the same general quality threshold required of the existing analogue service, but Teletext is free to suggest new ways in which to do that, rather than having to meet specific minimum requirements for numbers of pages on certain subjects, as it had to do to obtain its analogue licence.

If the ITC is content with Teletext's proposals, the existing licence will be varied accordingly to allow a new digital service to be broadcast. There will be no change in the licence conditions covering the analogue service.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

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