§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the light of his decision to authorise preparations of a national commercial radio system in the Cable and Broadcasting Bill [Lords] what assesments he has made of (a) the increases in advertising revenues over the next 10 years, (b) the share of advertising available for national commercial radio, cable television and direct broadcasting by satellite television individually and (c) the effects on the advertising revenues share and total, of commercial local radio, commercial television and national newspapers.
§ Mr. HurdI doubt whether it would be useful to make any such assessments in relations to a service that would not begin before 1990. Broadcast advertising revenue has displayed great buoyancy in the past and there is no reason to suppose that it would be inadequate to meet the costs of an independent national radio service in the next decade. The Government, in laying the framework for this and other new broadcasting ventures, aim to create opportunities. It will be for Parliament to decide through further legislation how to provide this framework, and for would-be operators to judge whether the opportunities are worth taking.