Asked by: Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 15 January 2016 to Question 21973, on mass media: finance, how much was paid to each recipient.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
For the year to 31st March 2016, broadcasting and media bodies will receive the following funding from DCMS:
Ofcom £91,409,000;
BFI £22,225,000;
S4C £6,762,000 (this is 9% of total funding for S4C, the remainder is from the BBC licence fee);
and National Film and Television School £7,078,000.
This is the cash payable to each organisation (as published on www.gov.uk) which totals £127m. The estimated £134m expenditure on page 53 of the Statement of Funding Policy 2015 is based on Government Accounting including depreciation, accruals and other accounting adjustments.
Asked by: Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to page 53 of the Statement of Funding Policy 2015, who the recipients of expenditure on broadcasting and media bodies were in 2015.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The recipients of expenditure on broadcasting and media bodies in 2015 were: Ofcom; BFI; S4C; and the National Film and Television School.
Asked by: Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether implementation of gaining-provider led switching for broadband and fixed telephony has been completed.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The implementation has been completed under rules introduced by Ofcom on 20 June, a gainer-provider led process for switching broadband and/or fixed telephony services provided over the Openreach and KCOM (Hull area) copper networks is in place.
Asked by: Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to help people with sensory loss enjoy on demand television content by increasing provision of subtitles and audio description; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The Government remains committed to seeing an improvement in the provision of access services for video-on-demand (VoD) services and will continue to monitor progress. If ATVOD's 2015 annual survey of VOD Services indicates that significant progress has not been made, then as stated in the Connectivity, Content and Consumers Paper (July 2013) we will consider legislation in 2016.
Asked by: Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with Ofcom on switching of mobile phone contracts by consumers from a losing provider-led process to a gaining provider-led process.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
My Right Hon. Friend the Secretary of State meets regularly with Ofcom to discuss a variety of issues.
We set out our thinking on switching in the Connectivity, Content and Consumers [CCC} Strategy Paper, published in July 2013. In December 2013 Ofcom announced that gaining-provider led (GPL) switching would be mandated for broadband and fixed telephony over the Openreach network. Full implementation of this will be completed by June 2015.
In July-September 2014, Ofcom collected inputs on consumers’ experience of switching providers of pay-TV, mobile services and bundled services; and considered possible impacts on competition. The regulator will publish a document in the first half of 2015 setting out its findings and how it intends to take things forward, including for the switching of mobile service providers. I hope that, in line with our statement in the CCC paper, this will result in GPL switching being mandated across the board.