Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans his Department has to set a value for retransmission of public service broadcast channels on pay TV platforms in the UK.

Currently public services broadcasters are not able to charge cable operators for the retransmission of their PSB services. This is an area where many competing interests – particularly those of broadcasters, platforms, and of viewers - must be balanced. Government is going to consult on whether the time is right to remove section 73 of the Copyright, Design and Patents act, and whether this allows PSBs to invest more in high-quality content. But rather than doing so in isolation, we will be looking at this in the wider context, examining the framework of regulation that governs the balance of payments between broadcasters and platforms