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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much his Department has spent on promoting or advertising (a) fibre optic and (b) satellite broadband to the public in each of the last three years.

The Department has run a national awareness campaign to promote superfast broadband in the financial year 2014-15 only. The campaign ran from December 2014 to March 2015 and did not differentiate between fibre optic and satellite. A total cost of £8 million has been set aside for this campaign to include the media buying costs (e.g. the airtime for TV/press adverts) as well as production costs for adverts (TV/radio/digital/out of home), social media activity and a toolkit of materials for local authorities.

In addition, as part of the Government’s Business is GREAT campaign we have spent £1.667 million on advertising aimed at small businesses to encourage them to take up a grant for superfast broadband connection for their businesses with a supplier of their choice. This campaign ran September - December 2014 and comprised media buying costs (out of home posters, local press advertisements and radio airtime) and production costs (e.g. photography, fees, printing).