Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
Mr David Levy, Mr Matteo Maggiore and Mr Wes Himes
16 OCTOBER
2006
Q1Chairman: Gentlemen,
good afternoon. You are most welcome. I have two apologies, before
we get underway. The first one is that we are already nine minutes
behind schedule, but, as you may have realised, a vote was called
at almost exactly four o'clock and we had about 15 minutes of
business to do before we asked you to come in. The second is apologies
from our normal regular Chairman, Lord Woolmer, who unfortunately
has urgent business outside the House so he has asked me to stand—or
sit—in his place, which I will do to the best of my ability,
which will not be as good as his, but never mind. Mr Levy, from
the BBC. I hope I pronounce your name correctly?
Mr Levy: Absolutely; yes.
Q2 Chairman: Mr Maggiore: is it a
soft "G"? It is. Mr Himes, have I got that one right—thank
you very much—from EDiMA; for the benefit of the transcript,
the European Digital Media Association. Would any of you like
to make a short opening statement, or are you happy to go straight
into questions?
Mr Levy: Straight into questions.
Q3 Chairman: As of course you are
aware, we are most grateful to both your organisations for the
written evidence that you have given us, which certainly we have
read. The revised proposals on the Television Without Frontiers
tries to bring in almost the emerging media, I know the buzz-word
is "platforms", we are not very familiar with that word
"platforms" but methods of receipt—would that
be roughly equivalent—and of course specifically the Internet.
Do you think—I think I know what answer EDiMA is going to
give, having read the evidence, however let me put it without
any prejudice—that such a wide scope is appropriate, and
what advantages and disadvantages might such a regulatory approach
have? Mr Levy, would you like to start on that?
Mr Levy: Thank you. Let me just introduce the
two of us from the BBC. I am David Levy. I am Controller of Public
Policy. That means I have an overview of our regulatory and political
activities here and in Europe. My colleague, Matteo Maggiore,
is Head of European and International Policy. In terms of the
scope of the Directive, I think our feeling is that this is territory
where, whilst being very cautious, in terms of ensuring that we
have appropriate levels of regulation for different kinds of services,
nevertheless there is an argument for saying that the broadening
of the scope as proposed by the Commission is justified, in broad
terms. This Directive originates from 1989, when there was a Television
Without Frontiers Directive before the Internet was known and
when broadcasting was a pretty simple and straightforward business
that we could all understand. Since then, as we know, there has
been a variety of different methods of distributing audiovisual
content, including over the Internet, and, in a sense, there is
a parallel structure at the moment. There is an E-Commerce Directive,
which has things to say over distribution over the Internet, of
services defined as "e-commerce", and there is the Television
Without Frontiers Directive which regulates traditional broadcasting.
The consequence of that is that BBC programmes, for example, when
they are transmitted in linear form over broadcast environments,
are regulated under the Television Without Frontiers Directive,
but the same programme, made available in on-demand form over
the Internet, would come under the scope of the E-Commerce Directive.
We can see arguments for extending the scope of the Directive,
in terms of ensuring a more coherent approach to regulation of
different distribution systems; however, having said that, we
are very much in favour of the lightest possible touch approach
towards Internet-distributed content. In some way—and my
colleague, Matteo Maggiore, may want to add to this—our
position is that we see an argument for the extension of scope,
we feel it recognises what is happening in terms of convergence,
but at the same time we think it is very important that the principle
that is within the draft Directive, of a two-tier approach and
a much lighter touch approach for certain kinds of services, is
reflected in practice.
Q4 Chairman: Do you want to add anything,
Mr Maggiore?
Mr Maggiore: I think David has covered practically
all the ground on this one, in terms of the BBC's position. The
only thing I would stress is that the BBC made submissions to
the Commission in advance of the publication of the draft in December
2005, stressing that we saw, as David said, an issue about definitions
of services and an issue about what kind of regulation you apply
to different types of access modes. We were very pleased that
the Commission took on board our and other people's views in this
respect and tried to go down the path of a graduated approach
to regulation, depending on modes of access. Of course, this is
a fairly innovative way of tackling regulation and it presents
pretty complex problems of clarity in terms of scope and division
between linear and non-linear services, but we think that, by
and large, this is our preferred route, in terms of covering the
necessary scope and also ensuring that on-demand services are
regulated as lightly as possible.
Q5 Chairman: Mr Himes, it is possible
you take a slightly different view?
Mr Himes: Yes; absolutely. I was hoping that,
already having thought of my response, you would have absolved
me from answering, but I will go ahead and add to that comment.
It is of no surprise that the European Digital Media Association
is against the extension of scope to non-linear activity, and
let me give you a few reasons why. Number one: most of the audiovisual
services that we provide currently to customers and consumers
online are already covered by the E-Commerce Directive, which
was alluded to by Mr Levy and Mr Maggiore. The E-Commerce Directive,
or as it is called there the Information Society Services, which
allows such services to promulgate online, already contains a
number of provisions in relation to things such as protection
of minors. Where there are no provisions they are taken up by
self-regulatory and, in some cases, co-regulatory codes, taken
on by the industry in a voluntary capacity to address some of
the public interest issues that are being raised around the debate
of this particular Directive. Number two: we see absolutely no
evidence of the need for an extension to scope. The evidence is
mainly put forward by the Commission that it will strengthen the
Country of Origin regime, which currently, as it is passing through
the European Council and the European Parliament, raises questions
as to whether such a Country of Origin regime will remain intact,
in terms of the final piece of legislation which will come out
of that legislative process. Number three: we asked if there was
any large amount of evidence from online providers that there
were problems under the E-Commerce Directive. For instance, did
the derogations allowed by Member States to "gold plate"
the E-Commerce Directive create a fragmentation that was impossible
to sustain for online providers, and therefore the Television
Without Frontiers Directive might provide some relief in that
regard. We have not seen any evidence, from our members or from
third parties, which would say that the E-Commerce Directive is
no longer functioning effectively as a regulatory agent for online
service providers.
Q6 Chairman: I am sorry; could you
stop there for just a minute? You are saying you do not think
the E-Commerce Directive is any longer effective in this respect;
is that what you are saying?
Mr Himes: We believe that audiovisual services,
as they are regulated currently for online providers, are covered
by the E-Commerce Directive under the definition of Information
Society. We feel that framework has served effectively for the
provision and regulation of those services.
Q7 Chairman: And will continue so
to serve?
Mr Himes: We hope so. As I said, we have seen
no large amount of evidence which indicates that the E-Commerce
Directive is not functioning effectively or regulating this sector,
and therefore see no public interest reason for it to move toward
an additional piece of regulation which would cover audiovisual
media services. The next thing, of course, is we have a great
fear that legislation, in a very innovative, fast-paced, high-tech
environment, will create an anchor to the construction and development
of audiovisual services, in other words, slow down their involvement,
and you have seen perhaps in the paper recently the YouTube discussions
and the recent takeover by Google. We often wonder, in a Television
Without Frontiers environment, as envisioned by this proposed
Directive, would a YouTube have been able to get off the ground
and create such a successful story as it has to date. We often
fear that regulation in this creates a more imperfect market for
these services and thus, in fact, encourages legislators to take
a precautionary rule when moving in the direction of regulating
audiovisual online services.
Q8 Lord St John of Bletso: If I may
ask a supplementary, and I agree totally with your analysis, surely,
if the Directives become too draconian, content providers may
be tempted to host their servers outside of the jurisdiction,
thus circumventing any attempts to control content?
Mr Himes: Absolutely. My Lord Chairman, it certainly
is the effect that overregulating the Internet, in whatever aspect,
whether, for instance, it is in the music industry, has caused
sites to be established in other jurisdictions outside the European
Union in order to satisfy demand which the regulatory environment
in the EU no longer allows for catering to. We must always take
into account the effect that online regulation is significantly
different from off-line regulation. There is a level of control
and that level of control has to be a fine balance between allowing
consumers to seek what they wish to consume while, at the same
time, protecting the public interest. Otherwise, as correctly
pointed out, there will be sites which are constructed in other
jurisdictions which satisfy that demand, which do not have any
levels of control that satisfy the public interest.
Q9 Chairman: All the evidence we
have received emphasises just how fast, technologically, this
industry is moving. You barely have to blink and something else
has come up and it has got smaller, or more refined, or whatever
it happens to be. A question aimed at both your organisations:
do you think that the proposals as they stand presently are sufficiently
technologically neutral and, to me certainly, even more important,
are they future-proofed? If not, the implication, of course, is
this is the wrong time to do it; so that prompts a question when
is there ever a right time to do it?
Mr Levy: If I could start for the BBC and then
pass on to my colleague, your Lordships will be very conscious
of the timescales involved in European legislation and our guess
is that this Directive, if there is a Directive, would come into
force round about 2009, so the question is absolutely right, in
terms of how does one regulate appropriately in such a fast-moving
market. I think I would start from the other end, if you like,
which is, clearly there are problems about how you have a future
proof piece of regulation, but equally well I think the status
quo would be a very difficult position to defend. The definition
of broadcasting that we have in the 1997 Television Without Frontiers
Directive will not make a lot of sense by 2009, so we share the
concern of Mr Himes's organisation's about not having excessive
regulation of new platforms, but at the same time we do not think
that it is realistic to try to defend the traditional definition
of broadcasting up to 2009 and way beyond that. Do you want to
pick up the future-proofing point?
Mr Maggiore: If I may just add to what David
was saying, I do not plan always to come in after David, if he
covers the point, but just to say that the review of the Directive
at this point in time was prompted by a desire to lighten the
burden of regulation on commercially-funded broadcasters, so there
was an intent to deregulate and adapt regulation to a fast-moving
technology in the broadcasting sector. Having this desire, as
David said, it is very difficult to review this Directive without
reviewing the definition of scope, precisely because things have
moved on. I think that part of what Wes was saying about threats
to the Country of Origin principle is a very important point,
but equally the threats to the Country of Origin principle are
political, they are not in the context simply of this debate.
In other words, there is a sense in a number of Member States
that they are losing control of the regulation of the audiovisual
environment, and in that context the Electronic Commerce Directive
may offer Member States, under the exceptions provided to Country
of Origin, more of an opportunity to fragment the regulatory landscape
around Europe than a harmonised, or a minimally harmonised, framework
across the EU. I just offer a complementary comment on these two
points.
Q10 Chairman: Mr Himes?
Mr Himes: My Lord Chairman, let me address the
two questions which you posed. Future-proofed: as pointed out
by this Committee, I concur wholeheartedly that the ability to
future-proof in such a highly dynamic and ever-changing environment
is very difficult. Let me give you a tangible example. What happens,
if I were to create weshimes.com and I were to do my home videos
and put them up for compilation on my site to allow my relatives,
family friends or, for that matter, anyone to come and learn more
about me, and this occurs already in companies like MySpace and
Facebook, among others, am I now an audiovisual media service
provider? Do I have to comply with the Directive, and if so how
do I do so? These are the types of innovative methods that are
occurring on the Internet now and you can see where the confusion
and sometimes disproportionate response of regulation to that
example will take effect. Let me talk about technological neutrality.
A case could easily be made for, for instance, the simulcasting,
which is the simultaneous transmission of traditional broadcast
material on television online, being anything more than simply
broadcasting on a PC or broadcasting on a mobile. I think there
can be an effective argument that those two, regardless of platform,
are the same thing, broadcasting, and I think the Directive is
aimed at covering that. However, when you start moving into non-linear,
on-demand, we believe, in many cases, that this is a different
customer proposition and therefore technological neutrality can
be defined only where the two services are substitutional. We
think, in many cases, non-linear, on-demand material is complementary
to traditional broadcasting, therefore the ability to create that
as a technically-neutral issue is somewhat difficult. Those are
the responses, I think, to your two questions.
Chairman: Thank you. If we have time,
I would like to come back to those two points because I think
they are quite crucial, but I am conscious of the time. You should
know, incidentally, that this Committee is remarkably familiar
with the Country of Origin principle, having just finished an
inquiry on the Services Directive and with all the furore that
introduced. Lord Fearn, you wanted to pick up, I think, on the
Country of Origin principle?
Q11 Lord Fearn: You have already
touched on it, but in your opinion has the Country of Origin principle
benefited your Association and the UK/European broadcasting industry?
If I may come in with two others, on top of it, do you consider
this principle to be now under threat, one of which I think has
been mentioned, and have Member State derogations from the Country
of Origin principle, or a threat of such derogations, caused problems
in the past?
Mr Levy: Can I start with the benefit, the first
of those questions, and can I deal with the other two points,
from the BBC's perspective. The Country of Origin principle has
benefited, I think, both UK broadcasters and the BBC, because,
in the case of the BBC, it has meant that our services can be
relayed, for example, in the Benelux, without additional licensing
requirements, and that is also the case in some other parts of
Europe. It has also benefited UK broadcasters as a whole. Over
the past few years there has been a large number of pan-European
broadcasters that have chosen to base themselves and register
themselves in London, and that has been partly because of the
Country of Origin principle under the existing Directive meaning
that registration and licensing in one location has meant that
they have been able to provide services across the whole of the
EU. We think the Country of Origin principle has been beneficial
to us as an organisation and also to the UK in terms of its broadcasting
activities.
Mr Maggiore: To pick up on the question about
whether this principle is under threat, certainly we think that
there is a lively debate in a number of Member States, and in
particular smaller Member States who have large neighbours that
speak the same language. They are concerned at a sense of loss
of control in regulating their own environment, and this debate,
of course, takes new life in the context of the discussion of
the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. We think that this debate
is the problem and that discussion in the audiovisual media service
context is a symptom, if you like. If there were not this review,
we fear that increasingly Member States might make recourse to
exceptions under the Electronic Commerce Directive and that might
lead to further fragmentation, going forward. I agree with Wes
that it has not happened so far, but this debate is a symptom
that it might well happen, going forward, so there is a problem,
yes, and we are very concerned that Country of Origin should remain
a principle underlying audiovisual media service regulation. I
have no sense that derogations on a Country of Origin principle
have harmed the BBC in the past, as far as I am aware.
Mr Himes: Is the Country of Origin principle
under threat? Quite succinctly, yes. Number one: for us, as digital
media, particularly on-line digital media providers, the Country
of Origin is a great liberating force; we are on the Internet,
we are globally available. If we could get a Country of Origin
for the globe, most assuredly we would enjoy that. However, and
as you point out quite rightly, through your deliberations on
the Services Directive vote, the Country of Origin is under considerable
and constant threat. When I spoke to the Commission on the Television
Without Frontiers Directive I asked the exact question you were
asking me today, what is the advantage of this Directive, and
the first answer I always received was that it would strengthen
the Country of Origin principle to allow the pan-European provision
of linear and non-linear programmes. It was supposed to strengthen
the Country of Origin definition under the E-Commerce Directive
in which the Commission's view has offered too many opportunities
for Member States to add additional regulation. We are seeing
now, through the process of this Directive, in the European Parliament,
in the European Council, the slow erosion of that fundamental
principle. Already we have had numerous governments provide input
to Council deliberations, and the most recent Finnish Government
proposal shows a watering down of the Country of Origin principle.
This greatly affects our ability to do business because it fragments
what is essentially a streamline market, the Internet market,
and we have grave concerns that the supposed one advantage, one
large advantage, of this Directive will not come to fruition.
Q12 Lord Swinfen: I just wonder what
you suppose will happen if the Country of Origin principle goes;
does it cause complete and unutterable chaos throughout the whole
of the Union?
Mr Maggiore: It would certainly create problems
and it would certainly, effectively, take away any benefits that
Television Without Frontiers provided the EU since 1989, so, yes,
we would be extremely concerned if the Country of Origin principle
should go. It would be tantamount to going back to a world of
erecting frontiers to the circulation of services at a time when
the potential for trans-border and global communications is becoming
greatest, so it would have a very bad effect indeed.
Mr Himes: I can only reiterate what Matteo said.
I agree completely. The erosion of the Country of Origin principle
will create incredible legal uncertainty for operators, if not
technical uncertainty, on how to provide such services. Let me
give another tangible example, a question that I do believe the
Committee will raise later, concerning European works. What happens
if you have different European works regimes in every single Member
State? The effect is I can no longer run a dot-com service, I
now have to run 25 separate services to adhere to that regulation
in each Member State; such would be a travesty to the ability
to provide these services on a pan-European basis. That gives
you, I hope, a tangible example of what might happen if this Country
of Origin principle is eroded to the point that Member States
can quite easily add additional regulation and thus create a very
difficult market for Internet service providers and digital media
providers.
Chairman: A fairly unanimous reply, on
that one.
Q13 Lord Haskel: Surely the alternative
to the Country of Origin principle is harmonisation, and you seem
to reject harmonisation, you assume that every country will operate
on a different basis. Do you not think that because the technology
is international, because the technology does not know frontiers
so harmonisation would be a logical consequence?
Mr Himes: In many cases, that is held out as
the Holy Grail of the ability to utilise the internal market.
I question the political will of creating a fully harmonised,
and that is what we are talking about, a fully harmonised, not
minimally harmonised but a fully harmonised regulation to provide
for the regulation of audiovisual content. Therefore, I believe
that is why the Commission pursued the Country of Origin approach
with a regime which supposedly made it difficult to add to that,
so effectively offering full harmonisation although providing
a caveat for Member States to derogate. I do believe that there
is not an appetite politically to reach full harmonisation and
I think that is being shown in the deliberations occurring right
now on this particular Directive.
Q14 Baroness Eccles of Moulton: The
next question deals really with advertising. Mr Maggiore has referred
already to how important the advertising question is to the Directive.
The question is, on advertising, do the proposed rules adequately
address the emerging business models, the content provision over
the new platforms?
Mr Maggiore: I think the only thing we can say,
on the side of the BBC, which is a publicly-funded broadcaster,
for the most part, is that we recognise the problem. We have recognised
that advertising-funded broadcasters face a very momentous challenge
posed by the evolution of technology and new ways of accessing
audiovisual content, both on-demand and in a time-shifted way.
We want to see a thriving, free-to-air, advertising-funded broadcasting
sector, so we sympathise with any effort to make sure that regulation
supports the ability by the commercial sector to tackle these
challenges, but I would say that beyond this point we are not
the best placed to comment on the specifics of the regulation.
Mr Himes: For our members, the issue of advertising,
and of course within the Directive, there is a supposedly lighter
regime, certain advertising aspects, for non-linear audiovisual
service providers, and of course a different regime for traditional
broadcasting. I think one of the biggest problems we find in the
advertising is somehow the urge simply to take off-line regulation
and attach it to online regulation, because in the off-line world
we are used to considering advertising as sort of an in-stream,
whether it separates shows or in-between shows, whatever it might
be, and to some extent sponsorship. When you get into the online
side it does not fit that nice little description. For instance,
you often have audiovisual content that pops up when you request
it to play, but all around it there will be different advertising,
or there will be links to people who might provide such services
or products that you have seen on the digital media screen. We
find it very difficult to try to transpose those off-line regulations
into online regulations, and even if it is a "lighter regime"
today I have to think in the future that ultimately it will become
a tougher regime or eventually it will be reconciled with the
traditional broadcasting side. In that case, I think we are quite
worried about making this transfer of rules and what it will mean
by the ability of our online companies to be able to monetise
and afford the audiovisual media services that they are providing
to the customer. Therefore, once again, and I am sure it comes
as no surprise, we would like to make sure that the advertising
rules are not beholden to online audiovisual media services providers,
in terms of the future.
Q15 Baroness Eccles of Moulton: I
think that the next two supplementaries, which are linked, probably
do highlight the difference between two methods. Do you support
the continued need for the imposition of formatting rules, such
as the 35-minute rule, on programme-makers; and are the proposed
rules on product placement workable?
Mr Himes: This is probably somewhat outside
the remit of EDiMA members, because these are quite detailed rules.
Obviously, a rule like the 35-minute rule is quite difficult to
replicate online; would that mean you could not have advertising
around the digital media screen for the duration? In terms of
product placement, once again this is an issue probably more correctly
addressed by the traditional broadcasting industry, because really
it involves the ability to highlight products within a stream
service. Once again, we are uncertain as to whether that advertising
which surrounds online audiovisual media services comes under
this Directive, we would prefer it not to be, but I think time
will tell on that over the next few months.
Q16 Baroness Eccles of Moulton: It
will be interesting to hear what you have to say about it?
Mr Maggiore: As I said at the beginning, clearly
we support lightening the regulatory burden on the commercially-funded
sector. The 35 minutes rule has been debated extensively in the
context of the discussion of the Directive; 35 minutes is a very
odd number, it is a bit of a political compromise. The original
draft by the Commission said 40 minutes, some were pleading for
30 minutes; the final draft said 35. I think currently we have
gone back to 30, but 30 minutes certainly would seem to make more
sense from a broadcasting perspective. This said, again, there
are some among the commercial broadcasters who say that the whole
rule should be taken out in its entirety. As outsiders to this
particular funding model, nevertheless we have sympathy with the
requests of the commercially-funded sector. On product placement,
equally, it is not for us to say much about that, except in the
context perhaps of the fact that it would be important to decide
how product placement is taken to be defined in the context of
acquired programming. Also, it would be very important that broadcasters
had not had to do something which, in certain cases, might be
impossible to do, which is to ascertain whether an acquired programme,
which they had not commissioned themselves contained any product
placement, because that might not be possible to determine.
The Committee suspended from 5.00 pm to
5.07 pm for a division in the House
Chairman: Welcome back. The two topics on which
I think really the Committee would like to hear evidence are,
one, the implementation, and the other is the impact assessment.
Lord St John, would you like to go in to bat on implementation.
Q17 Lord St John of Bletso: On implementation,
what do you consider the European Commission's or the Government's
and/or Ofcom's proper role to be in this sector? Mr Himes has
already touched on my next question, which is on what issues,
Mr Levy, do you consider industry self-regulation to be a sufficient
or the most appropriate regulatory response? Finally, what limitations
are there to reliance on a co- or self-regulatory approach in
this sector?
Mr Levy: In terms of the sharing out of responsibility
between the Commission, the UK Government and Ofcom, in our case,
what has happened in the past, I think, is a reasonable model
here, where you have a framework set at European level and you
have national implementation. For example, on the Television Without
Frontiers Directive, in the past it has been the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport which has reported, for instance, on
the performance against the quota provisions of that. I think
there are areas where some of the things, in terms of consumer
protection, that are within the draft Directive would mean that
one would need to interpret those. One would need to have some
degree of interpretation at national level whilst at the same
time maintaining what has happened to date, which is some degree
of co-ordination between national regulators; there has been a
contact committee, for example, around Television Without Frontiers.
I think that is quite a useful model, in terms of taking that
forward, so that you both combine some degree of recognition that,
some areas, and I mentioned consumer protection, the interpretation
of those may require some degree of national context; at the same
time, one does not want that to be a back-door way of creating
obstacles to a single market into the Country of Origin principle.
In terms of the broad sharing out of responsibility, that is the
way I would see it. In terms of the issue of self-regulation,
Matteo, do you want to pick that up?
Mr Maggiore: There is a lively debate about
that, as well, to what extent should Member States be allowed
to rely on self-regulation for the purpose of implementing the
Directive. I hope it has become clear that actually Mr Himes's
position and ours are not very different, from the point of view
of the fact that we really do not think that this sector, in particular,
Tier 1, the rules applicable to all services, should result in
an overregulation of a nascent sector. We believe that it will
be very important for the Directive to contain clear language,
and we do not think that language is clear enough in the Commission's
original proposal, stating that Member States should be allowed
to make use of self-regulatory schemes in order to implement the
pursuit of general interest goals, as stated in Tier 1, so we
would like to see clarification in that respect. Recently, Commissioner
Reding said, in Rome, I think, in a speech, that she very clearly
intended to make sure that the Directive should become applicable
through self-regulation, and we thought that was a very helpful
statement.
Mr Himes: Absolutely. I would concur absolutely
with Matteo on that comment. We believe that our industry has
taken appropriate steps, where needed, to provide self-regulatory
schemes, or in some cases co-regulatory schemes, to cover sufficiently,
and hopefully mitigate, the public interest risk that may occur
in those services. I will give you two or three examples; one
is labelling. Audiovisual content that is not fit for consumption
by minors is labelled and in many cases, in fact most cases, provides
an age identification service to make sure that content is not
consumed by minors. Number two: technical measures. I do not know
if the Committee is familiar with, for instance, the Internet
Content Rating Association, in which any website can register
and label their website and then parents can voluntarily download
the software which provides the filter on those sites when children
try to access them. There is a myriad of technical measures, there
is a myriad of labelling programmes, which industry is taking
in order to mitigate risk on the consumption of audiovisual online
services. I think that role can continue to be fulfilled robustly
on a self-regulatory and co-regulatory basis. It has worked very
well in the UK and we hope that some of those models will be exported
to other jurisdictions should the Directive ultimately support
self-regulation and co-regulation. As to the question of the role
of the UK Government and Ofcom, I think the main thing is they
need to provide a voice at the table during the deliberations
of this debate, for the very reason that they have a wealth of
experience in regulation. I know already that the UK Government
and Ofcom are very active on this, so I am simply supporting the
position that they should continue sustaining their involvement
in this deliberation. Of course, ultimately, once the Directive
is adopted at the European level it will be up to the Government
and Ofcom to implement and enforce, and I am sure there will be
a whole other debate on that subject matter.
Q18 Lord St John of Bletso: Do you
believe that the Government's and Ofcom's initiatives are appropriate
and adequate in the circumstances?
Mr Himes: In relation to the regulatory climate
here or in relation to the Directive?
Q19 Lord St John of Bletso: In relation
to the Directive.
Mr Himes: I do believe that, through the regular,
continual regulator meetings, done by Ofcom and its counterparts
in other jurisdictions, they have taken both a general and a detailed
look at this Directive and how it cuts across their current regulation,
and I believe that they are raising those issues with the Commission
and Council, and which we would applaud. We know that Ofcom has
been very strident in terms of trying to create a commonsense
regulation, moving forward, and we support that effort. I think
the same goes for the UK Government and the hard work that the
various departments are doing, in terms of trying to create a
proper and appropriate framework for the audiovisual online sector,
going forward.
Chairman: Lord Haskel, on the impact
assessment.
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