23 June 2008
ITV has announced that it is planning to cut its public service content over the next three years before the digital switchover in 2012. The channel has said that it wants to cut £150 million from its budget for public service broadcasting for children's programmes, news and regional in time for when the national switches to digital TV, the Guardian reports. An ITV source told the paper: "The digital switchover has already happened, so we need a settlement that delivers a steep tapering of ITV's regulatory burden from the start of 2009 through to analogue switch-off in 2012." ITV's executive chairman Michael Grade has said that he plans to spend no more than £40 million on public service broadcasting by the time the digital switchover takes effect. It is thought that the move by ITV will leave the channel able to fill its digital schedule with more entertainment and drama programmes. Liberal Democrat politician for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk Michael Moore recently told the BBC that sky has a marketing monopoly on digital services.