The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has published a Green Paper and consultation on plans to set a “new strategic direction for the government’s media policy”.

As the Government explains, the Green Paper seeks to respond to continuing changes in the media environment and in viewing habits, focussing particularly on ensuring that trustworthy news and high-quality television content remain easy to find, and that public service media (PSM) providers are supported as they face increasing pressures.

Given the breadth of the issues it seeks to address, the consultation is necessarily lengthy. It explores the changing media landscape and the effects of audiences increasingly moving to digital platforms, both in terms of the challenges facing public service media providers – including rising costs, fewer commissions and increased competition – and the wider implications for society if audiences are less able to access trustworthy and reliable information.

The consultation invites views on how to address these challenges in broad terms, but also sets out a range of specific interventions that the Government is considering, including the following:

• Legislative options to require social media platforms to make news content from PSM providers (and possibly also national and local news publishers) prominent and easily discoverable;
• Additional measures to improve media literacy, including a media literacy duty for PSM providers;
• Support programmes to help audiences during the managed transition – either at the end of 2034 or 2044 – from digital terrestrial television (DTT) to IPTV services;
• Fundamental reforms to the regulatory framework, potentially shifting from a regulatory system “based on how content is delivered, to one that focuses on where audiences find and consume TV-like content, ensuring consistent standards and protections regardless of the platform”;
• Reviewing the PSM system so that it is “more flexible to changes in the market, and to allow for the potential for a greater or different range of PSM providers that deliver content in different ways”; and
• Bringing on-demand rights within the scope of the Listed Events regime.

The consultation closes on 31 August, and can be read in full here.