Speeches by Hinds.

“Do you not think that a line must be drawn? They are going to do it for the public service broadcasters—that is now a given—so the question is whether what we used to call the print media, and other news sources, are in or out alongside them. If they are out, that does not seem like a particularly fair competition for …”

“I accept that, and we will have to wait for your formal response. Would it be fair to infer from what you are saying that you are against the whole idea?”

“During this inquiry I have asked a lot of people whether it is a stable equilibrium to have your own video-on-demand platforms, other video-on-demand platforms that carry some of your content but not all of it, and one massive platform called YouTube that carries absolutely everything from everyone. As you are strategy…”

“We had the Green Paper, “Watch this space”, last week, without a huge amount of fanfare, although it seems that it may be quite significant. On the technical stuff, and this 2034 or 2044 question about IPTV, what would be the pros and cons and commercial risks at either end of that scale?”

“They may well, but the organisations that all three of you represent use content that has come from someone’s camera phone in a breaking news situation, and that is part of the report. There is a whole sector on the internet of people who do exactly that. They call themselves citizen journalists.”

“You have just drawn a line, because you said that citizen journalists are not the same thing as professional journalists. You are not going to find anybody around this table arguing with you about that, but that draws a line, right? How would you define that in regulation?”

“Do you have one platform for the world, and TV companies just produce and provide bits of content? Or do we somehow regain brand loyalty, and everybody has their own following? Or is there one public service platform that is distinguished from American and other entirely commercial offerings?”

“I think that is probably a given; we would expect the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN to be included. My question is: what do you expect to be included with them?”

“Sooner or later?”

“Sorry, my facial expression was not saying that I thought that was impossible. Most people are online, including old people.”

“You would expect that to be included?”

“And 2034 is the earliest mooted date.”

“On the pros and cons, can you mention more of the cons?”

“Possibly the biggest implication in last week’s Green Paper relates to prominence. Stephen, who would you expect to get prominence in this regime?”

“I think that is probably a given; we would expect the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN to be included. My question is: what do you expect to be included with them?”

“For what it is worth, I am very much in favour of this provision in the Green Paper. I think that it is a fundamental change that we need to make in the algorithmic serving up of content. But when you come up to reality, the difficulty is knowing exactly how you do it. Whether you or not agree with their definition, ha…”

“I do not want to try our Chair’s patience too much, but another thing in the Green Paper is the possibility that PSB and PSM providers might have some enhanced duty to promote media literacy. What would that look like in practice?”

“And 2034 is the earliest mooted date.”

“I am going to have another go, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) did. A billion pounds over three years sounds like a lot of money. The simple mathematical question is, is that £1 billion over three years more or less than the amount for a comparable three-year period, starting just befo…”

“I did not suggest that at all.”