[ecrea] New publication - Local Public Service Television

>LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION
>Local Identity and Spectrum Rights
>
>A5, two chapters, 32 pages
>ISBN: 1 899405 09 7
>Publication date: 08/04/08
>£8.50 inc p&p
>Order through academic book distributors or (local.tv /at/ virgin.net)
>
>The terrestrial delivery of spectrum is always 
>local. Combinations of local transmissions from 
>relays and transmitters are configured to 
>provide regional, nation and state-wide service 
>distribution. The television broadcast spectrum 
>bands remain crucially important because these 
>can be received using existing TV aerials and 
>the network of terrestrial television 
>transmitters has been supported by the TV 
>licence fee. In short, the network of UK 
>transmitters is supported by direct public 
>investment from viewers while spectrum can only 
>be used efficiently if the actual number of 
>viewers of each service is compared with all 
>possible users. Research suggests that local 
>television will be more watched than the more 
>marginal television channels that might 
>otherwise occupy local spectrum - the 'digital 
>dividend' released with digital switchover.
>
>It's only be a matter of time before the 
>goodwill between the commercial public service 
>television companies (eg ITV and SMG) to support 
>1152 transmitters to reach 98.5% of households 
>is threatened by digital competition from 
>services delivered using just 80 transmitters 
>reaching 90% of the population (unevenly 
>distributed by region and nation). Yet, the 
>television licence fee is financing the 
>construction of a comprehensive public service 
>digital TV network, and it is this wide reaching 
>asset, with ample spectrum available for local 
>use, which local television requires to deliver 
>a universal public service, state-wide.
>
>Following Professor Martin Caves report to the 
>Treasury in 2002, economic opinion on spectrum 
>use has refocused the language of communications 
>regulation to depend on the feelings and 
>attitudes of the participants in the discourse. 
>Shifting spectrum regulation into markets will 
>absolve Government, regulator and operators of 
>responsibility for spectrum use by defining 
>value and waste in market rather than technically efficient terms.
>
>Yet regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum 
>represents, and might continue to represent, a 
>democratic purpose, providing a shared benefit, 
>however sub-divided, as a common good. For 
>spectrum to retain this public value the 
>devolved administrations and local authorities 
>must assert spectrums democratic as well as 
>economic purpose, securing spectrum use for each 
>nation, region and local area to introduce a 
>more reflective communications regulation 
>through locally accountable spectrum use.
>
>Dave Rushton
>Director, Institute of Local Television and
>Public Interest Fellow, Department of Geography 
>& Sociology, University of Strathclyde

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nico Carpentier (Phd)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Katholieke Universiteit Brussel - Catholic University of Brussels
Vrijheidslaan 17 - B-1081 Brussel - Belgium
&
Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis
Boulevard du Jardin Botanique 43  - B-1000 Brussel - Belgium
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsored links ;)
----------------------------
NEW BOOKS OUT
Understanding Alternative Media
by Olga Bailey, Bart Cammaerts, Nico Carpentier
(December 2007)
http://mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335222102.html
----------------------------
Participation and Media Production. Critical Reflections on Content Creation.
Edited by Nico Carpentier and Benjamin De Cleen
(January 2008)
<http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Participation-and-Media-Production--Critical-Reflections-on-Content-Creation1-84718-453-7.htm>http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Participation-and-Media-Production--Critical-Reflections-on-Content-Creation1-84718-453-7.htm 

----------------------------
European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
----------------------------
ECREA's Second European Communication Conference
Barcelona, 25-28 November 2008
http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------
ECREA-Mailing list
----------------
This mailing list is a free service from ECREA.
---
To unsubscribe, send an email message to (majordomo /at/ listserv.vub.ac.be)
with in the body of the message (NOT in the subject): unsubscribe ecrea
---
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Postal address:
ECREA
Université Libre de Bruxelles
c/o Dept. of Information and Communication Sciences
CP123, avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, b-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
Email: (ecrea /at/ ulb.ac.be)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
----------------