Without government intervention, around 5% of households in the United Kingdom will still be reliant on digital terrestrial television by 2040 and a further quarter of homes will use some combination of satellite, terrestrial and internet for television on their primary set. A stakeholder forum is being convened to advise on the future of television in the United Kingdom. The quarterly forum will meet for at least 12 months, chaired by Media Minister Stephanie Peacock, bringing together representatives from television industry and audience groups.
The forum will consider how viewers, including older people and those without an internet connection to their television, will be served and not left behind as viewing shifts online.
Media Minister Stephanie Peacock said: “Streaming has revolutionised the television industry. Viewers have never had more choice over what to watch and how to access content. As the shift towards streaming and watching live broadcasting online continues, it is vital that no one is left behind. I want to ensure that as many people as possible can watch TV in a way that suits them. This new forum, bringing together the major players in the TV industry and audience groups, will help deliver a long-term plan that ensures everyone in society can access world-class British content in the decades to come.”
The stakeholder forum aims to bring together organisations and individuals from the TV industry, infrastructure partners, audience advocacy groups, the regulator and government to Improve the evidence base on the future of television distribution, identify the issues and options that are relevant to the future of television distribution and identify areas of consensus and explore options.
Three smaller working groups will be chaired by Gill Hind of Enders Analysis and a former Operations Director at Freeview, Richard Lindsay-Davies of the Digital TV Group, and Catherine Johnson, Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. Other relevant stakeholders may be invited by the government to take part on specific agenda items of the forum or its working groups.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport published a report led by Exeter University and the University of Leeds and researcher firms MTM, 3 Reasons, Real Wireless, and Cartesian. This looked at current television delivery and consumption trends and how they are likely to change in the coming decade.
The report predicts that 95% of households will have the capacity to watch television over the internet by 2040, but that without government intervention it is likely that the remaining 5%, around 1.5 million people who will generally be older, with lower income, living in rural communities, will still rely on traditional television broadcasting.
In 2040, a further 24% of households will use a hybrid of digital terrestrial or satellite television together with internet delivery.
In 2023, 87% of households in the United Kingdom had an internet-enabled primary television set and among those 18% exclusively used the internet for television on their primary set. That is slightly more than the 17% that exclusively relied on digital terrestrial television.
Digital terrestrial television is legislated to continue until at least 2034 and the public service broadcasters are legally required to provide a broadcast service and offer it for carriage on other platforms.
Until at least 2031, digital terrestrial television will remain the only primary service in its allocated spectrum but after that there will be pressure to consider co-primary use with mobile services.
If digital terrestrial television has a long-term future, the report recommends, preparations should be made for co-primary use. That could involve broadcasting all channels using DVB-T2 and MPEG-4, which has been in use for high-definition services since 20098. Another possibility is the use of single frequency networks to make more efficient use of spectrum.