That this House welcomes the cross-party support for the principles of the Broadcasting Bill and shares the desire of the Secretary of State to promote quality and diversity in both ownership and broadcast output within the digital environment; acknowledges the excellent tradition of public service broadcasting which has been pioneered by the BBC, the ITV companies, Channel 4 and the independent Teletext service; we lcomes the decision to allow all these broadcasters guaranteed digital capacity sufficient to simulcast their existing output but expresses its concern that Teletext, unlike all the other public service broadcasters, is not guaranteed the increases in capacity needed to enable it to improve still further the service currently provided; observes that Teletext currently has an audience of 15.6 million adult users every week and that the White Paper on Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting acknowledged the crucial role which additional and teletext services could play in driving consumer demand for digital broadcasting; and would encourage the Secretary of State to treat with parity all the public service broadcasters by allocating the Teletext the capacity necessary to modernise and improve the range and quality of its services into the next millennium.

That this House welcomes the cross-party support for the principles of the Broadcasting Bill and shares the desire of the Secretary of State to promote quality and diversity in both ownership and broadcast output within the digital environment; acknowledges the excellent tradition of public service broadcasting which has been pioneered...