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Ofcom STV Broadband

Scotland's flatlining take-up of broadband - Q&A with Ofcom's Vicky Nash

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 4, 2011 | 6 min read

Following a report by Ofcom Scotland being released this morning which highlights the continued lack of broadband take-up in the country, director Vicky Nash answers some questions on the findings.

This year’s Communications Market Report for Scotland once again highlights the lack of take-up of broadband in the country – is enough being done to rectify this?

The thing to stress is that the lower take-up is mainly driven by lower take-up by the over 55’s and the lower income families. What we need to focus on is the reason why they are saying that it’s not an attractive or an interesting proposition to them because it’s only then that you can actually start to tailor make any initiative or intervention or programme. I refer to Martha Lane Fox who said that you need some kind of carrot to get people online and the way to do that is that maybe local libraries can show people the range of information they can gain access to and show them the benefits. We can personalise the information that is of interest to them. There have been some initiatives for example to show people the benefits of being able to access ancestor websites which allow people to trace their family tree or else showing people the benefits of using voice over internet such as Skype. Those kind of very personal things that can show people the benefits of online, but we have to accept that there will always be a proportion of the population that will say ‘it’s still not for me’. It’s not compulsory to being online, but there are benefits to being online and if people don’t want to take that up then it’s entirely for them.

How much does the Scottish Government discus its plans with Ofcom?

Obviously they keep us in touch with what they are planning to do because we have a good relationship with them. It would be fair to say that they welcome the publications of this report and as a result of that they are able to reflect what they can do across all departments. Their digital ambition strategy talks about working through job centres, talks about working with Martha Lane Fox, the digital UK champion, talks about working with library provision, so tackling about it from a point of view about skills development, also working through schools to make sure that children understand what the implications of the internet are. Generally children are getting that experience at school, what they are not getting if they live in a house without internet connection is the continuation of that experience where they can do their homework online or find new sources of information about things they are interested in.

Do they have much hope of meeting these targets?

Their ambition strategy sets out a variety of areas in which they will be keen to get those figures higher than they are at the moment. They have given a commitment to report back on progress early next year. We’re very happy as the regulator, as much as we can be within the duties that we have to assist them to meet those targets.

Do you think they will?

Clearly they are challenging targets but through the variety of methods that they have outlined, particularly identifying the causal factors that people are saying that ‘it’s just not relevant for me’ you can start to develop programmes that are a lot more tailor made and might have greater success than simply saying ‘this is a good thing, you should go online’. They’re reaching out to people, and it’s something that Martha Lane Fox has been championing and getting the nine million that have no experience of the internet. They have been suggesting the idea of digital champions – people working within communities, often very small communities, to give them experience to get them over their fear or skills gap which is preventing them from going online in the first place. If you personalise that experience then it makes it more likely that people will sign up for it. They are also looking at previously used equipment, so recycling old PCs or old laptops, obviously cleansing them of any data that wouldn’t be appropriate and then giving them to people to go online. Having that very close relationship is something that has shown to be effective.

In terms of the wider report – what do you make of the overall status of Scottish media currently?

I would summarise the report of Scotland by saying that there has been modest progress in terms of the volume and the spend in Scotland in programmes, both produced in Scotland but also by the network. It’s a modest increase, year-on-year but it is in contract to the other nations in the UK. It’s heading in the right direction, but it’s a modest increase.

A lot of that is down to STV’s strategy to opt out of some of its scheduling from the ITV Network. Do you think that has been successful for STV?

Obviously STV is a commercial company and they make scheduling decisions that they see as right for them. The majority of the increase in hours of viewers in Scotland has been brought about by their strategy of increasingly opting out of the network and showing programmes just for viewers in Scotland. That’s a strategy that seems to work for them!.

Ofcom STV Broadband

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