Sky halves EPG charges for public service broadcasters and saves BBC local radio

Sky is set to lower the charges it makes to the four public service broadcasters after complains that the prices were excessive. The BBC will have 5.5m back, 5.7m will go to ITV, 2.3m to Channel 4 and 600k to Channel 5. This is enough to reduce the proposed cuts to BBC local radio.

^{Brian Butterworth published on UK Free TV 9th March 2012 at 10:19}

Back in August, UK Free TV reported (Paying Sky for free public service television) that the public service broadcasters were being charged many millions of pounds to have their programmes listings provided to Sky customers.

Today, Broadcast reports (see BBC radio gets boost as Sky slashes retrans fees - News - Broadcast) that Sky will halves the costs to these broadcasters.

The reductions will be:

• BBC, £9.9m reduced to £6m in 2012 and £4.4 in 2014.
• ITV, £8.1m reduced to £4.5m in 2012 and £3.1m in 2014
• Channel 4, £5m reduced to £4m in 2012 and £2.7m in 2014
• Channel 5, £1.4m reduced to £1.1m in 2012 and £800,000 in 2014

The savings to the BBC will be used by the corporation to reduce the proposed cuts to BBC local radio.

John Tate, the director of policy and strategy at the BBC told the Guardian ( BSkyB to cut BBC transmission charges by more than £5m a year - Media - guardian.co.uk )

"The value Sky gets out of carrying BBC channels is huge, if Sky had to pay for that it would be hundreds of millions of pounds," said Tate. "Licence fee payers are being unfairly disadvantaged, the logic is that Sky should be paying to carry the most popular channels."

It is still worth noting that almost three quarters of viewing of TV channels (by Sky subscribers and non-subscribers) is to free-to-air channels provided by the main public service broadcasters, the BBC, ITV plc, STV, UTV, S4C, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

How does Sky calculate the charges to the BBC?

The current charges to the BBC are made up of:

EPG listing charge: £21,000 per TV channel per year, £16k per radio channel per year. The BBC list 11 TV channels excluding the 20 regional variations of BBC One and Two, and 18 radio channels. That's £231k for the non-regional plus £420k for the regional slots, and £288k for the radio stations, £939k total.

Then there's a 'Platform Contribution Charge' which seems to be set on viewership. For the BBC:

• BBC News Channel £994,310
• BBC One £4,771,505
• BBC TWO £1,261,600
• BBC three £994,310
• BBC FOUR £310,055
• CBBC £342,130
• Cbeebies £737,715

BBC Alba, BBC Parliament, BBC HD and BBC One HD pay the £92k 'Other Television Channels' charge and the 18 radio stations the £6k charge.
Total £9,887,625.