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The House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology has recently published its report, Information Society: Agenda for Action in the UK . The report is the result of a five month enquiry, concentrated on the impact and applications of the superhighway in society. It outlines the new information technologies, the infrastructure in the UK, some of the approaches and policies other countries, and the EU are adopting and it discusses also the views of witnesses. The Committee develops during the report numerous recommendations. These include the setting up of an Information Society Task Force...

The UK Government has announced its detailed plans for implementing conditional access services for digital television and so implementing the requirements of the EC Advanced Television Standards Directive (95/47/EC see IRIS 1996-2: 5)). This supplements a statement of its general approach issued in January 1996. The plan remains that each element of conditional access (customer management services, subscriber management services, subscriber authorisation services and encryption services) will be authorised by a class licence issued under the Telecommunications Act 1984. Licence conditions will...

The Independent Television Commission has agreed an amendment to rule 7.1.5(A) of the ITC Rules on Advertising Breaks that will in future allow Channel 3, 4 and 5 licensees to aggregate without the prior permission of the ITC their spot advertising allowance between the hours of midnight and 6.00 a.m.to accommodate long form advertisements, including home shopping formats. Any long advertising slot created by this change must be identified separately in published programme listings. The amendment has come into force on 17 July 1996. Satellite and cable channels carrying both programmes and advertising...

The Broadcasting Act 1996 received the Royal Assent thus finishing the legislative process in July. The Act makes a number of important changes to the broadcasting law, mainly designed to catch up with developments in the media sector since the Broadcasting Act 1990. The main provisions are as follows. Part I of the Act creates a framework for the development of digital terrestrial television. This provides for the licensing of multiplexes, frequency bands on which several programme services and also data services can be combined. Six such multiplexes will be provided nationally and licensed by...

The Independant Television Commission (ITC) is launched on 5 June 1996 the second stage of its public consultation on the licensing of digital terrestrial television. The Broadcasting Bill, currently under consideration in the House of Commons, sets out a two-tier licensing structure under which the carriers of the services, the multiplex operators, are to be licensed separately from the services themselves. The ITC published on 22 May in draft form the proposed Invitation to Apply for Multiplex Service Licences, together with a draft licence and various supporting technical documents. Documents...