Public Service Media Review - Review of Public Service Media (2019-2023)

Public service broadcasters are delivering well for UK audiences, in challenging times.

Since our last review in 2020, Small Screen: Big Debate, the broadcasting industry has witnessed and reported on unprecedented national and international instability.

We've had a global pandemic which turned our lives upside down, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and political and economic volatility both in the UK and around the world. Never has the role of our Public Service Broadcasters (“PSBs”) been more important and they are central to the delivery of Public Service Media (“PSM”): providing duly accurate and duly impartial news that is trusted, and a wide range of high-quality content that reflects the whole of the UK and events that bring the country together. PSM content is available across linear, broadcast video-on-demand (“BVoD”) and online sources.

The Public Service Broadcasters – the BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C – have a collective duty to fulfil public service broadcasting purposes and objectives. At least every five years we review the extent to which the PSBs have, taken together, fulfilled its purposes, with a view to maintaining and strengthening public service television broadcasting.

We published a Terms of Reference outlining the scope and timings of our review. Today’s publication, along with the accompanying interactive data report, is the first phase of that.

The PSBs have collectively delivered their purposes and objectives across this review period, however reaching everyone is now undoubtedly more complicated than it was before. Ongoing tech disruption and fierce competition for audiences from global streamers is intensifying the mounting pressure on the future sustainability of PSM. Our review identifies the future opportunities and challenges for PSM.

In Summer 2025 we will publish a report looking at how the provision of PSM content can be maintained and strengthened for the next decade. We will continue to explore these issues with stakeholders and welcome their input into the next phase of our work. Please contact PSMReview2025@ofcom.org.uk if you would like to be involved in the conversation.