The UK Communication Industries: the impact of a proposed UK Brexit from the EU.

In written evidence to the House of Lords, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport wrote in 2013, "Industry figures indicate that the UK is Europe's leading exporter of TV programmes and second only to US globally. We are the world's No.1 in sales of TV format shows. Domestically the multichannel sector contributes £4.2 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the UK economy through expenditure in employment, advertising and marketing, distribution and support services, as well as content investment" (House of Lords, 2013). The United Kingdom has become an internationally-leading base for companies broadcasting and providing communications services abroad. This was made possible through European legislation which liberalised cross-border broadcasting and other services e.g. the on-demand downloading of films and other programming via satellite, broadband and the internet. With the end to roaming charges by 2017, these services will be increasingly downloaded via mobile phones. Hundreds of companies have located in the UK to take advantage of a liberal and stable regulatory environment for operation.

The well-known company, Sky, relocated to the UK from Luxembourg in 1990. Sky now broadcasts to the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Austria with over 20 million customers and £11 billion in tax revenue. Another large company, the Modern Times Group (MTG), broadcasts 60 channels in 36 countries from the UK. A third company, MTG, is the largest commercial operator broadcasting in Scandinavia and the Baltics, and has broadcasting operations in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia and the Ukraine. The UK-based group, Central European Media Enterprises Ltd (CME), broadcasts 34 commercial, subscription and on-demand channels to approximately 50 million viewers throughout Central and Eastern Europe including Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.

Today, the UK regulatory body, OFCOM, licenses 1577 television for channels broadcasting across Europe. Companies owning these channels include: Box, Discovery, CBN, Al Jazeera, CBS, AXN, Black Entertainment, Mushroom TV, CSC, ABS, Penny Street, Viacom, Paramount, Coral racing, AETN, Disney, Sparrowhawk, DM Digital, Filmbox, 4 Ventures, E Enterntainment, ESPAN, Eternal World, Playboy, Zonemedia, Millenium, Lightdragon, Baltic Media, CSC, RHF, Fox, Freesat, Coloured Rocks, GEO Tv, AETN, HITV, Zonemedia, JimJam, Sparrowhawk, MTV, Dolphin, NGC, Nikelodeon, STV, Polsat, Sky, Turner, Viasat. Further on-demand services are licensed by the UK regulatory body, ATVOD.

If the UK were to withdraw from the EU but become a member of the EFTA these companies could still broadcast to Europe from the UK under the EEA's Single Market agreement. However, the UK would no longer be participant to Brussels' decision-making. This raises the questions: what effect would a UK exit have on EU decision-making? What subsequent effect would this have on the UK market? The project research is interested in whether changes to communications policy at the European level which might affect UK interests and how UK-based stakeholders might change their preferences accordingly.

The key question of the project is: What effect could withdrawal of the UK from the European Union (EU) have on the UK's communications sector? Over a period of one year, the PI will consult stakeholders and provide forums for scenarios building exercises on the effect of a UK exit on the communications sector. This will be done through an online questionnaire of key stakeholders, 2 symposiums, and 10 policy briefing papers as well as communication with the media and other public platforms. The project will concentrate on current proposals for revisions to the proposed Audiovisual Media Services Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation which deal with cross-border broadcasting and privacy/data protection respectively. In this way, evidence-based scenarios are aimed at improving public discourse.

This study is relevant to industry stakeholders and policy makers at UK and EU levels who work within the field of communications policy as well as third sector actors and wider citizen audiences. The project will assist users in learning how policy options came into being at the European Union level and what effect this has on their domestic operations. In particular, it will explore UK-based preferences within current initiatives at the EU level in the context of EU decision-making processes.

The outcomes of the research will be of particular interest to the stakeholders under investigation. It will enable them to gain a richer understanding of their role and significance as proposers of policy options in the EU communications environment. The project will provide them with comprehensible, relevant policy analyses to understand the way in which they can form preferences on whether they wish the UK to exit or remain in the EU. A particularly significant impact of the project will be the facility it will assist these stakeholders in learning about how European Union single-market policy-making is conducted and implemented in EU as opposed to EEA states.

The project outcomes are also likely to widen the knowledge set of stakeholders with an interest in cross-border broadcasting and data protection policies respectively. The findings will also inform UK policy officials about stakeholder preferences through engagement with the regulatory bodies responsible for EU and UK communications policies. This knowledge will impact on other regulatory bodies in the broad communications and media environment which employ or are interested in UK exit in some form.

In a similar way to the stakeholders which are the focus of the project's investigation, these regulatory authorities can learn about stakeholder preferences in relation to UK exit and/or renegotiation, allowing them in the process to reflect on their own ways of working. The project will also be relevant to regulatory bodies outside the communications sector considering UK exit, which will have access to the briefing papers produced for the project engagement events and published on the project's website, which would be unearthed through a standard web search by parties who are unfamiliar with developments in communications regulation but are interested in the effect of a possible exit on UK markets as a whole.

The project's findings will have an impact on a range of corporate business, private and public sector, regulators, and civil society interests and their representative bodies, in the specific areas of communications policy under investigation in the project. The website, in a 'user friendly' way, will allow users to gain a greater appreciation of the nature, work and broader significance of the regulatory and decision-making bodies in which they participate or to whom they are subject.

The project's findings will provide stakeholders and policy-makers the opportunity to consider alternatives in decision-making through policy modelling. The findings will be revised into 2 final policy briefings will discuss the implications of these scenarios for the UK/EU relationship in this policy area for dissemination on the Knowledge Forum and other outlets.