Valid from 01/10/1996
(1)Where the Commission are satisfied, in the case of a local delivery service by means of which one or more of the services specified in section 72(2) is delivered in digital form, that it would be appropriate, having regard to the extent of the use and proposed use of digital technology in the provision of the service, for the service to be treated as a digital local delivery service for the purposes of this section, they shall serve a notice to that effect on the holder of the licence to provide the service.
(2)The Commission shall do all that they can to secure that, subject to subsection (3) and to any exceptions for which the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Commission, the BBC and the Welsh Authority, may by order provide, every digital local delivery service provided by any person in any area includes, by the reception and immediate re-transmission of the broadcasts—
(a)the programmes included in each relevant service, and
(b)if the area for which the local delivery service is provided falls wholly or partly in Wales, the programmes included in the appropriate Welsh service.
(3)The Commission may exempt any digital local delivery service from the requirement to include any service (“the broadcast service”) if it appears to the Commission that, at the place where the holder of the licence to provide the local delivery service receives or would receive the broadcast service, the broadcast service is not capable of being received at a level satisfying such technical standards as the Commission may from time to time determine.
(4)Where a relevant service provided for reception in an area for which a digital local delivery service is provided consists in the broadcasting for simultaneous reception of programmes contained in two or more programme schedules, then, so far as relating to that relevant service, the duty in subsection (2) shall be subject to the limitation in whichever of subsections (5) and (6) is appropriate.
(5)Where the programmes contained in one of the programme schedules are broadcast for reception in a greater part of the area than the programmes contained in the other schedule or any of the other schedules, the duty in subsection (2) so far as so relating shall extend only to the programmes contained in the first-mentioned schedule.
(6)Where subsection (5) does not apply, the duty in subsection (2) so far as so relating shall extend only to the programmes contained in such one of the programme schedules as the relevant broadcasting body may determine.
(7)For the purposes of this section Channel 3 shall be taken to be a single service consisting in the broadcasting for simultaneous reception of programmes contained in several programme schedules.
(8)Each broadcaster shall provide any person providing a digital local delivery service with such assistance as he may reasonably require in relation to the technical arrangements for the re-transmission in pursuance of this section of the broadcasts of that broadcaster.
(9)In this section—
“the appropriate Welsh service” means the service referred to in section 57(1A)(a) or, if no such service is being broadcast, S4C;
“broadcaster” means the Welsh Authority or any person providing a relevant service;
“digital local delivery service” means any local delivery service in respect of which the Commission have given a notice under subsection (1);
“the relevant broadcasting body” means—
in relation to any service provided by the BBC, the BBC, and
in relation to any service licensed by the Commission, the Commission;
“relevant service” means any of the following services—
Channel 3, Channel 4 and Channel 5,
the teletext service referred to in section 49(2), and
the television broadcasting services and teletext service provided by the BBC.
(10)Expressions used in subsections (7) and (9) and in Part I of this Act have the same meaning in those provisions as in that Part.
(11)An order under subsection (2) shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.]
Textual Amendments
F1S. 78A inserted (1.10.1996) by 1996 c. 55, s. 91(1) (with s. 43(1)(6)); S.I. 1996/2120, art. 4, Sch. 1