Communications Act 2003

Applications for Channel 3 licences

7 (1) Section 15 of the 1990 Act (applications for Channel 3 licences) shall be amended as follows.

(2) For “the Commission” and “The Commission”, wherever occurring, there shall be substituted “OFCOM”.

(3) In subsection (2), for “specified in section 16(2) or (3) (as the case may be)” there shall be substituted “that have to be imposed under Chapter 4 of Part 3 of the Communications Act 2003 by conditions relating to—

(a) the public service remit for that service,

(b) programming quotas,

(c) news and current affairs programmes, and

(d) programme production and regional programming.”

(4) In subsection (3)—

(a) in paragraph (b), for “specified in section 16(2) or (3) (as the case may be)” there shall be substituted “that have to be imposed under Chapter 4 of Part 3 of the Communications Act 2003 by conditions relating to—

(i) the public service remit for that service,

(ii) programming quotas,

(iii) news and current affairs programmes, and

(iv) programme production and regional programming”;

(b) paragraphs (c) to (e) shall be omitted.

(5) After subsection (3) there shall be inserted—

“(3A) For the purposes of subsection (1)(d)(ii)—

(a) different percentages may be specified for different accounting periods; and

(b) the percentages that may be specified for an accounting period include a nil percentage.”

(6) In subsection (4), for “paragraphs (b) to (e)” there shall be substituted “paragraphs (b)”.