Industry responds to Digital Britain vision

Lord Carter may have published the Digital Britain Interim Report way back in January, which set out to map out the future of Britain in the digital age, but it has taken the government this long to collate all the companies' responses and release them to the public.

This spring clean-up does mean that there is an A to Z list of missives now available to view.

The companies who commented are far-ranging from Ofcom to the Premier League, but they all have one thing in common: the state of Britain in the digital world.

Mixed responses

Some of the comments are positive, with the BFI (British Film Institution) for instance, eager for digital film to succeed: "The BFI welcomes the timely and urgent interventions signalled by the publication of the interim report of Digital Britain.

"It speaks to our own digital plans that will help us significantly increase audiences for the content and knowledge that we generate every day and, equally importantly, the richness of film and television collections cared for in the BFI National Archive."

Others are a tad critical of some of Lord Carter's proposed plans, with BSkyB commenting: "[T]he suggestion that the BBC should become involved in driving broadband take-up by setting technical standards and developing new platforms raises concerns.

"As well as the potential for market distortion and illegal State aid, it sets a dangerous precedent and risks distracting the BBC from its core purpose, which is to invest in public service content and to make it widely available to licence fee payers on whichever platforms and services they choose to use."

To view the report responses, click on www.culture.gov.uk. Be warned, though, some of the responses are dissertation-size rather than sound-bites, but it does give you an interesting overview of what is likely to come when the full report is released later in the year.