British communications regulator Ofcom yesterday said it is consulting on its provisional view of the television selection services that it proposes should be designated under the Media Act 2024.

It is critical that viewers can easily find and discover the diverse range of high-quality content public service broadcasters (PSBs) offer for United Kingdom audiences, including trusted and accurate news. The Media Act 2024 introduced a new online availability and prominence regime for how PSB TV players — such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4 stream, 5, STV player, S4C Clic — are distributed on connected TV platforms, which are referred to in the Act as television selection services.

“Television selection services designated by the (UK’s) Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will be required to ensure designated PSB TV players and their content are available, prominent, and easily accessible. We are now consulting on our provisional view that 14 services should be designated,” Ofcom said in a statement from London.

The consultation, which closes on September 16, will take full account of the views of stakeholders and any further available information before Ofcom makes its final recommendations to the government later this year.

It also added that the regulator was setting out the methods which will be applied for determining which PSB TV players — formally known as ‘internet programme services’ (IPS) — satisfy the conditions set out in legislation to benefit from the new availability and prominence regime, and, therefore, should be designated. BBC iPlayer will be automatically designated, it asserted.