EDM 88

Have you ever visited the website for Parliament? Well, depending on what page you go to, you could find something interesting. I did. I found an Early Day Motion, or EDM, which is something I thought might happen in the morning, but I was wrong. So off I went in search of what an EDM actually is, and I have to admit, it’s confusing. Here’s what the Parliament website says about an EDM (I’ll get to the real point of all this in a moment)…

EDMs are formal motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons. However, very few EDMs are actually debated. Instead, they are used for reasons such as publicising the views of individual MPs, drawing attention to specific events or campaigns, and demonstrating the extent of parliamentary support for a particular cause or point of view.

Anyway, the real point is that someone’s had an Early Day Motion about, and under the heading of, yes, wait for it, Local Television. This means it’s about us, OSTV. How cool is that? A mention in Parliament; not directly but they were close enough. And here’s what it says…

That this House notes that Ofcom has described community radio as `one of the best things…that we have done…far more successful than anybody anticipated’; recognises the opportunity now exists to enable communities to develop their own free-to-air television stations as a platform for news, information, discussion, entertainment and advertising; believes it is important to avoid creating spectrum gatekeepers able to abuse their market power in the supply of spectrum suitable for community-based television services; and calls on the Government and Ofcom to co-operate to implement a licensing regime so that Freeview and cable carriage is secured for the roll-out of a new tier of local television across the UK with priority on the electronic programme guide.

Now, anyone who knows me will know that I didn’t understand half of that, but the half I did get sounded pretty good to me. Let me explain how I would have written it – had I been asked.

That this House unanimously agrees that Open Screen TV is absolutely fantastic and should be supported by every Member of Parliament, as well as all other Governments around the world. Why? Because the boys at OSTV are leading the way and all we can do as MPs, is try to catch up and give them all the grant funding they obviously deserve. Their focus on community involvement and on training and development is groundbreaking and will be a massive boost to Dorset and the world. Even some of their programmes are amazing and, as for their plans for the future, we can only wait with bated breath to see what innovative, creative, imaginative, awe-inspiring things they’ll come up with next. Sign here.

That’s what I would have written instead of all that complicated stuff about Spectrum Gatekeepers and Licensing Regimes. Why can’t people get to the point and say what they really mean?
OSTV