There are already programmes provided by broadcasting operators which are available only online.
Legal fragmentation leads to excessive transaction costs, which in turn discourage broadcasting operators from guaranteeing cross-border access.
On the other hand, the regulation does not introduce an obligation for broadcasting operators to provide services.
The need for legislation is also emphasised by the fact that 82% of public and 62% of private broadcasting operators employ some kind of geoblocking, making it significantly harder to access information services.
The regulation under consideration here, meanwhile, focuses on groups of people who are permanently resident in a Member State and yet have a legitimate interest in accessing the online services of broadcasting operators established in other Member States.
He said that there was also an issue for other local TV operators broadcasting in Wales and Scotland, where on Freeview the slots offered rank at 45, versus operators in England being given channel 8. Kirkman admits that perhaps the biggest challenge will be attracting a big enough audience to make London Live commercially attractive to advertisers.
"Before you had the regulation of radio, you had amateur radio buffs, ham radio operators broadcasting from home, as well as newspapers, hotels, colleges and all sorts of other organizations jumping in," he said.
So when the local cable operator stopped broadcasting races and the local newspaper stopped running results, there was little surprise.
After Iran's state-owned Press TV ran reports about Koran desecrations in the United States, India blocked local cable operators from broadcasting the station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where angry anti-American protests have taken place in recent days.
Although the FCC stopped short of finalising the licensing terms until a later hearing, it agreed to let local radio operators begin broadcasting in the new IBOC format.It seemed only a matter of time before car owners, equipped with an IBOC radio, would be free to enjoy stunning CD-quality local programming as they cruised America's highways and byways.
