Compact Media Group, the world's leading independent rights administrator and distributor of royalties, has published a report, Missing Opportunities in Digital Britain, calling for changes to the UK's current policy on secondary rights collection. The report argues that UK producers are missing out on valuable revenue streams, which are needed to maintain investment in the UK's television and film industries.

The report draws on Lord Carter's Digital Britain Report, which recognised the need for alternative funding mechanisms for content in the digital age and noted that Ofcom would keep the issue of reuse fees under review. It puts forward evidence that the income gained from a change in reuse laws would help support investment in the film and TV industry as a whole, and importantly sustain levels of innovation in digital content and applications.

Currently UK cable and satellite operators are exempt from paying out any rights clearance for programmes carried by 'qualifying' PSB channels that they re-transmit to subscribers. Mechanisms for ensuring the distribution of statutory reuse fees already exist in 22 European countries and Compact estimates the total amount collected on behalf of producers alone was approximately E478 million for the period 2002–06.

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