The definition of public service broadcaster, under new laws, should not be restricted to Manx Radio.

That’s the view of an MLC who has signalled her intention to bring forward an amendment to the Communications Bill, which will regulate telecommunications and broadcasting.

Under its definitions, the bill says that ’public service broadcaster’ means Radio Manx Ltd, the company behind Manx Radio.

Mrs Sharpe, a former BBC reporter, is planning an amendment to set out that public service broadcaster would mean ’Manx Radio, or Manx Radio and another licence-holder or other licence-holders’.

She told her colleagues: ’Currently the bill states that "public service broadcaster" means Manx Radio.

’My point is that, in real terms, public service broadcaster means any company, which has an appropriate licence to provide a public broadcasting service.

’The broadcaster is the mechanism through which the service flows. It is not one company per se.’

She added: ’In seeking to move this amendment at a future sitting, I am not seeking to unsettle or to undermine Manx Radio, which after all does hold the public service broadcasting licence.

’Rather I am recognising that this act will be a piece of primary legislation, it will be with us for a long time and, certainly, it will be with us longer than either AM or FM radio.

’I am merely seeking to future-proof this Bill.’

But Bill Henderson MLC argued that MHKs had offered no objection to the original definition in the Bill.

’We need to be wary of what we are attempting to do here,’ he said.