Broadband Delivery UK Spent £5M on Marketing from Sep 2014 to Feb 2015

The government’s Broadband Delivery UK project, which is responsible for overseeing the national £1.7bn publicly funded roll-out of fixed line superfast broadband (24Mbps+) services to 95% of people by 2017/18, spent £5.041 million of its budget on publicity (adverts) during the six months from September 2014 to February 2015.

The latest data only reflects larger payments (i.e. those valued above £25,000) made by BDUK as part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and thus does not include smaller payments or mobile/spectrum related costs. We also excluded the relevant roll-out grants to Local Authorities (councils etc.) as these are already well understood.

Prior to the above period BDUK hadn’t been very active on the publicity side of things, although readers may recall that this started to change in December 2014 when the Government introduced a major TV advertising campaign and began a much more aggressive publicity push for their broadband project (here). On top of that they’ve also put more effort into promoting the Broadband Connection Vouchers for smaller businesses.

In keeping with all this the biggest publicity costs were attributed to related media firms in December 2014 and there was another spike during February 2015. Separately we also note that BDUK spent £921,586 on admin fees (mostly staff and management consultants) during the same six month window, which actually seems to be a lot less than the last time we checked in 2013 (here and here) and that’s perhaps to be expected now that the complex early design stages are out of the way.

Similarly the amount being spent on publicity might seem significant, although we must not forget that greater publicity usually equals more people upgrading their connections in BDUK enabled areas. Stronger uptake is a big part of the reason why the clawback (gain share) reinvestment mechanism can now return up to £129m to boost coverage (here).

Nicholas Lansman, UK ISPA Secretary General, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“ISPA members are transforming communities with their superfast broadband investments and Government is supporting these efforts with its investment in the hardest-to-reach areas. Superfast broadband has major benefits to consumers and businesses, so we welcome Government efforts to raise awareness and increase take up from one of the many providers in the market.”

Now here’s a breakdown of where those publicity funds have been spent over the most recently available 6 month window (data newer than Feb 2015 has yet to be published), make of it what you will. NOTE: No costs were attributed to BDUK publicity in September 2014 and hence the data for that only shows from October.

UPDATE 4pm

Added a comment from the ISPA above.