October 31st 2003
By: Luke
Online News Roundup
FT reports - 'BBC accused of 'casual disregard' for industry'
Guardian reports - 'Indies call for BBC sanctions'
Mediaweek reports - 'You thought the ITV saga was getting rather complicated?' - claiming that the Ofcom/OFT consultation document on CRR is so steeped in legal jargon that is hard even for ...
October 31st 2003
By: Russ
Regulatory Definitions of Broadband
Luke's earlier post on Tiscali raises a good point. What is broadband? And, always important for critical Ofcom policy-watchers like our loyal readers (both of you) -- who decides?
A marketplace decision is clearly preferable in my opinion. For example, we all know that a Smart ...
October 30th 2003
By: Luke
Tiscali Makes The Broadband Grade - But Then Speed Isn't Everything
Tiscali's 150kbps service got the thumbs up from Oftel, BT and the Advertising Standards Authority earlier this week. It had recieved criticism from competitors who claimed the company was misleading consumers by selling such low speed services as 'broadband'.
The company ...
October 30th 2003
By: Russ
Sky Remakes 'The Crying Game'
Well...sort of...
Sky will easily win the lawsuit because no juror is going to admit that THEY could have been fooled so easily.
October 30th 2003
By: Luke
BBC Misses Indie Quotas - Again
The OFT has today revealed that the BBC missed the statutory target to ensure that at least 25 pct of "qualifying programmes" shown on BBC1 and BBC2 were independent productions - for the third consecutive year.
The OFT's report covers the period April 1 2002 ...
October 30th 2003
By: Luke
McNally - Ofcom should defend ITV
Lord McNally in an article for expNews said that the Communications Act provides ITV no protection from hostile US-led takeover, leaving - in his view - UK viewers and production at risk.
He writes:
"When the Puttnam Committee (the joint pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the Communications Bill) ...
October 30th 2003
By: Luke
Ofcom/ITC Airtime Sales Rules Update
The ITC and Ofcom today published an update to their joint consultation on television airtime sales rules announced on 7 October 2003 in the wake of the Competition Commission/DTI decision to allow Carlton and Granada to merger, dependent on a certain stipulations.
Under the ITC's current Airtime ...
October 30th 2003
By: Russ
WSJ Report on the Mobile Phone Market
Today's Wall Street Journal has a large report entitled: World Circuit: Cellphone Makers Pay a Heavy Toll For Missing Fads, covering the current challenges facing the mobile phone industry (it's just next to the piece about U.S. hospitals arresting patients for not paying their ...
October 29th 2003
By: Russ
But Who's Counting?
I'm continually confused about the citizen / consumer divide in Ofcom matters. . . so I full-text searched Ofcom's .pdf file of its consultation document, The Future Regulation of Broadcast Advertising, and came up with the following:
'consumer(s)' -- appears 30 times in the document
'citizen(s)' -- appears 1 time ...
October 28th 2003
By: Luke
OFT Opens Forum on Carlton/Granada Merger
The OFT is seeking views on a draft of the Carlton and Granada merger undertakings that it has been asked to negotiate.
Comments should be received by 5pm on 3 November 2003.
