Ofcom’s Strategic Telecoms Review provides a great opportuntity to deliver on the UK’s telecoms potential. But it might be worth the regulator keeping a few things in mind…
1. Regulatory certainty through defined, measurable goals
The telecommunications industry needs a goal if it is to hit its target. Ofcom must not fail to set targets now [...]
The long-awaited (and ultra-violent) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is being released today. If sales go as planned, it will likely outgross the movie ‘Titanic’ in a first-week sales comparison. Just more evidence of the ascendance of video games in the media industry… and the growing irrelevance of regulations affecting broadcast media content, at least [...]
Azeem Azhar recently wrote OfcomWatch and shared an interesting idea he has been writing about lately. He says:
We shouldn’t just measure the competitiveness of a PSB/P by funding. Competitivenesss could come from other measures, like the PSP having a different IP licensing scheme. For example, a license that moved PSP content into the public domain [...]
Radio groups are urging Ofcom to ban a merged Capital Radio/GWR from bidding for FM licences for the next five years.
Fair enough…
Ofcom has been accused by ICSTIS, the body that regulates premium rate telephone services, over claims that the watchdog is failing to prevent consumers from being cheated by fraudsters. George Kidd, director of ISCTIS, has sent a furious letter to Ofcom chief exec Stephen Carter, claiming that Ofcom’s refusal to share information with his organisation [...]
Trojan Horse Virus’ Send Phone Bills Soaring
Today’s Independent thinks so…
Icstis is also rather toothless [in tackling trojan horse phone bill cons]. In August, it took steps to ensure that all premium-rate dialler services would have to obtain a licence. Only this week, it said that it had banned 11 companies that had failed to apply [...]
Ofcom is considering price ceilings on BT’s local and national rate call charges.
In a series of announcements and consultations, Ofcom said it’s focusing on number translation services (NTS), particularly 0845 (local rate) and 0870 (national rate) numbers that offer consumers and businesses access to services that include dial-up pay-as- you-go Internet access, televoting and [...]
Someone at ‘Save Welsh TV’ dropped me an e-mail to say…
“I’m intrigued that Ofcom’s proposal to drain the lifeblood out of non-news programming in the ITV Nations and regions has raised so few comments, either on this site or in the English/Scotish or Northern Irish media.
Ofcom are also not making much effort to protect [...]
Just browsing around lately and thought I would review Ofcom’s Television Without Frontiers consultation document. Here are my thoughts:
* Misnomer alert. The directive should be called ‘Television Without (European) Frontiers’. Articles 4 and 5 of the TWF directive basically require 50% of broadcasters’ transmission time to be devoted to European works with [...]
Screendaily.com: ‘BBC director general Mark Thompson has said the broadcaster needs to look at raising its investment in the UK film industry. Thompson told an all-party select committee on Tuesday that the BBC would be willing to screen more UK films and less US fare. He added that the broadcaster should also look at boosting [...]
Emily Bell evaluates the Barwise report (value of the BBC to the viewer) in today’s MediaGuardian. She writes: ‘To my mind Barwise should have gone in the opposite direction with his valuation model – towards more fragmentation rather than less and towards a model which looked at value rather than cost.’
Ofcom have carried out dozens of public consultations since taking office at the end of last year, but could the consultation process itself be improved in any way? I believe there are a number of ways that it could be and three of them are described below.
Consultation dialogue
For many consultations it is perfectly reasonable to [...]
Early Day Motion – 1732
OFCOM AND WELSH PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
Signatories:
Lembit �pik
Mr Simon Thomas
Huw Irranca-Davies
* 3
That this House views with great concern the thrust of The Ofcom Review of Public Service Television Broadcasting-Phase2-Meeting the Digital Challenge which threatens to leave Wales with no meaningful English language public broadcasting on Channel 3; believes this [...]
Ofcom just publicised Lord Currie’s recent speech to the Royal Television Society. Here’s my take:
* Interesting speech, particularly the first portion which is a catalog of the unpredictable and amazing path media technology has taken over the past 20-30 years.
* Predictably, Currie focuses on Ofcom’s recent Phase 2 report in the [...]
Yesterday’s Guardian featured a review of DTI’s new report on switch-over and it’s implications for consumers. In the report, the Consumer Expert Group poses a number of questions . Most of them are well known – They concern the length of the transition period, the amount of public monies available to support ‘refuseniks’ transition to [...]
Just to follow up on Russ’ earlier post regarding the PSB review. I attended the morning session of Ofcom’s seminar last week and was disappointed by the lack of tumult and argument. Ed Richard’s presentation seemed to go down well with most participants. The most contentious point was Ofcom’s idea of establishing a Public Service [...]
BECTU News – Membership drive begins at OFCOM
When five regulators came together to form Ofcom they all brought different union representation. Ofcom CEO Stephen Carter, having not recognised unions at ntl was a bit overwhelmed so decided it was best to ignore them all. Afterall, who would need a union when they’ve got a shiny [...]
Worth a look…
A Manifesto for a Digital Britain
Billed as – ‘digital policies for the next parliament’ the weblog is a little sparse at the moment but keep an eye on it over the next few months – hopefully the ippr will start to add more information about their findings and thoughts.
Certainly the ippr’s proposals on [...]
Guardian reports…
“…Take the regulators. Anna Walker, chief executive of the Healthcare Commission, has nominal oversight of NHS (and some private) operations worth upwards of �80bn a year. For that, she gets about �150,000. Stephen Carter, chief executive of the Office of Communications, has oversight of an industry worth about an eighth of the NHS turnover. [...]
The five UK mobile operators that invested �22.5bn in third generation (3G) licences moved a step closer to clawing back �3.35bn of that outlay through a VAT rebate.
The case has been referred to the European Court of Justice after a VAT tribunal highlighted six points that needed clarification by the European court.
The UK government’s [...]
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