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 10% going to independent European producers. This directive, of course, will substantially benefit certain Euro-oriented industry types that may have been unfairly excluded from the broadcast arena.

* Responses to the consultation are due by 5pm December 9, 2004.

* Annex 3 is the brief explanation of Ofcom’s policy which mirrors, in all important aspects, the underlying EC policy. I suppose the only new element is that Ofcom proposes to specify a five-year implementation period, presumably to permit enough time for David Chase and Jim Burrows to relocate to London.

* As Luke once stated, the first perspective lost in these debates is usually that of the viewer. In this case, viewers will be able to bypass the effect of these types of quotas by simply using broadband technologies. Ofcom really has no significant options or alternatives here, but it’s still an interesting regulatory issue.