Leighton Andrews is an occasional Ofcomwatcher, Honorary Professor at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University (JOMEC), and full time Welsh Assembly Member representing Rhondda.
When he gets a spare moment he is also writing a book on the BBC and Britishness in the Birt/Dyke period!
Whilst he pulls his research together for [...]
OfcomWatch friends OpenSpectrumUK are hosting an event in London this coming Tuesday called Future Wireless. They say:
The Future Wireless programme features a day of presentation, demonstration, practical workshop, artistic intervention and debate [...]
The following letter was noticed today on one of the �small specialist internet sites / forums� described in the text and visited from time to time by myself. The topic will be familiar to regular readers over the past year but the implications are a little worrisome.
�Complaints about various programmes on adult channels
I refer to [...]
India’s Information and Broadcasting Secretary, S K Arora, speaking at the India Television Summit 2005, has outlined a new committee, comprising representatives from the industry and social organisations, to develop a policy for regulating content on television channels and films.
The committee aims to develop new guidelines for broadcasters by the end of the year (ed [...]
The European Commission has published a concluding report (10 pages, PDF) on the sector inquiry into the provision of sports content over third generation mobile networks. The sector inquiry began at the start of 2004 and its reported aim was to allow the Commission and EFTA Surveillance Authority to develop knowledge of the sector, in [...]
MediaGuardian reports:
“The threat of a high court legal challenge to Ofcom has receded after GCap Media said it expected the media regulator to alter proposals to expand digital radio.
Ralph Bernard, the new chief executive of GCap Media, warned in July that the group would take Ofcom to a judicial review if it went ahead with [...]
Ofcom�s latest batch of documents was of interest from a number of angles. The way in which some of the research (Language and sexual imagery in broadcasting a contextual investigation) was carried out was certainly worthy of comment:
�The research was qualitative in nature. This means it explored in some depth the views of respondents in [...]
I have posted before (on my Informationoverlord Blog) on the subject of Channel 4 (and E4’s) quite blatant disregard for Ofcom’s Rules on the Amount and Distribution of Advertising with its broadcasts of the excellent (if Silly) US drama Lost; and watching tonight it seems that the Channel has no intention of changing its [...]
It seems the Aussies had hoped to switch off the analogue signal in 2008.
However, poor take-up rate prompted an admission from Austrialian Communications Minister Helen Coonan this week that the planned analogue switch-off date now seemed unachievable.
A survey commissioned by the newly established Australian Communications and Media Authority shows widespread misinformation and uncertainty about digital [...]
I attended the Liverpool Broadcasting Conference at which the revision of the TV Without Frontiers Directive was discussed and am currently writing up an observer’s report. I will post again when it’s complete and available.
Don Redding, Public Voice
Note new email address don.redding@pop3.altohiway.com
Looks like the IPTV market looks set to really hot up next year. Jemima Gibbons writing on Digital-Lifestyles reports,
“BT will roll out IPTV in �late summer 2006�, according to Andrew Burke, CEO, BT Entertainment, speaking at the Enhanced TV Show in London today.
Developed in partnership with Microsoft, BT�s new set-top box technology will combine a [...]
A U.K. provider of products to the telemarketing industry recently sent us an email newsletter that touches on some of the regulatory issues concerning do not call lists, silent calls, etc. I thought I would share two portions of it:
[I]f in any country you measure silent calls by the admirable code of practice established [...]
Ofcom released a consultation today, with responses due by December 6, on certain numbering issues, including:
* Ending revenue sharing on 0870 numbers to bring the prices in line with national rate geographic numbers.
* Reclassifying 0871 as premium rate (subject to ICSTIS regulation).
* 0844 – no changes proposed, but Ofcom will monitor for [...]
ZDNet report,
“BT has lured a senior executive from rival Cable & Wireless to help run openreach, the new access division that is meant to bring fair competition to the UK telecoms sector.
The ten-strong openreach executive team was announced by BT on Tuesday morning. It includes the appointment of Emma Gilthorpe, group director of regulatory affairs [...]
OfcomWatch friend Chris Marsden alerted us to a special issue of the journal Info, covering the topic �What�s wrong with competition policy in new media?� The articles in this special issue stem from Oxford�s Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) Spring 2005 seminar series, and include contributions from Chris Marsden, Damian Tambini, [...]
My reaction to Roger’s post below on Viviane Reding’s counter-attack on critics of the proposed Television Without Frontiers (TWF) revisions:
She reportedly says: ‘I have no intention to “regulate the Internet”!’
* First, that statement is demonstrably false.
* Second, she mentions two unequivocal goods to justify regulation of the internet: fighting (i) child pornography and [...]
The European Commissioner Viviane Reding has been attacked over her draft proposals for reform of the Television Without Frontiers Directive and accused of wanting in effect to extend elements of broadcasting regulation to the Internet but, at a conference earlier this week, she came out fighting. At the ” Audiovisual Conference – Between Culture and [...]
The European Commission has recently launched two public consultations that will run until mid-November:
The first one: What challenges for the publishing industry in the digital age? The starting point is the crisis faced by the publishing sector as a result of falling advertising revenues and an increasingly elder readership (a recent study showed that even [...]
OfcomWatcher Yves Blondeel outlines some of the key differences between Ofcom’s initial proposed settlement with BT and the final settlement announced by Ofcom yesterday:
* The undertakings now make it clearer that ‘openreach’ is expected to be the primary sales channel for its own products, and that it may only sell to communications providers, not to [...]
Ten radio licences have been issued by Ofcom throught the Radio Licensing Committee (’RLC’) on 5 September out of a total of fourteen applicants, summarised below:
West Yorkshire:
BCB (Bradford)
Phoenix Radio (Halifax)
Manchester and area:
Chorley FM
Crescent Community Radio (Rochdale)
ALL FM (Ardwick, Longsight, Levenshulme and surrounding areas of inner south Manchester)
Wythenshawe FM
Other areas:
The Superstation (Orkney Islands)
ShmuFM (the Middlefield, Printfield, [...]
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