By: Russ
Ofcom case study; TVWF revisions; Ofcom spectrum auction; Video on Demand
Folks, I’m finally getting back to some OfcomWatching as a nice holiday here in the U.S. draws to a close. So what’s been going on? Feast on this:
* Ofcom prepared a case study of its own creation via the public sector merger of the five legacy regulators. It is intended to show what can be learned from the merger process. I was so eager to read this — figuring OfcomWatch was sure to be mentioned. I mean, how many regulators have a devoted online blog following their creation and early years? Not many! Ah, but no mention of OfcomWatch…
* The U.K. government’s opposition to the revised Television without Frontiers Directive even made news here in the U.S. this week. Click here for a typical Associated Press story. There’s even a new U.K. trade lobbying group that is exclusively devoted to this issue - click here for the AudioVisual Stakeholders group. The story lately has two elements: (i) the proposed revisions would bring ‘video blogs’ under regulation and that is bad; and (ii) self-regulation is a better regulatory technique for the online environment. I personally think there are other, more compelling reasons to oppose the revisions to the Television Without Frontiers Directive. Luke and I hope to meet with Ofcom soon and learn more about where things are headed with this issue and uncover some more details about how these proposed revisions would work in practice.
* Ofcom is consulting on a future auction for the paired radio spectrum frequency bands: 872-876 MHz and 917-921 MHz. Consultation closes 21 June 2006.
* Always when I spend a week or two in the U.S. I consider issues related to the on-demand versus the linear world. I did it in Sept 2005 and wrote about it here. Well, things are even more advanced now here in the U.S. My mother’s house in a very rural location (have you seen Deliverance?) has video on demand now. Also, iTunes - at least the U.S. version - now has even more video content on offer. And Disney announced last week that it was putting hit shows like Lost online for no fee (advertiser funded). Anyway, this is a long-winded introduction to what is essentially a link and a recommendation. Click here to read what Mark Cuban had to say about on-demand video on his blog. He basically says that without linearity it becomes an ‘expensive mess’ to promote new content. Cuban always has an interesting perspective.
Stay tuned…
Apr 21st 2006
It would be extremely interesting if you guys could expand slightly on the reasons you might have for not revising the TVWF Directive or what issues you have with the current proposal.
I think Intellect are pretty proud of their paper but for me it looks like a supplier lead thing without getting a wider angle from which to critique the proposals - from a comment on the Slashdot story: “An alliance of companies … warned that a European Commission proposal to impose rules for traditional broadcasters on new media providers could … hurt investments.
In other news, Hannibal Lector complains that anti-cannibalism laws unfairly restrict his choice of dishes.” http://tinyurl.com/ms6qg
Apr 21st 2006
Okay — But I first need some time and I really want to meet with Ofcom and learn more about the jurisdictional issues before I go too far. My basic thinking is that you always need to unpack these types of proposals into two separate but related categories: 1. Normative - are the specified goals (assuming the initiative actually specifies coherent goals) useful or helpful to society in full or in part or not at all? 2. Empirical / predictive - will the regulatory techniques and methods described by the initiative achieve the goals in full or in part or not at all?
Even if you buy the first part, I think TVWF generally fails on the second part.
One example: This is from memory - but I recall that the revisions completely exempted online sites maintained by newspapers and magazines. Well, that tells the entire story, doesn’t it? If you can imagine the type of website where a ‘right of reply’ would be the most meaningful, it would probably be newspaper websites. So some poor new media website would be saddled with a regulation that would not apply to LeMonde or The Guardian. The publishing giants get a free pass. If that type of distinction is in fact contained in the revisions, I’d like someone to explain the logic behind it, and why it serves the public interest, and how it should result in a harmonised audio-visual media environment in Europe.
BTW - this would just be my personal opinion and would not cover other regular contributors to OfcomWatch. As our mission statement indicates, the site is a neutral forum. Anyone is permitted to post their views on these issues.
Apr 24th 2006
Russ - agree with both your critiques/categories. The reason that newspaper websites are currently excluded is that they blew a gasket last summer about freedom of speech and the impact of the proposals on reporting and when the final proposal came out, they were exempted
(They are still lobbying quite hard against the propsal however as they move more into video content).
Another way of criticising the proposal would be splitting the proposals into whether they have an economic rationale or a social rationale.
Looking through the Commission’s proposal, it is extremely unclear as to which is driving forward the proposal as it seems to meander between the two in a rather confused manner and never quite realise itself which drives it.
Is it designed to protect European users from drowned in ‘harmful’ content suppliers and having a Right to Reply. Or is it, as it says elsewhere, about giving a theoretical level playing field between traditional broadcasters and new media providers. Clearly this seems more about incumbent EU public service broadcasters lobbying for protectionism from the Commission.
One of my personal objections is the concept of editorial control that is central to the proposed Directive, for both linear and non-linear services. However, if you look at services like Youtube, Google Video and even now Myspace the editor is each user. The usage statistics for these services is in the millions however they theoretically would be covered by the proposed TVWF Directive - or at least any similar services that are hosted in the EU. The Commission has utterly failed to recognise that this is an important direction for content production as bandwidth increases and storage costs decrease - quite what the Directive would do to these services is extremly unclear.
I also personally believe that Ofcom should be congratulated for the strong way they have defended UK interests in this debate!
I look forward to reading your detailed discussion of the Directive. If you are looking to feed into European discussions, I would point out that the Rapporteur (Ruth Hieronymi) is holding hearings on 2 June where she will take public submissions.