Folks, for Duncan’s recent letter to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, click here. Duncan claims that Channel 4’s most important food-related programming was Jamie’s School Dinners.
I thought it was the Big Brother / Kit Kat promotion…
If today’s Westminster Media Forum seminar on the Television Without Frontiers Directive is any guide, being a DCMS official with newly-appointed Minister for Creative Industries Shaun Woodward must be an exciting experience. Having a Minister who knows the subject (he worked for the BBC for 10 years) and his mind (he is very outspoken) must [...]
EC Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, yesterday spoke on the future of telecoms and radio spectrum regulation. For the MS Word version of her remarks, click here. It’s an ambitious agenda she sets out. Among other things she calls for:
* The creation of a European radio spectrum agency [...]
Ofcom remains in an intellectual confusion when it comes to its policy on consumer information. As I made clear in this posting, I am one of those who believes that the market is failing to provide consumers with the information they need to be informed and empowered and that Ofcom should play an more active [...]
The threat of a judicial review of Ofcom’s consultation on the TV advertising of junk food has receded after what the campaigners see as a major concession. The National Heart Forum says Ofcom has today agreed to send a further consultation document to all interested parties, with the recently revised data on the impact of [...]
According to today’s Guardian, ITV is closing its in-house production unit, and a ’senior source’ says it is looking to withdraw from children’s programming altogether — using the threatened ‘junk food ad ban’ as an excuse, and believing it can ‘roll Ofcom over’ on reducing its public service obligations in this respect.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1801320,00.html
With respect to the National Heart Forum (NHF) complaint below, two questions are raised:
1. Was it wrong for Ofcom to not include a pre-9pm total ban on junk food (HFSS) adverts in its consultation options? Probably. Ofcom could have easily made this option one of the options upon which it specifically sought [...]
The National Heart Forum coalition says it won’t be scared off by Ofcom: here is the text of its news release.
Friday 16 June 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OFCOM ATTEMPTS TO SCARE OFF HEALTH AND CHILDREN’S CHARITIES FROM TAKING LEGAL ACTION
The broadcast regulator Ofcom has resorted to heavy-handed tactics to try and dissuade the National Heart Forum (NHF) [...]
Further to Russ’s update, new voices are adding to the criticism of Ofcom, weightiest being the Food Standards Agency which discussed the consultation on advertising of junk foods at its Board yesterday, and rather innovatively has webcast the discussion: http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2006/jun/bristol
The FSA is likely to adopt today a draft position which states that:
The Board agreed [...]
Folks, if you want a really interesting blend of populism, science, politics and media policy — look no further than Ofcom’s junk food advert consultation. It’s great! It’s really one of the first occasions in which we’ve seen Ofcom thrown somewhat off its game with respect to a consultation.
Here’s where things stand, along with my [...]
Dear fellow Ofcom-watchers and readers. I have been trialling a new wiki product from wetpaint and decided for some reason that a telecoms wiki might be a nice idea. The purpose/aim of Wiki is to provide information and links to useful resources – free and fee – on telecommunications. Whether you’re looking for the national [...]
Ofcom has upheld a number of complaints relating to items on the Scott Mills show (BBC Radio 1) and the Chris Moyles show (BBC Radio 1) and warned the station that it has concerns about both the number and, in some cases the seriousness of compliance issues relating to the stations output over the past [...]
Felicity Lawrence takes aim at Ofcom in this Comment is Free piece today.
It’s interesting how the first people (other than this site) to publicly criticise Ofcom for its tendency to engage in a one-sided, salesmanship approach to public consultation are the health food campaigners. Who could have predicted?
On the merits, I disagree with Lawrence. [...]
The UK public consultation on the European Commission’s proposals to amend the Television without Frontiers Directive – now to be known as the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMS) – opened today.
The consultation documents and full details on how to respond are available on the DCMS website here.
The consultation documents include:
a partial regulatory impact [...]
I recently wrote that, after a recent meeting with Ofcom:
The challenge for Ofcom and DCMS is direct engagement with those parties that
may be adversely affected by the EC’s proposals. To the best of their knowledge,
Ofcom said that they had not been approached by a single entity with a problem
with a particular provision of the [...]
Ian Darby gives a quick overview of Carter’s tenure at Ofcom, with a media (and advertising) focus. Story here.
The Sunday Herald also looks at Richards as the possible successor to Stephen Carter. Richards defends the much-criticised Public Service Publisher (PSP).
Richards also made it clear that rumours of the death of Ofcom’s public service publisher (PSP) [...]
OFCOM’s consumer panel has released an update on consumer attitudes to, and awareness of, a variety of communications services in the UK. This makes interesting reading, and includes for the first time some questions on VoIP. Only 10% of respondents claimed to understand the term “VoIP,” and only around 16% overall claimed to have heard [...]
Someone recently handed me the publication Regulating Communications, the Future of UK Communications & Broadcasting by Keith Boyfield (European Media Forum). You can buy it online here. I quickly read it yesterday, and here are some of the more interesting nuggets from my perspective:
* Ofcom gets high marks generally, but is singled-out because its [...]
Folks, you may notice that our ‘Recent Posts’ and ‘Archive’ are missing from the right-hand side of the website. We’re experiencing some technical problems and reorganising the site in response.
Our three-year archive is still searchable in Google – just add ’site:ofcomwatch.co.uk’ to the end of your Google search and it will search our archives [...]
Latest from Ofcom