United Kingdom

[GB] Independent Productions Transmitted by the BBC

IRIS 1998-2:1/32

David Goldberg

deeJgee Research/Consultancy

The Director General of Fair Trading is obliged, under Section 186 (3) of the Broadcasting Act 1990, to make a report, at the end of each relevant period, to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, informing the Minister whether the BBC has complied with its obligation under Section 186 (1) of the Act to ensure that not less than 25% of the total amount of broadcasting time allocated to qualifying programmes is allocated to a range and diversity of independent productions (where "range" refers to cost of acquisition as well as to type of programming - see Section 186 (2). For the period April 1996 to March 1997, the report finds that 27.9% of the total qualifying time was made by independent producers, a decline of just under 1% on the previous reporting period. The expressions `qualifying programmes' and `independent productions' are defined in the Broadcasting (Independent Productions) Order (the Order: SI 1991/1408, amended by SI 1995/1925)