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The UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport has published a Green Paper on its review of the BBC's Charter. This precedes further consultation before the issue of a new charter in 2006, but a number of the most important proposals are now set out clearly in the Paper. The Paper commits the Government to keeping the BBC as a cornerstone of public service broadcasting, and the new Charter will cover a period of ten years from the end of 2006. The Government has rejected proposals that an Act of Parliament be used instead of a Royal Charter, as that would bring the BBC closer to Government and...

The British communications regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) has now issued the third and final stage of its review of public service broadcasting (for the earlier stages see IRIS 2004-6: 12 and IRIS 2004-10: 12). This stage builds on the previous two and the consultations undertaken on them, and sets out proposals in greater detail. According to the review, we are facing the end of the old model of public service broadcasting because of the growth of competition for advertising revenue and the decline in the scarcity value of the analogue spectrum. Both of these developments will...

The European Court of Human Rights in a judgment of 15 February 2005 has come unanimously to the conclusion that the United Kingdom has violated Article 6 (fair trial) and Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights in a libel case opposing the McDonald's Corporation against two United Kingdom nationals, Helen Steel and David Morris, who had distributed leaflets as part of an anti-McDonald's campaign. In 1986 a six-page leaflet entitled “What's wrong with McDonald's?” was distributed by Steel and Morris and in 1990 McDonald's issued...

The BBC is currently aiming to increase its transparency and accountability as a response to the process of reviewing its Royal Charter. As part of the resulting reforms, a new Code of Practice for handling complaints (see IRIS 1997-9: 13) has been published; the website on which it appears will also report on the volume and range of complaints received together with the BBC response and details of clarifications, corrections and remedial action taken. The Code of Practice gives details of how to make a complaint via the website, by telephone or post. The BBC aims to provide a response within ten...

The Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport has laid a “Foreign Satellite Proscription Order” before Parliament under Section 177 of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (as amended; the current law is contained in the Communications Act, sections 329 - 332). If there are no objections, it will come into force on 21February 2005. The Order concerns Extasi TV (or Exstasi TV) . The service advertises itself as an “extreme hard core satellite TV channel” and the complaints concerned the service transmitting “violent pornography”. OFCOM notified the Secretary of State that the service was “unacceptable”;...