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Both the U.K. Communications Act (2003) (see IRIS 2003-8: 10) and the BBC's Agreement contain obligations on public service broadcasters in respect of regional production and regional programmes. The Act (and the BBC's Agreement) requires that a suitable number and range of such programmes be produced in a suitable range of such centres. The obligation is to be realised by ensuring that a certain proportion of hours transmitted "comprises first-run programmes that meet the definition". The Office of Communications (Ofcom) is reviewing the requisite proportions during 2004. Such statutory obligations...

Currently, relief for expenditure on production and acquisition of films is covered by the Finance Act (No 2) 1997, Section 48. However, this is due to expire in July 2005. In the Budget Speech in the UK Parliament recently, the Chancellor said: "Since 1997 support for the British film industry has been worth GBP 2 billion and the number of films made here in Britain has doubled. I now propose to transfer the available reliefs for British-made films with budgets below GBP 15 million from the third parties, a minority of whom have abused them, and to pay reliefs directly to the film-makers themselves....

The UK has had a major crisis in public service broadcasting as a result of the publication of the Hutton Report dealing with the death of Dr. David Kelly, the expert on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (see also IRIS 2003-9: 8). He had been interviewed by Andrew Gilligan, a BBC reporter, in relation to Government claims that such weapons were available for use within 45 minutes. The BBC had then broadcast the allegation that the dossier prepared for Government by the security services had been doctored to make the threat seem more immediate than it had originally appeared; the Government spokesman...

OFCOM is the UK communications industries regulator. It was established by the Communications Act 2003 and deals with television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services. One of its Boards is the Content Board, a committee of the main Board. It deals mainly with broadcasting (radio and television) on issues of quality and standards. As regards content issues, these are divided into three categories or "tiers": "Tier 1 concerns negative content regulation. It covers matters principally concerning harm and offence, accuracy and impartiality, fairness and privacy. Tier 2 relates...

The Communications Act 2002 (section 285) requires that the public service broadcasters (including the BBC under ss. 198 and 203) draw up and apply codes of practice governing the commissioning of independent productions for broadcasting on their networks, in accordance with general guidance issued by the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the new communications regulator (for background see IRIS 2003-3: 12). Ofcom has now approved the codes developed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five and GMTV. The guidance is designed to provide a standard framework for the codes. It requires that the codes set...