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The UK has amended the definition of "independent producer" for the purposes of section 16 of the Broadcasting Act 1990, which requires that independent productions form at least 25% of programmes broadcast by the major broadcasters. This in turn implements the requirements on independent productions of the "Television Without Frontiers" Directive. The new amending order makes two important changes to the definition of "independent producer". The first is to provide that the previous exclusion of any producer in which a broadcaster owned more than 15% of shares applies only to UK broadcasters....

The "Hutton Inquiry" is a judicial hearing into "the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. Kelly" (UK civil servant and weapons inspector). On 24 July 2003, a Press Notice was issued, stating that "the public hearings of the Inquiry will, of course, be open to the media. The press and other sections of the media will be able to report the entirety of the public hearings save that it is Lord Hutton's present intention that the evidence of witnesses to the Inquiry and applications in the course of the Inquiry will not be filmed or broadcast. However, TV filming and radio broadcasting of opening...

The Communications Act 2003 has now finished its passage through Parliament and became law on 17 July 2003 (see IRIS 2002-6: 9, IRIS 2002-7: 12 and IRIS 2002-8: 7). The Act is long and complex and makes major changes both to regulatory institutions and to the law relating to broadcasting; the main themes of the legislation are as follows. First, the Act gives regulatory powers to a new institution, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), to replace five earlier ones, including the Independent Television Commission and the Radio Authority (the Office had already been established in preliminary form...

The case involved the disclosure of information contained in confidential health records, which had been obtained by an investigative journalist. On the facts of the particular case, which were distinguishable from an earlier House of Lords decision in 2002 (Ashworth Hospital Authority v. MGN Ltd), the Court of Appeal quashed a summary order for source disclosure against the journalist. Lord Justice May said: "[P]rotection of journalistic sources is one of the basic conditions for press freedom in a democratic society. An order for source disclosure cannot be compatible with Article 10 of the European...

The Broadcasting Act 1990, Section 6(1)(a), imposes a duty on the Independent Television Commission to do all it can to secure that every service which it licenses complies with a requirement that "nothing is included in its programmes which offends against good taste or decency or is likely to encourage or incite to crime or to lead to disorder or to be offensive to public feeling." The 1996 agreement between the BBC and the Secretary of State provides, in clause 5.1(d), that the Corporation shall do all it can to secure that all programmes which it broadcasts or transmits "do not include anything...