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The British Culture Secretary has announced new rules relating to the independent production sector in the UK. The background to the rules is that the joint committee of the two Houses of Parliament, in examining the Communications Bill, recommended that the proposed lifting of the ban on non-EEA broadcasters be postponed until after the new regulator, the Office of Communications (OFCOM), had the opportunity to review the programme supply market (see IRIS 2002-8: 7). Instead of waiting for the new regulator to be established, the minister commissioned a review from the existing regulator, the...

The UK Home Office (the equivalent of a Ministry of the Interior) includes a task force on child protection on the Internet; this is a co-regulatory body including, in addition to as government officials, representatives of opposition parties, child welfare organisations, the Internet industry, the police and others. It was established in 2001 after fears of abuse of the Internet by paedophiles. The task force has published a set of good practice models and guidance for the Internet industry applying to chat services, instant messaging and web-based services. The models and guidance are voluntary...

A year ago, the Office of Fair Trading (the UK competition authority) announced preliminary findings that it was likely to find BSkyB in breach of the 1998 Competition Act (see IRIS 2002-2: 11). The Office has now taken its final decision, which clears BSkyB of any breach of the Act. Chapter II of the Act prohibits abuse of a dominant position, in terms almost identical to those of Article 82 of the EC Treaty. The investigation had been based on fears that BSkyB was abusing its dominance over premium pay-TV channels to distort competition against rival distributors and in favour of its own satellite...

The Office of Telecommunications, Oftel, the UK's telecommunications regulator, is responsible for regulating conditional access services, including the terms on which public service broadcasters are given access to satellite platform providers (they do not apply to the digital cable platform, where "must carry" rules require free carriage). It has published a revised set of guidelines on conditional access pricing, setting out how it expects conditional access prices to be set and how operators should approach the negotiation process to agree those charges. They require that access should be granted...

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) have jointly published a report entitled "Striking a balance: the control of children's media consumption". The Report was driven by the UK Government's White Paper on Communications, "A New Future for Communications" (see IRIS 2001-1: 8), which proposed an investigation into the various mechanisms for exercising control over children's media consumption. It was commissioned to draw together information and evidence on "attitudes, behaviour and feasibility in...