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Announcing the new Labour Government's legislative programme in the House of Lords on 20 June, the Queen said that "a draft Bill to create a single regulator for the media and communications industries and reform the broadcasting and telecommunications regulations will be published." The draft Bill is likely to be prefaced in the next weeks by a Bill that will set up OFCOM - the unified regulator which will combine the roles of the Broadcasting Standards Commission; the Independent Television Commission; Oftel; the Radiocommunications Agency; and the Radio Authority (see IRIS 2001-1: 8). The...

A man who made a hoax telephone call to a national radio show on 31 August 2000 was pursued under post office legislation, rather than broadcasting legislation. Irish broadcasting legislation contains numerous provisions concerned with programme content but is aimed at the obligations and responsibilities of broadcasters rather than individual callers. The man telephoned an RTE (the national public service broadcaster) radio chat show, claiming to be the well-known captain of the Galway county hurling team and to be representing his own views and those of the team members. Hurling is a popular...

The BBC is financed by a licence fee, a form of special levy on all owners of television sets. However, it has also recently become heavily involved in commercial activities, for example joint ventures with private-sector companies. Considerable concern has been expressed by competitors that it is able to distort competition through using public funds to support activities in the commercial marketplace. To meet this criticism, the BBC has developed a Fair Trading Commitment and detailed Commercial Policy Guidelines. Nevertheless, the 1999 review of the future funding of the BBC (see IRIS 1999-8:...

From 17 May, new Independent Television Commission (ITC) regulations concerning airtime sales arrangements and certain types of share deals are in force. The aims of the revision are to "provide a more streamlined approach to regulation in this sector," to bring "the ITC's rules into line with the Competition Commission's decision [...] regarding further consolidation of ITV ownership" and to "help establish a more competitive market". Some of the pre-existing rules have been relaxed or amended and there are several new prohibitions, e.g. on joint selling by Granada and Carlton (ITC licensees)...

As part of his budget proposals, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (the Minister for public finance and taxation) announced that tax relief for the film production industry is to be extended until 2005. The UK currently has three types of tax relief for film production. The most generous form of relief is known as `section 48 relief', having been introduced by that section of the Finance (No. 2) Act 1997, in order to promote growth, employment and investment and assist structural change in the UK film industry. It allows for 100% write-off for tax purposes, on completion, of the production...