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The UK competition authorities have agreed to a set of mergers that will change the number of owners of the major Channel 3 companies (by far the most important private broadcasters) from three to two. Channel 3 (better known as ITV) is organised on the basis of sixteen regional licenses that combine as a single network to offer the bulk of the programmes. Since the award of the licences in 1991, there has been a strong process of consolidation between the owners of franchises, so that by 1999 all the most important licences were owned by three companies; Carlton Communications, the Granada Group...

In the last issue of IRIS (see IRIS 2000-8: 8) it was reported that the Independent Television Commission, the UK regulator for private broadcasters, had ordered the ITV companies to re-time their news bulletins because of a drop in audience figures after the moving of the main evening bulletin from 10 p.m. to a later time. The companies had challenged this by judicial review. The judicial review application was withdrawn after a compromise deal had been reached with the Commission. This will result in the provision of a news bulletin at 10 p.m. on Mondays-Thursdays, though reduced in length from...

An independent review of BBC financial reporting has recommended that the Corporation should provide increased access to information and a simpler presentation of information for the viewing public. The report was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport after the independent review of The Future Funding of the BBC (see IRIS 1999-8: 11) recommended that a number of steps be taken to investigate and improve the BBC's financial accountability and transparency. The report was written by independent consultants Pannell Kerr Foster. The report found that current BBC reporting...

In a case turning substantially on the issue of freedom of expression, the British Broadcasting Corporation has successfully applied to have an injunction against it broadcasting an interview lifted. This would have prevented the BBC from broadcasting an interview with a "ward of court". The ward is a 16 year-old boy, who suddenly left the home of his grandparents, with whom he had been living. He went off, quite suddenly, to join a religious group. The boy's grandmother sought and won a court order to have the boy made a ward of court. In order to trace him, permission was granted to publicise...

The Independent Television Commission, which regulates private broadcasting in the UK, has determined that the Channel 3 (ITV) companies have not complied with conditions set when it allowed them to move its main news bulletin from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. in late 1998. The companies wished to do this to permit them to show uninterrupted films and other programmes after the 9 p.m. "watershed" when more adult programming is allowed to be shown. As a result the Commission has issued an order requiring the Channel 3 companies to reschedule the news "to an earlier time when it is more accessible to viewers."...