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The principle that the media should be able to protect the anonymity of its sources of information is accepted as an important principle in the English courts justified by the test of public interest. However, although great weight is given to European Court of Human Rights cases with facts similar to the facts before the domestic court, a "relevant but not conclusive factor" which might outweigh the general principle is the "wish of a betrayed employer to identify the disloyal employee so as to exclude him from future employment."

The Independent Television Commission has extended its review of the practice of bundling pay-TV channels by publishing a new consultation document. Its initial consultation paper "Competition Investigation into Premium Channel Bundling in the Pay-TV Market" was issued in November 1996. At the request of the European Commission the ITC will now also be investigating whether the wholesale price discount structure for BSkyB's premium channels could prevent the entry of other providers into the market. The ITC will also examine the issues of carriage guarantees, basic channel bundling and digital...

The BBC has just published its quarterly Complaints Unit Bulletin for the period from 1 April to 30 June 1997. During this period, the Unit dealt with 346 complaints in two main categories: matters of fairness and accuracy and matters of taste and standards. The former deals with topics such as unfair treatment of the complainant; bias; intrusiveness and factual inaccuracy. The latter's topics comprise poor taste; bad language; sexual conduct; violence; racism; sexism; and offence to the religious feeling. News and current affairs programmes produced the most complaints (43%) followed by enterntainment...

The Independent Television Commission (ITC) has issued a consultation paper for the procedure it intends to follow when considering applications from ITV licensees to renew their licences. Channel 3 licensees, including GMTV and Teletext, can, if they wish, apply to have their licences renewed with effect from 1 January 1999. This is despite the fact that existing licences do not expire until 2002, but section 20 of the Broadcasting Act 1990 states that it is up to the ITC to decide whether to renew the existing licences or to advertise new ones. Setting the financial terms for renewal is the key...

In a letter to ITC Chairman Sir Robin Biggam, Mr Chris Smith, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (the former Department of National Heritage) announced that there is no continuing need, or real justification, for the Channel 4 Funding Formula now that Channel 4 is a well-established broadcaster with a steady income stream. The 1990 Broadcasting Act contains a safety net mechanism by which Channel 4 is guaranteed funding from the Channel 3 companies should its income from advertising revenue fall below 14 per cent of Total National Advertising Revenues (TNAR). The 14 per cent threshold...