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On 29 November 2016, Ofcom updated its plans to reform the structure of Openreach, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BT (British Telecom) Group. Openreach develops and maintains the United Kingdom’s main telecoms network, including broadband, and its infrastructure is used by other providers such as Sky, Talk Talk, Vodafone and BT’s own retail business. In February 2016, in its Strategic Review of Digital Communications in the United Kingdom, Ofcom expressed its concern that Openreach was not sufficiently independent of BT, that it favoured BT in its dealings, and that this was anti-competitive...

On 28 October 2016, the English High Court held that the comments made by a BBC interviewer during a live broadcast to the effect that the claimant, the Chief Imam of Lewisham Islamic Centre, “is an extremist speaker” who has “promoted and encouraged religious violence” were “substantially true”, i.e., the defence to the libel action which succeeded was “justification” (meaning that the words complained of are substantially true). The complainant first used the BBC’s complaints procedure before applying to the Court for relief. The Court held that the words complained of meant that the complainant...

The UK Government has introduced amendments to the Digital Economy Bill which will enable the blocking of pornographic websites which do not put into place age verification measures to ensure that they are not accessed by persons under 18. The Digital Economy Bill contains measures to require that pornographic sites include age verification measures. If these are not in place, pornographic content made available on a commercial basis will constitute “offending material”. The system will be supervised by the British Board of Film Classification, which is responsible for the age classification of...

On 15 September 2016 the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport presented to the House of Commons the draft Royal Charter (the Charter) for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and its accompanying Framework Agreement, setting out the objectives and governance of the BBC. The Charter reflects many of the proposals described in the White Paper presented to Parliament on 12 May 2016 (see IRIS 2016-7/21). The draft Royal Charter will replace the eighth Charter, which expires on 31 December 2016. The core tenets of the new Charter are the BBC’s Mission and Public Purposes described below. The...

A recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) clarifies that journalistic freedom of expression does not encompass the right to insult and offend an interviewee during a radio interview, including a politician. It also confirms the competence of a media regulatory body to interfere with a journalist’s or a radio station’s freedom of expression in a proportionate way. In the case at issue Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the United Kingdom communications industries, had launched an investigation into a radio interview about which it received a series...