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The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal by British Telecommunications (BT) against the decision of the Competition Appeal Tribunal overturning the decision of Ofcom to require BSkyB to offer BT Sky Sports channels at a regulated rate (see IRIS 2013-1/23). The Ofcom decision would have made Sky Sports 1 and 2 available to BT, a major competitor of Sky, at substantially lower rates than the previous wholesale price, and would have assisted BT in its attempts to challenge Sky’s dominance of the pay-tv sports market. The Court held that the Tribunal had failed to investigate the level of discounts...

One in eight parents are failing to take any action to protect their children online according to a new report by the UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom released on 15 January 2014. The report, the first of three to be commissioned by the Department of Culture Media and Sport, asked parents of 5-15 year-olds how they kept their children safe in an online world. It concluded that 15% of parents either don’t know how to activate such controls as family-friendly internet filters, or are unaware that they exist. Children are increasingly participating in an online world, with the report revealing that...

The British Board of Film Classification is the self-regulatory and co-regulatory body that classifies films, videos on all physical formats (including DVD and Blu-ray Disc) and certain video games, advertisements and trailers. On 13 January 2014, it published new Classification Guidelines after undertaking a large-scale public consultation involving more than 10,000 members of the public. This found a particular concern about the sexualisation of girls and pornography. There was also worry about the content of music videos and the ease of accessibility of online porn. Parents were concerned about...

On 5 December 2013, the UK Finance Minister (Chancellor of the Exchequer) George Osborne, announced changes to the value of the tax relief which are again aimed at encouraging investment in the UK. The tax relief that will be available will be at 25% (up from 20%) on the first 20% of qualifying production expenditure subject to acquiring state aid clearance. The tax relief changes were announced in the Chancellor’s 2013 autumn statement and will be subject to State Aid approval and legislation approval within the Finance Bill in April 2014 after which the new terms will be implemented. Moreover,...

On 17 May 2013 the United Kingdom Copyright Tribunal upheld the BBC’s (British Broadcasting Corporation) decision to pay a monthly interim royalty of GBP 10,000 excluding VAT (Value Added Tax) to the Welsh music licensing body Eos-Yr Asiantaeth Hawliau Darlledu Cyfyngedig (Eos) pending the determination of a final licence fee. Subsequently, at the full hearing and the approved decision granted on 16 December 2013, the Copyright Tribunal held that the BBC were entitled to use the Performing Rights Society (PRS) Alliance Agreement as a starting point to calculate royalties. Although Welsh Music was...