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Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has decided that a number of sponsorship credits were in breach of its Broadcasting Code. These are credits that identify the sponsors of programmes, as is required for reasons of transparency. Indeed, the Code requires that sponsorship is clearly identified by credits that make clear the identity of the sponsor and the relations between the sponsor and the sponsored content. However, credits do not count as part of the advertising permitted under the AVMS Directive, and in order to prevent the credits from effectively becoming extra advertising, they must...

If a service in the United Kingdom constitutes a “video-on-demand” service, it should so notify ATVOD - the Authority for Video on Demand - so as to come under its regulatory jurisdiction regarding editorial content and pay an annual fee. Interpreting the criteria in concrete cases is, in the first instance, the responsibility of ATVOD; however, it is the UK regulator Ofcom which has the ultimate legal responsibility and so an appeal lies to it. VOD criteria (in implementing the Audiovisual Media Services Directive) are retrofitted through the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2009 and the...

On 7 March 2013, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a preliminary ruling in the case ITV Broadcasting and others v. TVCatchup. The judgment was issued on a request made by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. At national level, the case involved a dispute between ITV Broadcasting and other commercial TV broadcasters on one side and TVCatchup, another broadcasting organisation, on the other side. TVCatchup offers an Internet TV broadcasting service that allows its users to watch, via the Internet, live streams of TV broadcasts from other broadcasters. Users can...

An Arabic news and current affairs broadcaster has been fined GBP 25,000 by the UK Telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, for promoting a political movement in Tunisia. The regulator found that Al Mustakillah Television Ltd had breached rules concerning impartiality and political reporting in two programmes broadcast around the time of the Tunisian general election in October 2011. Unusually, Ofcom went ahead with the sanction despite Al Mustakillah handing back its UK licences last year, because of the seriousness of the breach, and to “act as an effective deterrent to other licensees.” Three viewers...

The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has fined two video-on-demand services, Demand Adult and Playboy TV (both owned by Playboy) for failing to verify effectively the age of users accessing pornographic websites. On-demand services, unlike other websites, are regulated under the Communications Act 2003 by means of a co-regulatory regime. The Association for Television on Demand (ATVOD) has been designated as the appropriate regulator of editorial content in such services, whilst Ofcom itself has retained the power to impose sanctions (see IRIS 2012-9/26). The ATVOD rules, which implement the...