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Up to now, the Ofcom Broadcast Code has prohibited product placement. However, owing to changes in EU and national law, “the placing of references to products, services or trade marks in television programmes in return for payment” is now to be permitted. Ofcom, consequently, intends to amend the Code, removing the prohibition and incorporating enabling rules. It has initiated a Consultation on the matter. Such rules would impact on other rules permitting other types of commercial references (e.g., sponsorship) and the Consultation includes proposals for revising those rules.

The Advertising Standards Authority has been designated by the UK regulator Ofcom as the co-regulator for advertisements appearing on VOD services which are subject to statutory regulation, namely, the Communications Act, 2003, section 368A. Such advertisements are subject to the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code) and, in particular, the Appendix, which allows the ASA to take legal action against the VOD service provider in the event of Code infringements. A revised CAP Code (as well as the Code of Broadcast Advertising, the BCAP Code) comes into effect...

Ofcom, the UK communications regulatory, has authorised the BBC to add copy protection in the form of content management technology or digital rights management (DRM) to its high definition Freeview digital terrestrial platform. Other Freeview services will not be affected. The BBC proposed that its licence be varied to allow it to restrict access to broadcast Electronic Programme Guide data to only those high definition receivers that include content management technology. This would enable broadcasters to control the multiple unauthorised copying of broadcast high definition content and its retransmission...

The High Court has upheld a finding of the communications regulator, Ofcom, that the offensive language and manner of a radio talkshow presenter failed to comply with generally accepted standards; the finding was not a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression. Under the Broadcasting Act 1990 broadcasters must comply with the requirement that nothing in their programmes “offends against good taste or decency or is … offensive to public feeling” and this is implemented by Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code covering television and radio. The Code requires that generally accepted standards must...

On 24 June 2010, the European Commission issued a set of reasoned opinions to 12 member states (Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, and Slovenia) requesting that they proceed with updating their national broadcasting legislation in order to bring it into compliance with the Audiovisual Media Service (AVMS) Directive. The Directive, which replaced the Television without Frontiers Directive of 1989 (as amended), was adopted in December 1997 with the intention of bringing the EU’s broadcasting rules up to speed with the digital age. The...