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The BBC received complaints about commercial sponsorship of the Sports Personality of the Year awards in December 2007; these were upheld by the BBC Trust, as there had been breaches of editorial and fair trading guidelines (see IRIS 2008-8: 14). The BBC has now issued new guidelines on sponsorship of BBC events. The most important policy is that the BBC will no longer accept sponsorship by commercial bodies for on-air BBC events. This covers commercial companies and other commercial bodies (including public/private partnerships) which compete directly in a commercial market. Existing contracts...

The serious problems in UK broadcasting relating to phone-in competitions and votes have been illustrated once more (for earlier examples see IRIS 2007-8: 11, IRIS 2007-10: 15, IRIS 2008-2: 13, IRIS 2008-7: 13, IRIS 2008-9: 11). In the most recent case, Channel TV was fined by the Office of Communications (Ofcom) for two breaches of its codes in relation to ‘The British Comedy Awards 2004’ and the ‘British Comedy Awards 2005’. The programmes were networked nationally; Channel TV had been appointed as the compliance licensee, although the programmes were made by an independent production company. The...

British Sky Broadcasting Ltd t/a Sky broadcast two advertisements advertising its High Definition service. To persuade people to sign up for it, the ads promoted as part of the service sports coverage generally and, in particular, the British and Irish Lions' summer tour of South Africa and the Ashes series of cricket matches between England and Australia, for which BskyB had bought the rights. A number of viewers (seven) objected. Their point was that the ads were “misleading” because, having registered for the HD service, they were then informed that there was a twelve-week waiting period before...

In the period following the broadcast of an item on 18 October 2008 during the Russell Brand show, the BBC received 42,851 complaints (see IRIS 2009-5: 15). The Editorial Standards Committee concluded that the material, regarding Mr Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter Ms Baillie, was “so grossly offensive” that there was no justification for its being broadcast. Subsequently, the BBC Trust requested the BBC Executive to research audience expectations regarding issues raised by the broadcast and to make recommendations. It commissioned the research from Professor Sonia Livingstone (LSE), Ipsos MORI...

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has completed a further phase in its long-running investigation into pay-TV markets and is now consulting on possible remedies (see IRIS 2009-1: 13). The central issue is the wholesale supply of premium content by Sky to its competitors. Ofcom has found that live top-flight sports and first-run Hollywood movies are particularly effective in driving pay-TV subscriptions because they combine broad audience appeal with a high degree of exclusivity to pay-TV. There are narrow economic markets for the wholesale of Core Premium Sports and Core Premium Movie channels...