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The Office of Communications (Ofcom), the UK communications regulator, has fined ITV a total of GBP 220,000 for failure to comply with quotas for expenditure on programmes made outside London in 2006 and 2007. A condition in each of the regional Channel 3 licences of ITV requires that “at least 50 percent of expenditure on originated Network programmes in each calendar year shall be allocated to the production of programmes produced outside the M25 area” (the M25 is the orbital motorway surrounding London). These are known as the “out of London” requirements. Although ITV had reported initially...

The BBC Trust, which acts as the regulator of BBC services, has rejected the Corporation’s plans for providing local video services on the grounds that they will not improve services for the public enough to justify either the investment of licence fee funds or their potential negative impact on commercial media. The BBC currently offers regional news on television, local radio and local websites. In May 2008, the BBC management submitted proposals to the trust to introduce an additional local video service covering news, sports and weather on enhanced BBC Local websites in 60 areas across the...

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, is consulting on access to premium content. This follows complaints from four operators about the operation of the UK pay-TV sector. The regulator proposes that Sky premium content should be made subject to a wholesale must-offer requirement and price control. Ofcom set out a set of criteria to assess the pay-TV sector; consumer choice, innovation and pricing. It defined premium content as that which is likely to be most effective in driving pay-TV subscriptions, through a significant appeal to a broad audience and limited free-to-air availability. Live...

In the United Kingdom, the film exhibition sector is, according to the recently released House of Lord’s Communications Committee’s “Report on The British Film and Television Industries”, dominated by a few large companies… In 2008, there were 3,610 screens (96 more than in 2007) in 726 cinemas in the UK. In 2008, 61 per cent of screens were controlled by three companies: Odeon, Cineworld and Vue. The two largest of these are owned by private equity firms, Terra Firma (Odeon) and the Blackstone Group (Cineworld). Exhibitor revenues, which are made up of box office receipts, concessions and advertising,...

The Office of Communications (Ofcom), which regulates most UK broadcasting, is required by the Communications Act 2003 to review public service broadcasting at least every five years. It has just published the second stage of its current review, based on detailed evidence from broadcasters and from stakeholders and the public. The review found that audiences value the BBC very highly, but do not favour it becoming the only provider of public service broadcasting. However, provision of such broadcasting by commercial broadcasters will not survive transition to an all-digital world (from 2012) without...