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Under the Communications Act 2003, the UK communications regulator Ofcom no longer has the power to set quotas of children’s programmes to be provided by the commercial public service broadcasters. Instead, it must consider whether such broadcasters, taken together, offer ‘a suitable quantity and range of high-quality and original programmes for children and young people’. Where a broadcaster proposes a significant change to its programme policy, it must consult Ofcom and take its opinions into account. ITV1, the major commercial terrestrial channel, proposed to reduce the amount of children’s...

On 12 March 2008, the House of Lords announced its decision, upholding the view of the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (now “Clearcast”), that an advertisement submitted on behalf of Animal Defenders International for broadcast clearance would infringe Section 321(2) of the Communications Act 2003, i.e. the prohibition on political advertising. There was no disagreement that the content of the advertisement was inoffensive. It was intended as part of a campaign, entitled "My Mate's a Primate", which sought to draw the public’s attention to the exploitative (in ADI’s eyes) use of primates...

During 2007, the UK experienced a series of major scandals involving the participation of viewers in television programmes, mainly through the use of premium rate telephone services (see IRIS 2007-8: 11 and IRIS 2007-10: 15). As a result, Ofcom, the communications regulator, fined broadcasters a total of GBP 3.5 million; it also commissioned a report into the actions of broadcasters, which concluded that systemic problems exist in the use of such services. Ofcom has now decided on action to implement all the recommendations of the report. In future, all TV broadcasters’ licences will make the broadcasters...

Following a decision in June 2007 by the British Board of Film Classification not to give it a certificate (see IRIS 2007-7: 14), the videogame Manhunt 2, made by Rockstar Games for PS2 and Nintendo Wii consoles, could not be legally supplied within the United Kingdom. A revised version has also been refused a certificate. The BBFC’s main rationale was that the game depicted unremitting violence towards humans. However, as was pointed out in an article in the Times newspaper, there has been no difficulty in purchasing a copy online. On 10 December 2007, the BBFC’s decision was overturned by a decision...

The UK’s major competition authority, the Competition Commission, decided in December that BSkyB’s 17.9% holding in ITV Plc, the UK’s major commercial broadcaster, amounted to a merger situation and had resulted in a substantial lessening of competition within the UK market for all television services. As a result the Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise has ordered the shareholding to be reduced to a level below 7.5%. In November 2006, BSkyB announced that it had acquired a 17.9% shareholding in ITV Plc, which at the time was facing a possible takeover by Virgin Media. The minister referred...