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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...

On 1 January 2013 the Amendment of Article 47 of the Act on Provision of Information to the Public came into force. It was adopted by the Seimas (Parliament) on 14 June 2012 and provides for the reformation of the Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos komisija (Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania - LRTK). The new provisions change the principles of the formation of the LRTK, define the requirements for the members, the rules for their designation, and the conditions for expiry of the member’s powers before the designated term. They also determine the LRTK’s financing. The number of members has...

Following the public consultation launched with Deliberation no. 130/12/CONS (see IRIS 2012-6/23) which led in October 2012 to the approval of a draft sent for comments to the Ministry of Economic Development, on 29th November 2012 AGCOM (the Italian Communications Authority) approved Deliberation no. 587/12/CONS. With this deliberation, adopted pursuant to Article 45, para 4, of the Italian AVMS Code, AGCOM approved the guidelines for the contract of public service broadcasting, subscribed every three years by RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana spa (Italian public service broadcaster) and the Ministry...

Inquiries into the handling of two separate investigations into alleged child abuse by the BBC’s flagship programme Newsnight have found serious compliance and cultural problems. As a result of the second problem, the BBC’s Director-General was forced to resign. The first issue concerned the decision to drop an investigation into alleged child abuse by Jimmy Saville, a former disc jockey who had died on 29 October 2011. Newsnight commenced an investigation based on allegations by victims, including that the police had dropped their own investigation because of Saville’s age. However, the story...

In the opinion of the Swiss Bundesgericht (Federal Tribunal), the Swiss public service broadcaster Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft (SRG) breached the youth protection rules contained in broadcasting legislation by showing a television report about the brutal film genre known as “gore”. The report, lasting around two and a half minutes, had been broadcast on 6 July 2011 at 7.50 p.m. during the evening news bulletin of the SRG channel Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR) and concerned the NIFFF film festival in Neuchâtel that was underway at the time. As well as an interview with the gore...