Resources and analysis on the topic of media regulation, particularly for the A2 Media exam, Section B. Major case studies include the film industry, music video and the press, with major players such as Murdoch, OfCom and the government considered. If using materials from this blog, please credit the source - Dave Burrowes, Media Studies @ St George's School
A QUICK LOOK AT PROSPECTS FOR MEDIA REGULATION UNDER NEW TORY GOVERNMENT
IN A NUTSHELL:
At this point, nothing is certain, but informed speculation is part of the remit ...
Some major changes in (de)regulation of (concentration of) ownership + PSB requirements, with the BBC facing major upheaval and deeper top-slicing, possibly even groundwork for eventual privatisation. Channel 4 could be sold off, and restrictions lifted on cross-media ownership. The press, most of which campaigned for this government, will be largely untouched. Alongside economic liberalism (further free market deregulation) will come social conservatism, with moves to impose age ratings on music videos, restrict online freedom of speech and access to adult sites, and give the security forces the right to eavesdrop on all electronic communications, spanning social media, email, phone conversations and browsing history. OfCom to take on BBC regulation?
The fate of the BBC (see Guardian news feed) is likely to be the big media news story
OfCom 2012 complaints overview: issues of child protection and watershed featured prominently - many detailed case studies you can use in this post, + wider analysis
OfCom: some fundamentals. A detailed post which tells you much of what you need to know about the regulation of commercial TV, alongside some comparison with BBC regulation - and how the two overlap.
OfCom future: can't sanction ITV/C5? A new term entered the lexicon after ITV threatened to walk away from its PSB commitments entirely, arguing they cost too much while in a digital age the PSB benefits were gone: (license) handback. This post looks at the possibility of ITV/C5 simply ceasing to follow OfCom's PSB requirements.
Arguments against 'impartial' news/current affairs. Robert Fisk argues that the legal requirement for UK broadcast news/current affairs to be 'impartial' (similar to the 'fair and balanced' US doctrine ... though Fox News, with a blatant pro-Republican bias, faces no issues there [and OfCom granted it a license here, so long as it remains a US news station]) actually creates bias
There have been several important stories/events recently tied to PSB issues, so here's a summary of PSB, and how current events suggest a possible future direction.
PSB: Public Service Broadcasting. Sky, and the vast bulk of digital/cable channels are not legally considered as PSBs, it is only the BBC/ITV/C4/C5 that are PSB. These have a legal duty to reflect public needs for news and information; regional programming; and to ensure certain programme categories are included in their schedules (eg religious, children's). This reflects their privileged status: in the analogue era when you bought a TV these channels were automatically accessible, while in the digital era they are all free through Freeview and are still required to be listed at the top of EPGs (Electronic Programme Guide).
The BBC complicates the picture of TV regulation: OfCom now oversee its compliance with 'standards and decency' regulations (cases such as Sachsgate and Chris Moyles' swearing + homophobic remarks, for example) while the BBC otherwise governs itself (in other words, self regulation) on organisational issues over budgets, technology, station policies etc.
Whilst every other channel is funded by advertising and/or subscription fees, the BBC is unique in being funded by the license fee, a form of tax. This makes it 'public owned' (effectively owned by the state); instead of being part of the 'private sector' it is part of the 'public sector'.
Right-wing dogma sees the public sector as inefficient and inferior to private enterprise, ie 'the free market'. Sky was able to develop satellite/digital subscription-TV because as a private company it is innovative. The BBC, according to this ideology, is an inefficient organisation which fails to innovate; it would be improved if it was privatised - sold off to business investors, traded on the stock market. That ignores the reality that the BBC, with Freeview, the iPlayer and its world-famous web content, not to mention its extensive programme sales to America and elsewhere across the world, channels such as BBC America, and much more besides, actually puts the BBC right at the top of any fair-minded list of broadcast innovators. The BBC also effectively acts as the main source of training for the engineers, editors, cameraman, presenters and suchlike that are then used by all the private media outfits in the UK.
So, the Conservatives, a right-wing party who believe in free market ideology, have long desired to see it sold off to become a private enterprise instead of a state-owned one. This is actually whats happened across most of Europe and America: if the state broadcaster hasn't actually been privatised, in most cases their funding has been slashed to make them a minor outfit instead of a serious rival to commercial, ad-funded broadcasters.
They have also routinely accused the BBC of having a left-wing bias: in the 1980s Tory Chairman Lord Tebbit famously called the BBC the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation (the Russian Communists were Bolsheviks), while in May 2012 Tory Lord Mayor of London Boris Johnson once more accused the Beeb of being left-wing.
In 1985 Thatcher appointed Lord Peacock to report on the UK TV industry, assuming as a right-wing free-marketeer he'd suggest privatising the BBC, or at least scrapping the license fee and making it rely on advertisers for revenue. Right-wingers see state-owned companies as distorting the free market, and providing unfair competition. Private media operators naturally agree, and would love to see the BBC scrapped, privatised or shrunk in size - one of the reasons the Daily Mail constantly attacks the BBC is thought to be down to its own company's ambitions to break into TV ownership. The 1986 Peacock Report shocked Thatcher by stating very clearly that an unregulated free market would be a disaster for UK TV: it would lead to an utter dumbing down of TV content. He said he disliked the license fee, but it was better than advertiser-funding which would also ensure standards would drop as higher audiences were chased rather than higher programme standards.
In the lead-up to the 2010 general election, the Tories, especially David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt, frequently stated their intention to tackle the BBC: to reduce it in size (including shutting several of its radio/TV stations), cut the license fee, ban it from bidding for many sports rights (if they did, the likes of Sky would save a fortune as there'd be less competition; fewer bidders), stop it paying for expensive American imports, reduce or even scrap its web content, force it to sell of profit-making subsidaries and some stations, and so on and so forth. Notoriously, in an act that looks all the worse given the accusations of collusion between Hunt and News Corp, Hunt and Cameron both stated their support for James Murdoch's speech (and said they would scrap OfCom, which Murdoch said should go) at the 2010 MacTaggart lecture. In office, both have continued to attack the BBC as 'bloated', oversized and inefficient, and Hunt broke with political convention by dictating, not negotiating, the BBC's budget for the next several years, including a large reduction.
Hunt has frequently indicated support for 'top-slicing': using some of the BBC's budget (from the license fee) to support other private broadcasters.
James Murdoch tonight launched a scathing attack on the BBC,
describing the corporation's size and ambitions as "chilling" and
accusing it of mounting a "land grab" in a beleaguered media market. News Corporation's chairman and chief executive in Europe and Asia also heavily criticised media industry regulator Ofcom,
the European Union and the government, accusing the latter of
"dithering" and failing to protect British companies from the threat of
online piracy.
Delivering the MacTaggart lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival
20 years after his father Rupert, Murdoch described UK broadcasting as
"the Addams Family of world media", comparing it unfavourably with the
industries in India and France and complaining about the "astonishing"
burden of regulation placed on BSkyB,
the pay-TV giant he chairs. "Every year, roughly half a million words
are devoted to telling broadcasters what they can and cannot say," he
said.
However, his most withering comments were reserved for the
BBC. "The corporation is incapable of distinguishing between what is
good for it, and what is good for the country," he clamed. "Funded by a
hypothecated tax, the BBC feels empowered to offer something for
everyone, even in areas well served by the market. The scope of its
activities and ambitions is chilling."
MAY 2012: CAMERON'S PRESS SPOKESPERSON ACCUSES BBC OF ANTI-TORY BIAS: Just updating this post with an article which rather handily captures this point about traditional Tory suspicion of the BBC; their belief that it is not balanced but rather a leftie, biased news reporter. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/28/cameron-media-chief-rebukes-bbc-reporter?intcmp=239. The following vid may be taken down; it was up when I wrote this:
MAY 2012: BORIS JOHNSON ATTACKS BBC A fresh item from May 28th, in which Boris Johnson's press spokesperson directly threatens the BBC with flak from the right-wing press, to be partly organised by PM Cameron:
Boris Johnson's former communications chief threatened to use his contacts in the press to confront the BBC
over its coverage of the Conservative mayor of London, suggesting that
"good friends in No 10" could also be deployed against them, emails
leaked to the Guardian reveal.
The threat of a "huge public fight"
was levelled at senior BBC figures by Guto Harri, a former BBC
correspondent himself, who announced last week that he was moving to
become director of communications at News International.
Harri's
suggestion that Downing Street was also ready to put pressure on the
public service broadcaster raises questions about the Tories' tactics
against the BBC and the extent of the pressure City Hall has exerted in
its attempts to influence coverage.
Quipping that he had just fought an election campaign "in which I
sometimes felt that my chief opponent was the local [London] BBC news",
Johnson wrote: "The prevailing view of Beeb newsrooms is, with
honourable exceptions, statist, corporatist, defeatist, anti-business,
Europhile and above all, overwhelmingly biased to the left."
