Ofcom Discussion

I met the dreaded Mr Richards a few times in a previous job and never liked him. He struck me as an opportunist apparatchik who was focused on currying favour with his political masters and giving them what he thought they wanted.
Any new Chief Exec would need to be their own person and be strong enough to resist the noxious combination of do-gooders, gutter press and opportunist poiliticians trying to get political capital out of cracking down on "porn" (no attempt to discriminate between the soft stuff we get on these channels and child porn of course!) in advance of a General Election.
I worry whether such a person is likely to be appointed in the current climate. Hope I'm wrong.

Yes he does sound like a proper cunt based on your meeting. The type of man that wouldn't think twice about sacking anybody who's face didn't fit in at ofcom HQ with a different agenda to his own.

Maybe those working inside the building have got their champagne at the ready, perhaps he's that unpopular that his leaving do will be that small that they'll have to hold it in a phonebox.

Whoever does come in will have his or her own ideas, worst case scenario is the new Chief Executive may wish to revoke the licence of every single babe channel that is currently on the telly.

Unfortunately for us ofcom are here to stay, they were born out of New Labour and have been further strengthened by the Tories. The only party that would most likely give them the boot is UKIP but I'd sooner have Labour or the Tories in power than have the country handed over to a bunch of racist bigots which in my opinion is what UKIP represents. To vote them into power only to get rid of ofcom would be a grave error of judgement

(20-10-2014 20:35 )Digital Dave Wrote:  

(20-10-2014 10:58 )mr mystery Wrote:  Ofcoms latest Bulletin came out today, Studio 66 have been found "in breach" on two separate occasions, one was on the 4th of June and the other was the 6th of June, full details can be found here http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binarie...obb264.pdf

Both seem to be for over knickers and under knickers pussy rubbing from what i can make out .

It's interesting that S66 tried to plead in its defence that other channels feature far harder material in their free promo slots (eg TVX freeview). Coincidentally this is something we discussed here recently.

It turns out TVX comes under the broadcasting code because it's deemed to have 'editorial content' i.e. programmes. Therefore they can advertise those programmes in the style of the programme, even free to air.

Babe channels are one long advert (in Ofcom's view) and therefore come under the BCap code, which is far more stringent. The irony is that in 2010 Ofcom reclassified babe channels as long form advertising for the specific purpose of reining them in.

However, either erotic images in the 900 channels (such as models touching their genital area) free to air at 2am have the potential to contravene 'generally accepted standards' or they don't - you can't have it both ways by allowing them on TVX and not on S66. They are both catering for the adult entertainment market.

Yet Ofcom do attempt to justify their position in a totally lame manner.

Ofcom:

"We also noted the Licensee’s assertion that certain non-PRS ‘adult’ channels (regulated under the Broadcasting Code) broadcast much stronger material by way of free-to-air and unencrypted promotional clips than the Licensee’s channels.

Ofcom noted that these kinds of promotions for ‘adult’ services are typically very short in length, and consist of a rolling series of very brief, tightly cut clips shown on editorial services which are specifically licensed to broadcast ‘adult sex material’, subject to various restrictions.

The content which is the subject of this Decision was of a significant duration and consisted of a series of long, lingering shots. It was also broadcast on a service specifically licensed only to broadcast advertising content.

Further, the content was at odds with both the Guidance and, according to the Licensee, its own internal guidance. We therefore considered that the two kinds of broadcast material were not comparable, either in terms of their content or audience expectations."

A proper lawyer would have a field day with this. The expectations in questions are purely and simply whether generally accepted standards are being breached. Apparently, in Ofcom world a granny tuning into the TVX freeview will not be offended by pussy rubbing because of the content of the channel, whereas if she tuned up the EPG and saw similar images on S66 she would be offended because it's so-called advertising material, even though Ofcom themselves imposed this bogus definition on babe channels in the first place.

Ofcom have also left themselves wide open to a challenge in the visual treatment of free to air erotic images - it seems to be ok (in their words) if it's shot in a fast visual style, whereas long lingering shots are unacceptable. I hope S66 do a sequence of fast cutting shots whilst a model surreptitiously touches her groin, and then quotes this judgement back at Ofcom if a complaint is made.

Out of the above this springs up and is just off the scale in stupidness;

FURTHER, THE CONTENT WAS AT ODDS WITH BOTH THE GUIDANCE AND, ACCORDING TO THE LICENSEE, ITS OWN INTERNAL GUIDANCE. WE THEREFORE CONSIDERED THAT THE TWO KINDS OF BROADCAST MATERIAL WERE NOT COMPARABLE, EITHER IN TERMS OF THEIR CONTENT OR AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS.

Audience expectations? What the bloody hell do you think the audience expectations of adult shows are ,,its written all over the bloody screen,,it tells you its for over 18's..Audience expectations are what an audience would expect,,if the AUDIENCE tuned into a car programme they would expect cars if they tuned into a auction programme you expect auctions.

Arrgghh ,,its just double standards hypocrisy plus other channels apologise for huge rule breaks and don't get £250,000 fines like adult channels.BBC always broadcasting the most offensive language WHERE IS THEIR £250,000 FINE?

As for richard's yes that is someone i would love to twat ,does not even deserve a capitalised name.

A major issue with Ofcom has to be that many board members are appointed on temporary contracts that might or might not be renewed or extended.

Many of the Content Board members are relatively unknown (to put it politely) so being on it is a big deal salarywise and as a career step. How many people would rock the boat knowing that you were partway through a 3 year contract?

Secondly the structure has a bias towards Content Board members who are either interventionist ("understand the role...") or are neutral but interested in going from quango to quango.

Most people who are proporn will be more interested in making the stuff than sitting in committee meetings and being repeatedly outvoted or marginalised.

Third there may be a bit of networking going on. Without any intentional bias, people who are involved with Ofcom in some capacity may be more likely to hear about vacancies, and therefore more likely to apply.

Scottishbloke Wrote:worst case scenario is the new Chief Executive may wish to revoke the licence of every single babe channel that is currently on the telly.

They cant do that any more than Maggie Thatcher could shut down sex shops in Soho. Shut the lot and its instant referral to the Human Rights Court, and the papers might actually get off their collective arses, and a lot of people would say they dont want to see that stuff but understand some people do. Its about as likely as closing down all foreign religious channels.

Negative scenarios could be lots of horror stories followed by a clampdown. Set a quota, 1 channel per provider, no more than 4 to satisfy completion rules (who needs even 4 porn channels?) Force them to go pay encrypted. Ban or discourage pay per night so you cant watch without committing for a whole year (and featuring on the credit card bill that the wife/your mum sees). Make it later - no toplessness before midnight. Make it tamer claiming widespread offence.

The other gamechanger could be to commission a survey using biased methodology and leading questions.

Does anyone have any thoughts on who front runners could be?

Claudio Pollack is head of Content Consumers and External Affairs.
Polly Weitzman is head of the Legal Group. Lawyers rise to the top in some organisations, possibly because of their good debating skills.
Jill Ainscough is the current Chief Operating Officer, a job with a good track record.

Of course the winning candidate could be an external one.

Chris Banatvala, Ofcoms founding director of standards, might be interested. He has plenty of experience and has broadened it by working outside Scissor House.

For all I know former Content Board member Kath Worrall might be retired or happily following a consultancy career, but she might be interested.

The editor of the Daily Mail might fancy a change, or someone from MediaWatch might like to bring their expertise to the table.

All this assumes a broadcasting bias. Ofcom is a diverse organisation that regulates mobile phones, landlines, the internet and postal services. The emphasis might be skewed toward telecoms (huge industry, 3 big operators control 85% of the mobile market) or post (limited real competition).

The ideal candidate would be 50, with experience in a challenging broadcasting organisation, say Disney or Discovery, unsullied by involvement in porn, also with experience in telecoms and post, and interested in a full time salaried management job.

Independents and the self employed will be temperamentally unsuited.

Big names will be at the wrong stage of their careers.

To be credible they will need to have run a department with hundreds of office staff (not creatives) and a budget of millions (David Cameron after the election?)

That sounds like a middle manager at the DCMS, Department of Trade, BBC, Channel 4, an international broadcaster, or a telecom firm.

Yes lets not kid ourselves here, ofcom are supposed to be impartial - They aren't.

The Chief Executive is supposed to be impartial - He or she won't be.

With 2 successive Governments and the Torie's to a greater extent they have publicly declared war on porn. Based on that analysis they'll know exactly who the ideal candidate will be.

What it won't be is a former free loving, crack smoking hippie or anybody who is remotely partial on the liberal side of things.

What it will be is another puritanical moran with a clear anti-porn agenda hand picked by Mr Cameron himself.

(22-10-2014 00:53 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  With 2 successive Governments and the Torie's to a greater extent they have publicly declared war on porn.

Strangely Cameron did not feel brave enough to get Parliament to debate mandatory filters on the internet.

Had he done so the Civil Service would have had to produce an impartial Green Paper setting outs pros, cons, winners and losers. That would have been followed by public consultation. (During which it would be pointed out that the policy would be a massive payday for UK based pornographers). Then MPs would have had their say, and some would have pointed out the risks of giving the IWF more power and requiring respectable adults to hand over their identifiers to pornographers in order to access adult content. Sooner or later a hacker will access those lists.

There has been no impact assessment, because no law has been passed. Its a "voluntary" agreement. An impact assessment might have looked at the possibility that clamping down on legit porn would increase marital tension and breakup, as well as pushing impressionable younger adults into completely unregulated sites in dodgy corners of foreign countries via secret links, where legit porn gets freely mixed with the vile stuff. If it has any influence at all the consequence of Camerons policy will be that a fraction of porn users get more exposed to illegal stuff and get to like it. That cant be good.

Normal people have sex drives. If they didnt the sex industry would go out of business. Politicians either dont have sex drives or they keep them well hidden (its career suicide otherwise). That makes them about as suitable to pass rules about sex as a teetotaller is for pubs. Try explaining it. They try to understand but just dont get it.

No, Cameron bypassed Parliament and even Cabinet, simply saying "Dave wants".

(20-10-2014 10:58 )mr mystery Wrote:  Ofcoms latest Bulletin came out today, Studio 66 have been found "in breach" on two separate occasions, one was on the 4th of June and the other was the 6th of June, full details can be found here http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binarie...obb264.pdf

Both seem to be for over knickers and under knickers pussy rubbing from what i can make out .

We assessed the material between 22:15 and 22:45 and noted the female presenter was wearing a thong and white vest top pulled down to expose her breasts. During the broadcast, the presenter sat for extended periods of time with her legs apart and repeatedly stroked and rubbed her genital area through her thong. On a further two occasions she moved her hand underneath her underwear and appeared to rub her genital area. The presenter’s thong also failed to adequately cover the area around her genitals and this area was exposed on a number of occasions during the
broadcast.

I wonder who the offender was!


E: Elite TV/Studio66: Complete Daily Schedules (Reference Only)
Revised Schedule

Tuesday 4th June

Nighttime - Caty Cole,Leigh Darby,Lilly Roma,Paige Turnah,Lucy-Anne Brooks (21:00-22:00)

(23-10-2014 22:30 )JackGough Wrote:  

(20-10-2014 10:58 )mr mystery Wrote:  Ofcoms latest Bulletin came out today, Studio 66 have been found "in breach" on two separate occasions, one was on the 4th of June and the other was the 6th of June, full details can be found here http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binarie...obb264.pdf

Both seem to be for over knickers and under knickers pussy rubbing from what i can make out .

We assessed the material between 22:15 and 22:45 and noted the female presenter was wearing a thong and white vest top pulled down to expose her breasts. During the broadcast, the presenter sat for extended periods of time with her legs apart and repeatedly stroked and rubbed her genital area through her thong. On a further two occasions she moved her hand underneath her underwear and appeared to rub her genital area. The presenter’s thong also failed to adequately cover the area around her genitals and this area was exposed on a number of occasions during the
broadcast.

I wonder who the offender was!


E: Elite TV/Studio66: Complete Daily Schedules (Reference Only)
Revised Schedule

Tuesday 4th June

Nighttime - Caty Cole,Leigh Darby,Lilly Roma,Paige Turnah,Lucy-Anne Brooks (21:00-22:00)

Just to note. You've quoted the schedule from 2013 June 4th. Not 2014 when the breach occurred. I know because Caty was not working the entire month of June this year.

Sadly Wazo hasn't been updating the reference thread for quite a while now. Most of us information guys have lost the drive to keep posting the constantly changing schedules

Just to note. You've quoted the schedule from 2013 June 4th. Not 2014 when the breach occurred. I know because Caty was not working the entire month of June this year.

Sadly Wazo hasn't been updating the reference thread for quite a while now. Most of us information guys have lost the drive to keep posting the constantly changing schedules
[/quote]

Sounds like it was Lucy Summers with the breast sucking going on, hope this doesn't tame her down (

(24-10-2014 14:08 )biggles Wrote:  Sounds like it was Lucy Summers with the breast sucking going on, hope this doesn't tame her down (

Well, according to my archives:
On 2014 June 04th
None of my favorites were online, though I watched a little of Mica.
So I doubt its Lucy, Yasmine or Caty.

On 2014 June 06th
I was watching:
Lucy, Yasmine and Olivia

According to Ofcom:
We assessed the material broadcast between 01:45 and 02:15 and noted that the
female presenter was wearing a one piece swimming costume which failed to
adequately cover her genital area. From approximately 01:55 she pulled down the
top of the costume from time to time to expose her breasts. She sat with her legs
apart and, on numerous occasions, rubbed her genital area through the swimming
costume. We also noted, between 01:58 and 02:02, extended full screen close-up
shots of the presenter sucking and licking one of her nipples. Later in the broadcast,
the presenter positioned herself on all fours and at this time her swimming costume
inadequately covered her anal and genital areas.

I don't think anyone was wearing any swimsuits that day... I guess maybe Ofcom uses their money to clad girls in lingerie to send them swimming??? The only swimsuit that day was Lucy with a teal bikini with jean shorts and a shirt over top of it. That or maybe they considered Yasmine's teddy lingerie a one piece swimsuit?

I looked through that day and didn't see any of the things Ofcom mentions. I figured giving their specific wording, that the violations would be blatant, but I'm certainly not seeing what ever they are seeing.

There certainly wasn't any genital rubbing through clothing. The only under clothing rubbing seen was a hand that went under a thong to rub the side of the presenter's inner thigh.

Has anyone else looked at the footage Ofcom is talking about? Cause I'm not seeing what they are seeing.