Ofcom Complain To Dutch Regulator

(16-03-2012 20:04 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Agree with a lot you say Blackjaques, however we have no idea if Cellcast did indeed have a good lawyer aswell as the support of Nicam but what this does prove is that Ofcom's power is indeed limited, on the back of this defeat for Ofcom Eurotic TV right out of the blue have decided that they wish to broadcast their channel to SKY as of next week, now coincidence or what ? as I'm sure when they read the news regarding Babestation they put 2 and 2 together and went fuck it let's expand our audience even further, I sincerely believe if this sequence of events never occurred between Ofcom and Nicam then the likes of Eurotic TV wanting to join the UK SKY EPG would never have happened. Ofcom scoring a massive own goal has now made it common knowledge that their power's are indeed limited, something I firmly believe the rest of Europe probably didn't know about until now. Oversea's licence = Ofcom can do fuck all about which has proved the case over cellcast. Ofcom have infact proved the case for the defense and invited anybody who so wishe's to now to broadcast on the SKY EPG whatever they so wish to do so long as they don't have an Ofcom licence

Well SB, I am going to be a real wet blanket here and wait to see what actually transpires on our screens.

I would never underestimate our opponents' power.

It looks quite promising, though.

Imagine that; we may be allowed to see a bit of fanny on UK TV.

(16-03-2012 20:11 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Dave I don't want the soft feed it's all or nothing as far as I'm concerned for Eurotic TV They have an oversea's licence so Ofcom to my knowledge can do fuck all about it, I'm personally looking forward to the allnight hot naked shower show's

I don't want soft either, but it'll be very interesting to see how Eurotic play this - will they start Ofcom-friendly and then slowly build up to harder content, or will they start in a blaze of pussy-flashing Euro-filth?

If so I think we should nominate you as the Mumsnet correspondent

Do you have any links to this Eurotic development?

(16-03-2012 20:11 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Dave I don't want the soft feed it's all or nothing as far as I'm concerned for Eurotic TV They have an oversea's licence so Ofcom to my knowledge can do fuck all about it, I'm personally looking forward to the allnight hot naked shower show's

Lets just contain the excitement for a moment as there is plenty OfCom can do about it...

Quote:Has a foreign broadcast licence prevented Ofcom from banning/proscribing channels from being shown in the UK before?

Below relates to Extasi TV..

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/files/2011/11/1-182616275.pdf





In summary, Ofcom have indeed been successful in banning/proscribing a channel despite them holding foreign broadcast licenses..In fact its happened more than once:

Eurotica-Rendezvous Netherlands in 1998

Satisfaction Club Television Italy in 1997

Rendez-Vous France in 1996

XXX TV Erotica Sweden in 1995

Red Hot Television Netherlands in 1993

and EROS TV in 1998

all foreign channels broadcasting on European sats, yet banned/proscribed from broadcasting in the UK by UK Government.

I only looked into this further (consulted with someone much more in the know than i am ) as i thought some of you are getting a wee bit carried away with the news that EuroticTV will be airing on Sky..

Personally i think it will be exactly the same as the current channels are perceived to be by many of you, just with foreign ladies on...

There are several big differences. Some of the channels banned were broadcasting material beyond R18. Also despite being based abroad their primary market was the UK and possibly Eire. That immediately weakened their position, if they were aimed at their home markets and the UK was incidental it would have been harder to ban them under the law at the time.

As it was the bans made it illegal to advertise the channels, sell decoder cards or publicise them. In the UK.

Regulation has moved on since then and there may be new tools in the toolbox that we havent thought of, but Sky is an open platform that is legally obliged to carry channels without favouritism and Eurotic is a well established channel with a genuinely internation audience. Ofcom would be hard pushed to convince a foreign regulator that the content is harmful or even causes offence.

Until they do that it cant be banned from Sky. And since there will be no need to buy a decoder card, they won't need to advertise and the premium rate phone lines cant be blocked a lot more people will be able to watch and call.

As channels go its definitely different.

i don't know what people are getting excited about because after watching eurotic tv for the last hour i think it's worse than the uk shows.there's about 4 or 5 girls on screen just dancing along to the background music with the occasional pubic area flash

(16-03-2012 23:45 )eccles Wrote:  There are several big differences. Some of the channels banned were broadcasting material beyond R18. Also despite being based abroad their primary market was the UK and possibly Eire. That immediately weakened their position, if they were aimed at their home markets and the UK was incidental it would have been harder to ban them under the law at the time.

But they weren't "aimed at the their home markets" and they did ban them which was my point. Ofcom have set a precedent for banning foreign based channels in the past!
It just seems to be a lot of "if"s " and "but"s when really i was just addressing Scottishblokes comment about Ofcom not being able to do anything about it!

(16-03-2012 23:45 )eccles Wrote:  Regulation has moved on since then..

Has it? In what way have the regulations changed that would mean harder adult material can be viewed in the UK? If the regulations have changed then why have the channels been getting increasingly tamer (according to many who post in this section)?

(16-03-2012 23:45 )eccles Wrote:  ...Ofcom would be hard pushed to convince a foreign regulator that the content is harmful or even causes offence..

Until they do that it cant be banned from Sky. And since there will be no need to buy a decoder card, they won't need to advertise and the premium rate phone lines cant be blocked a lot more people will be able to watch and call.

As channels go its definitely different.

So you are saying that our government would not have any say over what SkyTV broadcasts? That doesnt sound right to me but please explain...

(17-03-2012 00:43 )general drago Wrote:  i don't know what people are getting excited about because after watching eurotic tv for the last hour i think it's worse than the uk shows.there's about 4 or 5 girls on screen just dancing along to the background music with the occasional pubic area flash

For the record, ive tuned in plenty of times to EuroticTV and really cant see what the fuss is about either.. I think they are dull shows!

Bit of confusion has crept in, lets try and clear it up.

If Satisfaction-Club etc had been aimed at the countries they were broadcast from EU and British law would not have permitted a banning order. But they werent. They were largely unknown in the countries they broadcast from and largely existed to tap into the UK market. Because they existed to flout one countries moral laws they could be banned. But suppose a French or Dutch terrestrial broadcaster set up an operation to broadcast to French/Dutch speakers abroad, that would be different. They might even tranmit the occasional show that would not be acceptable in the UK, even if just because of the time difference. As long as their primary purpose was not crossborder broadcasting they would be OK.

"Regulation has moved on since then" was my way of hinting that the law has changed in the past 10-20 years, so get outs that were true in the past might not work now. I was not trying to say harder material could be broadcast, quite the opposite. New laws are an opportunity to remove previous loopholes and what we have now is a regulator with tremendous arbitrary powers and no independent appeal process.

Does the Government have a say in whay Sky [platform] broadcasts? Technically no. The Government made it an open platform to prevent market abuse and "the Sky platform" is actually a group of foreign owned satellites that happen to latch onto the Sky EPG and encryption. UK based channels have to be licenced by the UK but foreign EU based ones dont - the UK Government could no more prevent French TV5 from broadcasting than the Iranians can block BBC Persia.

In reality it might be possible to lean on someone but in strict regulation terms, no, the Government cannot block other EU channels. Its something called the law.

Why are channels getting tamer? Good question. Almost all are UK based. EU channels all toned down a few years back when the Euro Court ruled they were teleshopping and regulations had to protect children. Foreign adult channels seem to be reluctant to invest in a cross border operation, its as if there is a gentlemans agreement not to poach each others territory. Also theres limited benefit if they spend a packet to set up only to find that a week later an estblished operator relocates and has the same advantages.

Have to echo the POV that Eurotic TV can be dull at times. The day shows bore the pants off me with even less on show than the UK stations. Girls are nice however!

Night shows can get quite 'arty' with a 'bit of bush' but not what I would call HOT!

You can see a lot more err 'sex' in daytime music videos than all of these!

Caps shot at 0746BST today (that last one is Eurotica).

Just my POV.

S

Hi Everyony, First post.

Thought I would like to mention that no foreign adult channels have been proscribed since 1999, when the high court legalised hardcore pornography (R18). You can openly subscribe to foreign adult channels on Hotbird and there is nothing Ofcom can do about it because the channels are encrypted. But as we are talking about free to air channels then the law will obviously differ.