Ofcom Discussion

While I have limited sympathy for Scuzz broadcasting unsuitable material before the watershed, the sheer inconsistency of it gets me.

This was one music video lasting 3 min 30 seconds, not a sustained barrage.
BARB data indicated no children were watching (or very few).
There was repeated use of F and MF words. The BBC is the worst offender for this, repeatedly messing up live broadcasts, but every time the BBC makes a lame excuse and the complaint is "resolved". The essence of the excuse was that they took precautions (that failed), failed to foresee that swearing might occur (the boat race), and will take steps to prevent it occurring again (it does).
The broadcast was not deliberate, CSC blamed an unusual collision of technical and human error.
There were 8 previous Breach findings against CSC across 16 channels in the past 4 years, or 1 per 8 years of broadcast material (much less than the BBC).
CSC deleted the track - they cannot play it again even at night.
CSC found a technical flaw in its compliance system and fixed it.

Despite this they have been fined as if they were reckless repeat offenders.

By contrast, religious channels which state it is a religious duty to kill unbelievers, or members of a different sect, receive not more than a telling off in the form of a Breach finding.

(28-06-2013 01:58 )Joey 27 Wrote:  so how do these people know about the babeshows to ring in and complain about them, do they watch a bit of downton abbey or corrie at 9 then straight away flick over to channel 172 on freeview at 10 just before bed?

They have been known to claim they caught their children watching (in a couple of complaints that I can remember).

It is extremely rare for a complainant to say they actually caught children watching. Back in 2006(ish) a "mum" complained that she caught her teenage son and his mates watching Babestar and phoning in. (It might not have been Babestar or 2006, but it was an explicit channel that went out of business about that time, bear with me I am going from memory). The channel denied having received any phone calls from that part of the UK. Apart from that I cant think another complaint saying a child has actually watched.

Besides what is "a child". I think Ofcoms own rules define that as someone under 14, not 18 as you might expect.

When it comes to prewatershed material and early evening material Ofcom does claim that children might be watching, even if there is no evidence that they actually did. That's what happened to Scuzz. In some cases it is like saying that not having a bouncer stationed at the entrance to a pub means a 5 year old could wander in and could hear ripe language, even if never happens, and Ofcom have to eliminate that risk. Or to give a better example, leaving keys in an unattended car while popping into the shop means a 5 year old could drive off.

The thing about theoretical risk is that there should be an evaluation of how far fetched it is. In the 8 years since Ofcom started up the number of actual incidents has been vanishingly small. Unlike children exposed to the F word on daytime BBC shows, snakes being bitten to death on talent shows and popular religious channels endorsing killing people who belong to a slightly different sect.

At the end of the day, a woman showing her vagina after 9pm on a free to air adult channel doesn't matter anymore, and it shouldn't of mattered in the the first place!! and deep down Ofcom no this. Since Ofcom decided to make up there own stupid made up rules, and decided to brand the adult channels in the same category as shopping channels was ludicrous.
Now I don't want to go over this point again, but the fact that the adult channels themselves didn't see the warning signs after what happened to bangbabes and others before them is beyond me, instead of them fighting and even taking Ofcom head on, they just simply turned and cowered in the corner. However what's done is done.
Now we must look to the present, firstly I'm thankful that we still have an adult section albeit tame, it's nice to be able to watch beautiful woman, apart from that we seem to be in a stalemate, and what I mean by that is we've all seen Ofcom completely back off from the adult channels because the content is so tame, that even if a child happened to turn stumble on a babe channel they'd probably look at them and laugh and turnover haha The question that the adult channels have to ask themselves is what do we do now in regarding stronger content? I agree that people are still calling in, but the numbers must be way way down from 3-4 yrs ago. I still think the loophole I.e foreign license is the only answer at this moment in time, the only problem is the cost for the channels to do this and whether it's financially viable to do this, and I think the answer is no, because if it was so easy to do all the adult channels would have done this a long time ago.
Apart from that I guess we all have to hope either there's another loophole that the babe channels can find, or maybe Ofcom might be deregulated, or a sudden change in attitude from the top at Ofcom, not great news I no, I guess all we can do is just ride this storm out.

LATEST OFCOM BULLETIN

A mixed bag today. No adverse decisions about adult channels, but 3 sanctions against psychic channels (claiming accuracy) and the previously announced one against Scuzz TV (hot music video before watershed).

Does this mean the adult sector can relax? Or does it mean that Ofcom are clearing the decks and making themselves look fair and impartial before hammering an adult channel for showing less than can be seen on the average family beach and mildly rude language?

Noor TV/Al Ehya Digital Television has failed to provide information about accounting arrangements following a broadcast appeal to viewers for donations to fund the service in 2011. They were fined £75,000 at the time. Al Ehya provided some information to Ofcom, but failed to comply in significant respects. Ofcom is "considering"* a sanction. Just how many years do Ofcom need to process this?

(* in Ofcom speak "considering" means already decided to do something but have to follow a process).

Channel Nine UK retransmitted news from two other broadcasters in Europe. This was politically biased. Their defence was basically that foreign content might not comply with UK rules and they tried their best but cannot check everything.

Tough.

I don't recall Ofcom or Parliament saying it is OK to break the rules if content comes from abroad. It they did, babe channels could be a lot more interesting.

ITV was found guilty of misleading promotions when broadcasting Jackpot 247. This is the gambling channel that ITV, a major national public service broadcaster, hands over to for 2-3 hours each night.

A few years ago several big broadcasters were found to have run unfair premium rate services. Phone votes ignored votes cast. Money was taken after votes had been counted. Recorded material was broadcast as if live. Despite premium rate voting and competitions becoming big business and pulling in £millions, Ofcom had been asleep on the job, and only investigated when whistleblowers let the cat out of the bag. There is no record of Ofcom deciding it should check out the lucrative new premium rate sector on its own initiative. Instead they were naive and trusted big and small operators to be honest when offered (apparently) free money.

One viewer complained he was unable to cash in a £30 introductory bonus, or even £300 of winnings. T&Cs buried in links that most people never read, and not shown on screen, meant players (aka "mugs") would have to gamble 99x their joining bonus in 7 days to be able to withdraw bonus related winnings.

There was a similar complaint against Super Casio on Five.

Channel 5 broadcast strong language, badly bleeped, at 7pm on Cowboy Builders. Strangely this did not lead to a fine.

Loose Women broadcast a 4 letter word live at 12:30. The perpetrator immediately apologised. Again no fine despite the possibility of children watching. This one was Resolved.

Secret Millions on Four broadcast badly bleeped swearing at 8pm. This was Resolved as Four had tried to prevent it. No doubt babechannels will be shown the same leniency when a presenter inadvertently broadcasts ripe language, for example an open mike situation.

Bizarrely Ofcom has upheld Skys "right" not to broadcast ads for the BT Sports channel on Sky Sports. There is some strange reasoning that says this is not a platform operator using its position to discriminate against a competitor.

Equally strange, Ofcom say they are not bound by decisions by previous regulators (why if the law is similar?), but quote from Parliamentary discussion when the 1954 Television Act created ITV. They also quote an old ITC decision. This is despite the 1954 Act having been superseded, so the will of Parliament then no longer applies, and the ITC decision supposedly not being taken into account.

(Will Ofcom take notice of what Parliament said, or did not say, when discussing Adult content while debating the Communications Act 2003?)

Sky News admitted hacking the phone of canoe man John Darwin. Despite this being illegal, and Sky News getting a story out of it (after the trial), Ofcom have settled for a public interest defence.

Some scroat who repeatedly drove off without paying for petrol claimed broadcasting pixelated pictures of this face violated his privacy. His solicitors argued that people who knew him might recognise his shaved head, distinctive clothing and car, even though his face was pixelated. As no one who knew him should sit on a jury in his case, enabling identification by people who knew him was not contempt of court. Also open justice is based on the principle that community members are made aware of a member of their community is on trial.

On the subject of Scuzz TV do I have any sympathy for them - nope, they broke the rules. As much as I am a stalwart campaigner for greater freedom I'll draw the line at inappropriate video content to be shown pre watershed with scuzz doing absolutely fuck all on their part to even bother to put in any sort of pin protection so if they choose to show these kind of videos then Scuzz deserve their fine by the manner in which they went about their business.

Onto the subject of the adult channels because effectively thats the real debate which we're really talking about if truth be known.

I've been on this forum for over 3 and a half years now and I've never seen the babe channels and adult channels so predictable and lifeless.

Reason ofcom haven't fined or warned any of the channels in their latest bulletin is because there has be nothing of note that springs to mind of being daringly over the top. Some of you might think oh but what about all those pussy slips, well let me tell you something they were that brief that blink and no doubt you'd have missed them.

I haven't seen any one channel blatantly go tonight we're going to stick 2 fingers up to ofcom. They used to to this plenty of times in the past, some got away with it whilst others were hammered.

Conclusion - Ofcom haven't got any current beef with the adult channels because they've tamed them, they've got them to the level of exactly how they want them to be, ofcom have won the battle. The channels have cowtowed to their demands. The entertainment on show is that bad these days that half the time I go fuck it and end up watching something else.

Also talk of ofcom seemed to have dried up just like the babe channels seem to be inevitably going through the motions with certain posters on this forum really scrapping the bottom of the barrell when I read about incrediably dull and quite frankly shit shows being talked up like it's the greatest show on earth.

Tonight if you are still up in the wee small hours of the morning have a look throught all the so-called adult entertainment on offer and you'll draw your own conclusions why not even ofcom are batting an eyelid anymore.

Great post from SB, look the reason I haven't been posting much on this forum is quite frankly there's nothing really much to talk about anymore. I mean SB has hit the nail on the head, Ofcom have won the battle, the babe channels are so tame it's an utter joke. It seems the producers have basically given up the fight, they've accepted defeat, and that's pretty much it I'm afraid. Oh well what more can one say, you tell me the only way we'll get back to the way we used to be, is when Ofcom eventually goes, until that happens, it appears Ofcom have won, it's sad but true.

(03-07-2013 19:42 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Some of you might think oh but what about all those pussy slips, well let me tell you something they were that brief that blink and no doubt you'd have missed them.

What pussy slips? Despite watching regularly (hem, hem) I hadn't noticed any recently. Another bad sign is that the short lived experiment some months ago with see through knickers shows every sign of being abandoned. Possibly warned off with an off the record phone call.

Trouble is at the moment trying to change anything is like punching air.

I think in many ways even if ofcom have won some battles or think they have. Many within government feel alot of these quango's (particulary ofcom) are a massive waste of resources. Also due to the rise in streaming via the net and increasing popularity in web cam sites, it's probably more a case of the channel's 'going to ground'.

Firstly, if the channels show too much a rival reports them to ofcom. So they tame down stay as bland as they can, move their explicit efforts to the net, where they can do what they want and wait for ofcom to be abolished.

Another point worth mentioning is that channel's like babestation if your prepared to pay for the encription have their channel where they do what they like and sexstation on the web. I think you also have to consider alot of the current day set up is not prompted by ofcom at all but by profit.

No signing petitions, no writing on forums, no complaining till you are blue in the face. Only one way to get these programmes to improve. That Is to get everyone to stop phoning. But that is an impossibility, because the guys that phone are happy with what they are seeing. All you have to do is read their posts to see what they think of what they wank over. Yes i'm afraid that we will be stuck with such naff programmes as long as the phones keep ringing