Is Ofcom Fit For Purpose

(10-03-2010 22:21 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Another idea could be that Sky tv could have a phone number you could phone up to have the 900 channels permantly removed from your box so that could possibly put an end to ofcom interfering that way we might just be able to see a full on pussy show.

That could work, but why not just have all the 900 channels encrypted, and have a 0800 number to ring to register your card.

But of course, that wouldn't work for the freeview channels.

EDITED - Apologies, just realised I'm off topic again.

I installed an auto-generated news widget at BACVA which searches the web for Ofcom related news items. I've just noticed this one at the top of the list and thought I'd share it. Double standards or what!!!

Ofcom says TV channels have ‘human right’ to broadcast offensive material

The news widget is more precise than I ever hoped it would be. Worth checking it out from time to time (seems to update every day) even if it does end up being the only reason any of you visit BACVA

(11-03-2010 18:18 )StanTheMan Wrote:  I installed an auto-generated news widget at BACVA which searches the web for Ofcom related news items. I've just noticed this one at the top of the list and thought I'd share it. Double standards or what!!!

Ofcom says TV channels have ‘human right’ to broadcast offensive material

The news widget is more precise than I ever hoped it would be. Worth checking it out from time to time (seems to update every day) even if it does end up being the only reason any of you visit BACVA

Well that is interesting, sounds like it could be some sort of breakthru or perhaps just double standards, good thing about this report is now ofcom have left themselves open to one almighty challenge and hopefully the babe channels can use this as evidence to justify the material they choose to air and furthermore bang babes should seriously take the bastards to court and demand that recent fine they recieved be handed back on the grounds of which ofcom confirmed human rights.

Staggering double-think. It's ok to accuse someone of "walking like a retard" as long as they don't actually have mental handicap. Never mind the implication that people with mental handicap have a different - and by implication inferior -way of walking. Does this mean Ofcom thinks it's OK to accuse a white person of walking like a n/gg/r?

The outcome of Ofcom's consultation on the process for Sanctions In Broadcast Cases (SIBC) refers to "reasonable opportunity" for a broadcaster to respond to proposed sanctions. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/sibc/ and http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/...tement.pdf

Para 3.18 says: "new Outline procedures state that ‘what is a ‘reasonable opportunity’ depends upon the facts and degree of urgency in each case...’ This provides flexibility in the new Outline procedures and this flexibility is often shown by Ofcom in appropriate circumstances"

No doubt they claim somewhere they always give broadcasters "reasonable opportunity" to respond to alleged breeches of licence conditions and that they show flexibility. Interesting to see Channel 4 and Five complaining that they have barely sufficient time to respond in sanctions cases.

BangBabes might have grounds for complaining that Ofcom did not follow it's own procedures by demanding excessive volumes of footage (over 24 hours), quantities that exceeded what they could reasonably have been expected to supply.

The maximum fine that can be imposed on a broadcaster is 5% of revenue or £250,000 (para 237 Communications Act 2003 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts2003/ukp...pb7-l1g237)

I'm not a lawyer, but suspect that a good one could argue that this is against UK and European Competition law,claiming it systematically discriminates against small broadcasters.

ITV is a billion pound company, with 2009 advertising revenue of £1,291M and £25M profit, so the maximum possible fine is less than 1/4,000 of revenue (0.025%) or 1% of profit. The same amount could be 100% of a small broadcaster's revenue. (Nothing implied about ITV's content, it's just an example of a broacaster with large revenue).

Usually when a public body reviews a decision made at a lower level, the review committee is independent of the people who made the original decision.

It's almost certainly a requirement under the European Convention of Human Rights to have independent appeal processes, and the ECHR applies because sanctions are quasi-legal procedures that take people's money away. These kind of rules don't mess about with phrases such as "mostly independent". Either an appeal process is fully independent, or it does not qualify.

Ofcom claim their Sanctions Committee does not pre-judge whether a breech of the Broadcast Code has occurred (see SIBC policy in previous post), which makes the Sanctions Committee a review/appeal body.

Is it independent?

An appeal committee is not independent if the people on it report to someone who made the original decision. It also works the other way - no-one on an appeal committee should have reviewed or approved the original decision, even in passing. Or manage people who took the original decision. It is even arguable that two people cannot be independent if overtuning a decision would make working together in the same office difficult. Also members of any appeal body should be free to pass judgement as they see fit, without worrying that a decision unpopular with their bosses could damage their careers.

Here is the composition of the Sanctions Committee: "This Committee is made up of members drawn from the Content Board. On occasions the Committee invites additional members from the Ofcom Board" http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/csg/obsc/membership/

The Content Board has just 13 members, all industry heavyweights. Most are appointed for just 3 or 4 years at a time, and some have had 1 year extensions. While they probably don't need the money, there must be considerable social cachet and industry credibility from being an Ofcom committee member, but re-appointment cannot be guaranteed. Some look like part-timers, a few look like full-time employees. It's a reasonable guess that each time a Sanctions Committee is pulled together, at least one full-time employee is on it for consistency and procedure. But these are exactly the people who must have frequent input to the team originally deciding whether a breech occurred or not.

It could be argued that this means they are not independent - they are reviewing decisions made by people following their own policy decisions.

All good points H-H.

I've been reviewing some of the recordings from the shows that were found in breach in Bull. 151 (bull might become a good name for these piles of prejudiced shite).

Thus far I've not found any scenes that struck me as being "so strongly sexual they likely exceeded the expectations of the vast majority of the audience". There's a fair amount of nipple licking. There's some over the panty fake cunnilingus. But there's nothing "so strongly sexual" it could be in breach of the Code. But of course that's just my opinion and I'm not some uptight middle class prigg who thinks they can save the nation by banning sex from TV. Oh to be God for a day...

With luck, and probably a lot of help from a few of our resident cappers, we hope to be bringing the Ofcom Bull. 151 under the spotlight. We're going to find out where the fans really stand with an audio visual spectacular (OK, that might be over egging it a bit but, it should be fun). Oh yes, all the juicy bits Ofcom thought were too rude for TV under one roof - and you get to vote whether its too hot for 'adult' TV or not.

Ofcom will never be fit for purpose while they actively ignore the right of adults to watch adult material. Ofcom's 'generally accepted standards' are neither generally accepted nor standard. Liberal minded people who enjoy material designed to cause sexual arousal - i.e. porn - are actively being discriminated against by Ofcom. Ofcom have no evidence upon which to base the assumption that adult material is harmful nor do they have strong evidence adult material is offensive. Indeed, the BBFC surveys show that the public are far more accepting of nudity and consensual sexual activity than Ofcom appear to credit.

Why haven't Ofcom considered what viewers of 'adult' channels actually want? Why have they assumed our rights can be ignored on the presumption that a mere suspicion equates to a guilty verdict? Ofcom have produced no evidence or published anything to contradict their statements which clearly stated there was no rational reason under TVWF clauses 22(1) and 22(2) to ban hardcore material. We can only conclude then that the reason to ban R18 was and is irrational. Can we trust a public body that acts irrationally? Should we permit a public body to act irrationally? Why doesn't the law prevent a public body acting irrationally? You know what...I think that's what the HRA 1998 is supposed to do - i.e. stop little hitlers taking out their petty puritan hates on the innocent masses.

The fact is folks, 75% of people on the street think adults in the UK should have the right to watch "particularly sexually explicit material" on TV if they want to. Only a tiny 22% think it shouldn't be allowed. Why do Ofcom seem to favour the views of this puritan minority and, in the process, trample all over our human rights and go against the wishes of 75% of the population? We pay Ofcom's wages. They're supposed to do as we say or else they get fired - we'll hang 'em from lamposts if they like but, I'd prefer a peaceful solution, a grown-up solution.

Y'know 99.99% of kids will be perfectly safely protected by a watershed and their parent/guardian. The other 0.01% will likely appear dead on the news or be taken into care because of the abuse they're suffering at the hands of their parent/guardian. Like it or not, this is the reality. Ofcom can do nothing and, indeed, need do nothing to protect vulnerable children - they are far beyond the aid of censorship.

Any TV regulator deluded enough to believe they can affect reality through censorship is clearly not fit for anything. Not life. Not reality. They are beyond help themselves - off living in cloud cuckoo land. We definitely don't need deluded twerps presiding over TV.

Your comments about the benchmark being scenes that are "so strongly sexual they likely exceeded the expectations of the vast majority of the audience" reminded me of a point I wanted to make about content and context, Ian G.

I agree with your earlier post that an expert board would be more useful than the current setup. One of the reasons Ofcom isn't 'fit for purpose' is because it's trying to treat these channels as if they're the same as all the other channels; they aren't, so Ofcom's resorting to scrabbling about dragging in bits and pieces from BBFC etc. to try and come up with crackers blanket, shifting guidelines to base their decisions on.

These shows aren't meant to be watched like they're films, or documentaries, or reality tv shows. They are live, and they are interactive. These complaints, whether genuine, or from rivals, are presented as if they're on behalf of, or coming from a casual viewer, but casual viewers aren't the primary audience (for the channel). Casual viewers aren't participating (i.e. making money for the channel which is its primary reason for broadcasting, and the reason it pays for airtime). Ofcom has consistently said that some sexual content is acceptable as long as it's in context, but the context of these shows is arguably significantly provided by that interactive aspect (i.e. phoning in) that is missing for the casual viewer. Any complaint is devoid of context. Any non-participating viewer has to accept that they aren't privy to the full context of what's showing onscreen. They can just enjoy what's there, or not bother (i.e. turn over) or fill in the gaps themselves. I'm not sure how someone can complain it's offensive when they don't have the full story.

I know this is a difficult defence to argue, as it can all be refuted by Ofcom arguing 'well, we can only make judgements on what people are seeing'...but that's sort of my point...
I'm not saying there should be no limits either. Just that Ofcom is making its decisions from the point of view of the casual viewer. Given that the babechannels broadcast clear warnings about the nature of the shows, I'm not sure it's a entirely fair viewpoint to adopt. So yes, they need some sort of independent board that is separate from what's gone before, and can get its head around the fact that this is a different kind of animal. It's a tricky line to walk, between offending public decency and conceding that certain things could be permitted in context.


Also, re. post #43 on BARB - the figures would be interesting and useful, yes. If Ofcom want to be more convincing they need to draw on more robust statistics - and they'd have access to the more detailed (£500 - £10,000??? ) breakdowns. Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, it's probably worth mentioning that BARB's data-collection method is flawed when it comes to over-18 type channels. As it's purely voluntary I'd suspect that a significant number of participants would under-report...and, with specific reference to under-18s, I'm finding it hard to imagine a 13-year old boy doggedly logging on to the BARB monitoring system late at night so they can see he's watching stuff he's not meant to

(14-03-2010 12:10 )Deb x Wrote:  I agree with your earlier post that an expert board would be more useful than the current setup. One of the reasons Ofcom isn't 'fit for purpose' is because it's trying to treat these channels as if they're the same as all the other channels; they aren't, so Ofcom's resorting to scrabbling about dragging in bits and pieces from BBFC etc. to try and come up with crackers blanket, shifting guidelines to base their decisions on.

But this is the very thing that makes Ofcom's stance on these channels so wrong. They are trying to treat them the same as all the other channels whilst treating them differently at the same time i.e. they're expecting them to conform to the various rules and regulations for normal tv whilst imposing fines and sanctions on the 900 channels for material that is not even as strong as you can find elsewhere on the Sky platform.

The absurdity of the situation was there for all to see on Friday night. At around midnight, there were 6 soft porn films concurrently running amongst the 320 channels on Sky Movies. Between them the various films showed full frontal nudity, scenes of sex between male and female and female and female, scenes of simulated oral sex and these scenes weren't brief in nature.

These films are quite obviously made for the purpose of sexual arousal. Now, if any of the babe channels had shown a naked fanny for any length of time at the same time as these films were showing exactly the same, they would have been facing a large fine. This is despite being contained in an adult section which clearly sends the message that "we show scenes of sexual activity designed for sexual arousal" as opposed to the message that "we show films" and therefore become that much easier to avoid for anyone who finds such material offensive.

The first thing that struck me about this was that there is quite obviously a large market for this kind of stuff. The various movie channels obviously aren't afraid of various advertisers being put off by the kind of films being shown at that time of night.

The second thing that struck me yet again was just how absurd the situation actually is. We are at a stage where one of the channels is currently facing the prospect of tougher sanctions for showing various scenes that are exceeded frequently by the movie channels. Every single argument that Ofcom uses against the babe channels falls flat on it's face whilst that is allowed to continue. The whole minors may be watching, harm and offence and justified by context become completely redundant whilst it's going on.

So, Ofcom would seem to face a choice. Either they employ the same draconian measures they do for the babe channels to every channel across the board or they allow the babe channels to operate on a level playing field with all the other channels.

And as I've said before, they are not stupid enough to consider the first option, knowing full well that would be likely to inflame far more people about the imposition of censorship on them than Ofcom care to deal with. Once that happens, and Ofcom will be fully aware of this, their comfortable gravy train will grind to a shuddering halt.

What may be helpful here though, seeing as a few people involved in managing the babe channels use this site, would be for them to tell us if there is any particular reason why they accept being treated completely differently to other channels out there because it's really not making a lot of sense to me.