Petition

It's not only this forum that believes broadcasters are being over regulated by Ofc@m. John Lloyd, TV producer of QI and Blackadder believes that tighter rules came in after the BBC Sachsgate scandal involving Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross. John believes that sauciness is no longer allowed before 9pm anywhere on the BBC - particularly not on BBC One.

Read more, http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2011/08/30..._bbc_bland

Following this article i have fired off the following letter to both the freesheets in London highlighting the problem with Ofc@m and directing people to the petition.

The view of comedy TV producer John Lloyd (Metro Tuesday) the man behind QI and Blackadder about the BBC running scared and making bland programmes for fear of causing offence is not isolated. Programme makers across all channels are being forced to dumb down content by the regulator Ofcom who use their vast array of subjective guidance to censor content output across all TV categories. Parents and adult viewers should be allowed to make an informed choice on both pre and post watershed content rather than an imposed choice. Make your voice heard and sign up to a petition that asks this government to treat adults as adults. Visit http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/13222 and sign up today.

If you have contact details, e-mail, for other newspapers pm me and i will send it on.

The idea that all 53,000 plus members of this forum would sign this petition is quite frankly ludicrous. For a start, I've just done a check on how many members have been online since the 18th August, which is the date that the e-petition was added, and it's roughly 7,000, or 13% of the total membership. Then you have to deduct the not insignificant number of spambots that we all know about, and the lurkers who just want to see the videos and won't even know this section exists.
But the real reason there aren't as many signatures as some people would like is that, as others have pointed out, most people on here(including myself) actually still LIKE the shows, despite the obvious watering down, and yet they get dismissed as "fanboys" or "deluded". That's hardly going to attract them to the cause, is it? I'm only guilty of one of those two by the way

Despite what I put in that paragraph above, I have still signed the petition, because of the wider issues involved.

Edit: my signature was the 129th. Then I looked at the DCMS list, and two below our petition, was this: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/14459

(31-08-2011 06:46 )eagle_si Wrote:  The idea that all 53,000 plus members of this forum would sign this petition is quite frankly ludicrous.

It would've been a fucking miracle, especially when the stats say that out of the 53,888 members on here, only 16.45% have actually bothered to post. I doubt the vast majority of people in this country would honestly care if the wank channels disappeared for good.

I saw a prime example of inconsistancy the other night on Dave,both happened after 9pm Sarah Millican said fuck and nothing happened Jack Whitehall said fuck and it was bleeped out .

I've signed the petition and we all need to sign it because otherwise we'll end up going back to the victorian times where girls showing their ankles was deemed risque.

Im back. Missed much?

SimplyMarco Wrote:No Government will be seen to back a bill purely to allow girls to get their dildos out and flash the gash on live tv, although im already looking forward to the episode of Have I Got News For You when it is

If nudity had been permitted in the 60s that would not have been as far fetched as sounds today. Entertainment including satire was much less compartmentalised and reached wider audiences as a result. Fun reconstructions on an MP shagging his secretary or watchin pole dancing while filling expenses forms would have been seen as fair comment. Perhaps.

SimplyMarco Wrote:There has already been a wave of backlash against the government for these cuts, a further announcement without sensible reasoning would be a complete PR disaster for DC.

Right now even the Second Coming would be bad PR for DC. Ironic as that was where he spent his previous career. But surely its time someone made something of Ofcom and broadcasting restrictions having been brought about under the leadership of a lying closet Catholic and a repressed son of Scottish Minister. Do we want to live in an effective Theocracy where Church activists dictate private morality? Hello Tehran. Hello London 1880.

Besides rational light touch regulation will result in Ofcom wasting less public money and £millions taken out of the economy.

Gambler Wrote:After reading through this entire thread, all 10 pages of it, I've come to realize that there isn't nearly enough support for the cause.

Im a firm believer in Critical Mass and Avalanche. An exciting petition with potential for lots of support can get buried very quickly unless it has sponsors who can put it on their front page. But once its on the front page it will pick up votes from casual viewers looking at other petitions. This is where the petition website design is very poor. A month old petition with 500 votes gets much more prominence than a day old one with 100 votes. But we cant change that.

Any prominence on social networking sites, other web pages, other forums and among contacts would help.

Does anyone have any press contacts? Ofcom needs its wings seriously clipped and that will benefit every newspaper, magazine and broadcaster in the country, with the exception of swivel eyed fanatics who advocate violence.

SimplyMarco Wrote:If the government decided to go along with the idea of disbanding Ofcom, they would have to leave over 700 people loosing their jobs. (Are you happy having that on your hands?) I know they have cut jobs in many public sectors but this could send out a number of wrong messages

They wont abolish Ofcom. At best it will be trimmed. And cutting censors wont cause many tears to be shed. It could also result in broadcasters of all types recruiting more actual creatives because a climate of fear is never good for business.

Quote:Outside of babeshow fans, most people do not really have a problem with Ofcom

True but it is emblematic of the dead hand of regulation in general. Changes are never isolated and compartmentalised, ease up in one area and others follow.

Dazaman Wrote:It was put on Twitter on saturday by me and Admin from this site.

Thanks.

Quote:Others won't sign because they don't think it will change anything, then those who want to stay anonymous as you have to give a valid home address.

Not quite, you have to give a valid postcode.
As far as I know they dont and cannot check names against addresses. How could they? The technology is not up to it, people move, and people genuinely stay at multiple addresses (students, 2 homes, divorced).

Not that Im advocating false info of course, just saying there are ways of exercising legitimate democratic expression without fear of retribution.

Roquentin Wrote:as a measure of moderation I still quite like the shows we have at the moment

I like the shows we have now too, but I could like them a lot more. And there are some pretty shite nights. Looking back at old clips the content used to be so much better.

GPP Wrote:The government are carrying out a further review of regulators who have a disproportionate effect on all SME's (Small and medium enterprises).

More info please. One depressing aspect of the dead hand of regulation is that time and again small independents are squeezed out due to managers being tied up for months on end handling malicious complaints and get disproprtionately monitored.

SugarSweet007 Wrote:As long as Ofcom can justify their activities by claiming they are protecting the vulnerable this will not change. I just cannot see the shows changing until some sort of encryption is introduced.

True about Ofcom claiming justification but the reality is that the volume of complaints does not justify the level of action. We are talking about perhaps 5 genuine complaints a year. There was no succesful petition for tigher regulation last time I checked. Mumsnet and Netmums have plenty of threads about not liking it when hubby watches porn (and some about it being OK/watching it themselves) but next to none about banning porn. There is no public appetite for censorship. Jail rioters yes, ban porn no.

Quote:Then I looked at the DCMS list, and two below our petition, was this: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/14459

Please do NOT sign that. The author wants to split Ofcom (Hooray!) but into an airwave regulator and a new super regulator covering the press too. To work as intended it would have to apply to all printed material. It is a response to phone hacking, the author wants tighter control. I cannot remember a TV company breaking a single political scandal, ever. Tight control means they lay off serious investigative journalism and stick to dodgy builders. Archer, Parkinson, Votes for Bribes, Aitken, Prufmo, MP expenses, all exposed newspapers, not TV.

153 votes now. Not 000s but still growing. Thanks everyone.

Good news eccles, it's 154 now, I reckon your post inspired at least one more person to sign it, unfortunatly that does mean you are going to have to make more great posts everyday!

Nicely put though...

I signed this petition early doors when it was first put up on here , i just hope that the channel reps , producers and bosses that are constantly blaming Ofcom for their channels being crap have done the same , the same goes for the girls that are always saying that Ofcom are watching them so have to be careful what they do but would go much farther if it wasn't for the strict Ofcom rules .

(04-09-2011 17:57 )mr mystery Wrote:  I signed this petition early doors when it was first put up on here , i just hope that the channel reps , producers and bosses that are constantly blaming Ofcom for their channels being crap have done the same , the same goes for the girls that are always saying that Ofcom are watching them so have to be careful what they do but would go much farther if it wasn't for the strict Ofcom rules .

Good point, there must be some way the channels could publicise the petition IF they have the balls and IF they actually want stronger content. One or two channels could have a conflict of interest with online sales, sex shops or magazine sales. Some might be scared of illegal retribution. But several channels should still be up for it.

How best to publicise?
Shout outs?
Put it on the scrolling banner ?
Add it to their webpage?
Any thoughts?

Another reason to sign the petition is tonights show's are just like the previous ones, they are exactly the same. It's now a case of Yawn here we fucking go again. I'm also getting to point of boredom, it's just the same old tried and tested routine, same shit, different night. Sure some of models get naked, but then have to censor the good bits, as for the encrpted channels, they are also highly censored, what's the point if they cannot show hardcore porn, just about everything on the UK Adult Channels is fucked up. The UK has officially got the worst kind of entertainment on the telly in the whole of Europe. But where's their hope there is allways a chance, we're still at the early part of the decade so all is not lost. It's just a question of seeing if the channels can survive this current era. Whether or not this petition get's noticed remains to be seen but the more signatures added the more this will get noticed. The only consolation we have as far as Ofcom and censorship goes in this country is that the USA is a hell of lot worse than ours, but that's hardly a surprise. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/13222