Ofcom Discussion

Read the this crook of shit and weep! OFCON won't be happy until they control the INTERNET too. Very scary stuff from our 'liberal democratic' government's junket loving thugs:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-...audiences/

part of the document is incorrect.

Quote:Ofcom has a self-interest to control all things necessary in quest for power and won't stop until we achieve our goal

Sounds more accurate.

Ofcom already regulate video on demand. Its just luck that they apply less stringent standards - for now.

Foreign sites that are accused of copyright violations are blocked by ISPs.

The internet gives access to foreign sites that dont abide by UK rules for libel.

Social media sites circumvent High Court injunctions.

The Levensden Inquiry into phone hacking keeps being linked to suggestions that newspapers should be subject to similar control - sorry, regulation - as television, perhaps even regulated by Ofcom.

Its not difficult to see where the control freaks will steer things if they are allowed.

Well put. My concerns are that the OFCOM machine will grow and grow as it seems to crave power at any cost. If its not dismantled then the future of free speech itself is under threat (its like a creeping death).

Scary stuff indeed. Welcome to the ConLib free world...

S

(26-01-2012 02:29 )eccles Wrote:  Ofcom already regulate video on demand. Its just luck that they apply less stringent standards - for now.

Foreign sites that are accused of copyright violations are blocked by ISPs.

The internet gives access to foreign sites that dont abide by UK rules for libel.

Social media sites circumvent High Court injunctions.

The Levensden Inquiry into phone hacking keeps being linked to suggestions that newspapers should be subject to similar control - sorry, regulation - as television, perhaps even regulated by Ofcom.

Its not difficult to see where the control freaks will steer things if they are allowed.

maybe a different angle to attack ofcom may be more successful ,the government is more concerned with job losses at the moment if ofcom continue their reign of finishing the babe channels off one by one putting hundreds out of a job this may be the loophole to exaggerate, just a thought!

Andrew Neil cracked a joke referring to Babestation on the Daily Politics show on 25/01/12, right at the last minute of the show (not funny though). It's still on bbc player.

Not sure if they were talking earlier about a subject which included the babechannels or not, I didn't watch the entire show. But it seems pretty weird that Andrew Neil would refer to a babechannel at all, or at lunchtime, and I am a bit surprised that he is much aware of the channels at all.

(27-01-2012 11:23 )TheWatcher Wrote:  As has been said many times before, the only reason the babeshows cannot show the same stuff that can be seen on the other channels is that they are now classified as "advertising/teleshopping" channels and therefore come under a different set of rules. I don't think that anyone who watches babestation would argue about this classification.

I would argue against that. Babestation is not "advertising/teleshopping".


Do babestation give away a prize?

http://merlin.obs.coe.int/iris/2008/1/article2.en.html

(28-01-2012 23:44 )arron88 Wrote:  Babestation is not "advertising/teleshopping".

100% true. When channels tried selling used knickers they were stopped.

Ofcom are supposed to "innovate" but all they can think of doing is forcing channels into one category or another becuase EU regulations use those two terms. They refuse to think in terms of other categories or sub categories. Teleshopping refers to channels selling products - rings, double glazing, life insurance. A product is advertised, the viewer rings in and buys it, end of transaction, durable product at end.

Poker channels dont fit that description - product is both the bet and watching the roulette wheel spin. Part of that product occurs regardless of purchase.

Psychic channels deliver personalised readings, but the product really is totally different from buying a power car washer.

Babe channels advertise sex chat phone numbers, some of which link to onscreen babes, but also have the babes "acting in a sexually provocative way" for free. Like poker channels much of the content is given away free, no physical product is delivered and there is no enduring product, no essay, no crossword solution, other than the "advert".

Rather than lump babe channels in with teleshopping, they are closer to pay TV, such as pay per view films, where what is being sold is a transitory viewer experience. Admittedly the experience is a phone call rather than a film or boxing match, but its a better fit than Gems TV.

(25-01-2012 16:13 )shylok Wrote:  Read the this crook of shit and weep! OFCON won't be happy until they control the INTERNET too. Very scary stuff from our 'liberal democratic' government's junket loving thugs:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-...audiences/

Thanks to Scotsman for finding a related speech reported on melonfarmers

Quote:TV Censor suggests that video on demand should be censored more like TV than internet

Ed Richards, the boss of Ofcom made a speech to the Oxford Media Convention on the 25th January 2012.

He repeatedly alluded to more censorship for the internet and video on demand in particular. He said:

In between the twin poles of linear TV and the open internet, it becomes quite interesting.

When something looks, feels and acts like TV, but is delivered over the internet and into people's living rooms, we need something that meets audiences' expectations and provides the right degree of reassurance.

It is here that such services intersect with the views and concerns expressed by the participants in our research and where greater assurance than currently on offer may need to be considered.

It seems undesirable for these services to be subject to full broadcasting style regulation -- by and large they belong to a different form of service and come from a very different context. But we do need to consider whether to develop the approach in relation to existing co-regulation for video on demand to offer greater assurance and to ensure there is public trust in the approach to regulation as these services become more and more pervasive and significant.

In the case of video-on-demand services, our research shows that protection of minors and the risk of harmful content is the most likely focus. And our experience of broadcast regulation suggests that privacy and fairness for individuals are also areas that need careful exploration.

In this context I wonder therefore whether there may be a fairly simple opportunity to establish a core set of principles and aims which are held in common across a diverse media terrain with different regulatory environments.

Such a set of core principles could be established between the regulators that emerge from the current debate. They might aim to articulate the minimum standards which we would like to see in the UK, regardless of the nature of the service or its specific regulatory setting.

This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. The Ofcom Broadcasting code is remarkably close to the BBC's editorial guidelines. The PCC Code and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code share many of the same objectives, principles and indeed requirements, although the range of issues in the Ofcom Code is, for obvious reasons, significantly more extensive.
...

For starters, the reason the Ofcom code is similar to BBC guidelines is that the ITC Code shadowed it for many years and the BBC guidelines were regarded as a good model to follow, with some tightening up to allow for commercial pressures.

Next, Ed Richards takes credit for the sun coming up each morning. "The sun rising each morning is remarkably close to Ofcom staff coming to work each day."

The only reason we have broadcast regulation is that historically airwaves were in short supply. It was a very rare privilege to be granted a licence. Sky satellite and Virgin cable destroy that argument. Freeview weakens it.

That leaves the new argument that TV is somehow more persausive and more prevalant that pictures, books, magazines and newspapers, and therefore more dangerous.

My paper today has an article by Stephen Fry, the second most intelligent man alive and one of the most dignified, titled "In the library I discovered that being gay was a blessing". In it he recounts how he borrowed a book from his local taxpayer funded council run library about The Trials of Oscar Wilde, and that led his to read related books by Gide, Genet, Auden, Orton, Norman Douglas and Ronald Firbank. He read of man-love, boy-love and free-love. "For a gay youth growing up in the early 1970s a library was a way of showing that I was not alone." I for one dont believe that the books made him gay, just that the provided some reasurance. (Nor do I believe that the babe channels have some great cultural significance).

My point is this. He was 11 when he read his first Oscar Wilde book. Was the outcome so terrible? Can you imagine what Ofcom would do if it were to regulate libraries?

If I worked in Ofcon then this would be seen as a good move. Imagine the work this would generate for your department.

Radio, TV, Telecomms and now the internet as your remit. Increase the staff immediately; this would secure a good future for the Ofcon execs.

Carry on keeping whatever government is in power by censoring filthy sex channels and you are well on your way to getting a nice pension.