Ofcom Discussion

With family friendly Cameron in Number 10 I can't see any relaxation in content.

Speculation Corner #2

Quote:Richards has already tried to leave Ofcom once before, applying for the role of director-general of the BBC back in 2012, but he lost out to George Entwistle. At the time, folks questioned his ability to stay on as chief at an independent regulator overseeing the very corporation that rejected him, but he weathered the storm.

Richards will continue to be employed by and available to Ofcom for a full 12 months of notice from now, giving him a further year’s salary, but there will be no golden parachute from the regulator. The ex-chief is barred from making any job enquiries before he leaves so as to avoid conflicts of interest and will have to run future employment options past Ofcom chair Patricia Hodgson for a few months after he goes.

Meanwhile, the board has already started the process of finding a replacement for Richards, who will continue to run things until the end of the year. The directors are hoping to have found a new chief by early in 2015.

The public post has to be advertised nationally and candidates have to pass muster with the board, an independent assessor and the Culture Secretary Sajid Javid before they can take on the role.

With thanks to The Register

The link to the attempt to become BBC Director General is an interesting one. With the BBC Charter coming up for renewal it is quite possible that whichever party wins the election will replace the BBC board of Governors and make the BBC another Ofcom fiefdom, similar to Channel 4 but with more interventionist powers. It would be difficult to justify giving a BBC oversight role to a former failed DG candidate, particularly if the role was limited to arms length hostile intervention after events.

Can I suggest that one of us on this forum put's his name forward.

If anybody is feeling like putting on a mad punt you could put money on Cwpussylover. William Hill's have given him odds of 5000/1

Forum odds go as follows.

Cwpussylover 5000/1
Skully 750/1
Terrence 3000/1
Scottishblole 1000/1
Eccles 500/1
Snookered147 1000/1
Charlemagne 2050/1
mr mystery 750/1

(02-04-2010 19:41 )mikedafc Wrote:  I don't think the channels know where they stand with Ofcom as some of the time they are getting naked for a while then becoming very safe with them only being topless. I think Ofcom need to sit down with the owners of these channels and set up between them exactly what is acceptable on free to air/view channels so that is all down in black and white and so the grey areas that currently seem to exist in the rules which allows channels to push the boundaries to see what they can get away with are removed.

Offcom have no interest in sitting down with the channels and telling them what is acceptable and what isn't.
All they care about is shutting down the babechannels.
They have an agenda against these channels.
They will allow more nudity on regular channels than they will allow on the babechannels. The 9PM watershed is a prime example.

If you advertise yourself as an adult channel you are now penalised. You may as well advertise yourself as something else, you won't draw as much heat.

If Cw gets the job I presume Ms Dash will be his PPS (Personal Private Secretary) .

Speculation Corner #3

The Telegraph adds this

Quote:The announcement comes as Richards' partner, Delyth Evans, steps up her campaign to become a Labour MP at the forthcoming election. A former Welsh Assembly member, Evans stood down as chief executive of the charity Dress for Success earlier this year to become candidate for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire.

Suppose it there difficult to be perceived as an impartial civil while out leafleting for your Labour party candidate wife.

No telling what portfolio his wife would get if Labour win, if any. She sounds like a jolly good egg.

Delyth Evans (56)
1992 Assistant to Gordon Brown MP
1992-94 Policy adviser and speechwriter to the former Labour leader John Smith.
Former special adviser to Alun Michael (Assembly Member on the Mid & West Wales) (Chair of the Christian Socialist Movement).
2000-2003 Welsh Assembly Member on the Mid & West Wales.
2000-2003 Deputy Minister for Rural Affairs, Culture & the Environment.
2010-March 2014 Chief executive of Smart Works charity
September 2013 Selected by the Labour party to fight the Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire seat in the 2015 General Election.
"Delyth Evans is the chief executive of Smart Works charity which provides interview clothes, styling advice and interview training to unemployed women helping them get back to work. Delyth has also held non-executive roles as a Board member of the Film Agency for Wales and as a Trustee of the learning disability charity United Response."

Some interesting, but old, insights from the Daily Mail Daily Mail
back in June 2011. I dont necessarily agree with the insinuations, but this is about as much as the public are/were allowed to know about a senior public servants background.

Quote:Edward Charles Richards is 45, a graduate of the London School of Economics, and lives in South-West London. He seems to share Ed Miliband’s ambivalence towards marriage, for though he has two children with his long-standing partner Delyth Evans, he has not married her.

Evans, seven years older than Richards, is a well-connected member of the media-political establishment in her own right as a communications consultant. She was a speechwriter for Labour leader John Smith and a Labour member of the Welsh Assembly from 2000 to 2003.

Her business of consulting on media policy must be greatly assisted, one assumes, by sharing a roof with the most important media regulator in the land.

Last one. Shed no tears, Ed should be able to keep the wolf from the door in his 12 month purdah period. As well as his role at Ofcom he is a part time director at Thames Water, but good egg that he is, gives his £42,000 a year salary to Ofcom, presumably because it comes out of his Ofcom working week. If he is no longer obliged to attend the Ofcoms office presumably he would be morally free to keep the Thames Water salary. Whether he does or not is another matter.

All joking apart with the forthcoming departure of Ed Richards surely it might be worth a second thought that they might consider writing up a new set of rules and regulations that could be more beneficial to the Adult Channels.

Surely whoever comes into office might want to put their marker down straight away. Remember how gutted we all were when Ed didn't get the job at the BBC.

BTW on the off chance (more like slim chance) that they decide to axe Ofcom altogether I hope that the rest of the forum members allow me the honour of posting the first post in the RIP Ofcom Thread.

If not then my signature is fucked

Are we on the brink now of SKY as we know it changing very soon.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/marke...ahead.html

Maybe this is the reason for Ed's sudden departure announcement knowing that the return of all these German channels making it's way onto our EPG could be just around the corner