Serious Ofcom warning for Bang Media

(30-05-2010 19:01 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Bullies will always prey on the weak, the whole thing is highly suspicious and ofcom need to be investigated into handing out illegal fines that hold no water.

How many times have Bang been fined in the last 12 months and what is the total in fines?

(30-05-2010 20:41 )arron88 Wrote:  

(30-05-2010 19:01 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Bullies will always prey on the weak, the whole thing is highly suspicious and ofcom need to be investigated into handing out illegal fines that hold no water.

How many times have Bang been fined in the last 12 months and what is the total in fines?

Lets say its a lot of money arran88, but more importantly we all on this forum would be very interested in whether or not you think the fines were justified or not and more importantly do you support ofcom as I refer you to an earlier post in which you stated ofcom as being quite reasonable. Do you still endorse this view.

(30-05-2010 21:04 )Scottishbloke Wrote:  Lets say its a lot of money ... and more importantly do you support ofcom as I refer you to an earlier post in which you stated ofcom as being quite reasonable. Do you still endorse this view.

Yes ofcom is reasonable. So no figure how much they been fined in last 12 months?

(30-05-2010 22:00 )arron88 Wrote:  So no figure how much they been fined in last 12 months?

£0.00

Just for the record I don't think Bang Media have been fined by Ofcom for a couple of years or so. They have been found to be 'in breach' but that just means a telling off.

However, over the past few months Ofcom have been persecuting the company and twice they have stated in their recent reports that they are seriously considering a 'statutory sanction' i.e. a fine.

Given the focus that Ofcom have put since last November on Bang Media's supposed transgressions, it would seem inconceivable that they won't fine the company. They like to take their time but it can't be too long now before we find out how much it is.

Ofcom seem to be in a gung ho frame of mind at the moment - they recently slapped a £250,000 fine on Teletext, the text information service that went bust and had to hand its licence back. Ofcom compounded the misery of the company's insolvency by fining their arse off simply because they didn't provide a service, even though the reason they didn't provide a service was because they went bust! Such twisted logic is an Ofcom speciality.

I think at the very least the new government should create an appeals mechanism for those sanctioned by Ofcom - we have an appeals process in all other forms of law, so why not with Ofcom? It doesn't seem right that the organisation can slap a fine on a company at will, with no form of redress.

If there were such a process, it would be an excellent way of at least airing some of the grievances that we and others feel about the way they operate.

Its worse than that. Teletext were required to provide a service on digital freeview, but not allocated enough bandwidth, so they could not offer the same pages as on analogue. They had to run news, andropping the advertising killed their revenues. It's not a situation they created.

But coming back to the fines. Ofcom have been saying for at least the last 6 months, any repeat and we'll fine you. That must put a serious dampener on their activities.

so hardly seems like bang babes have been victimised by ofcom

(30-05-2010 22:05 )vostok 1 Wrote:  

(30-05-2010 22:00 )arron88 Wrote:  So no figure how much they been fined in last 12 months?

£0.00

Compare Bangbabes to the other babechannels and then say that their not being victimised. Forget what they've been fined and look at the bigger picture. Remember that all legal stuff takes time.

Seriously bangbabes need to up there game, its so tame now it woeful, they are now the worst station of all the babe channels and the thing is they'll probably get another warning from ofcom and it'll persist until ofcom have got there way and closed the channel down for good. I said before something fishy is going on, bangbabes need to fight ofcom in some sort of court as if not either they will be shut down by ofcom or simply go bust due to lack of interest and calls.

Bang Fined:

Ofcom has today fined the television licensees Bang Channels Limited and Bang Media (London) Limited a total of £157,250 for extremely serious, and repeated breaches of the Broadcasting Code and licence conditions. The two companies are under common ownership and control.

In summary, the material found in breach related to unsuitable “adult sex chat” and “daytime chat” content. Some of this material contained inappropriate explicit sexual imagery. In some cases, the material was considered to be of such strength that it was only suitable for transmission with mandatory restrictions, e.g. PIN control confined to adult viewers. In one programme the material was of such strength that it was considered to be equivalent to BBFC-rated ‘R18’ material, which is prohibited from broadcast.

These Broadcasting Code breaches continued over a 5 month period, certain of which occurred after Bang Channels had been found to have already breached the Code in relation to similar material. In addition the Licensee had received clear guidance from Ofcom on a number of occasions prior to some of the material that was subsequently found in breach of the Code.

Ofcom found a total of 14 breaches had occurred due to the licensees operating a wholly inadequate compliance system. This inadequate compliance amounted to manifest recklessness.

Two further breaches concerned the licensees’ failure to provide recordings on request to Ofcom – a condition of all broadcasters’ licences.

Broadcasters who operate in this area should be aware that Ofcom treats the transmission of this sort of sexual content, without suitable protections, with the utmost seriousness and such repeated complaince failures will not be tolerated.



The financial penalty is payable to HM Paymaster General.



The full finding can be found here: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binarie...annels.pdf