Compliance and Regulation

On 18th October I was given a lecture on the intricacies of Compliance and Regulation. It is a rather in-depth subject and it is difficult to consider every angle. It deals with what determines whether a programme can be broadcast or not and what precautions are put in place so assure sensitive issues are dealt with properly. The details of these issues and guidelines are decided by Ofcom, which describes itself as the "Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries". They are essentially the governing body for all broadcast material. The BBC also have their own guidelines but do not govern or make rulings on transmissions.

Issues

Trying to ascertain the issues that can be broadcast proves to be a tricky task. There are always more than you expect. Following is an attempt at a list of issues I have accumulated, which are often a matter of debate in programming:

• Racism
• Sexism
• Fakery
• Slander/libel
• Ageism
• Health and Safety
• Invasion of Privacy
• Censorship (watershed)
• Phone lines and competitions
• Child protection
• Consent
• Political bias/impartiality
• Sensationalism
• Advertising/commercial reference (guidelines on this differ from channel to channel)
• Secularism
• Offensive language
• Nudity/sexual imagery
• Harm and offence
• Hypnotism
• Crime
• Fairness

While this list may seem comprehensive, there could easily be several additions. If you consider the delicacy with which each subject must be dealt and how many intricacies there are in regulating them, it suddenly becomes incredibly difficult to write about each issue in detail.

Ofcom does a fantastic job of deciding what these issues are and how to define them. They were set up under the Communications Act of 2003 and are accountable to parliament. The Act stated that Ofcom's general duties should be to "further the interests of citizens and consumers".

One of the biggest controversies which Ofcom has had to deal with was "Queensgate" in 2007, where footage of a behind-the-scenes film about the monarchy was cut in the trailer in a way that suggested the Queen had stormed out of a photoshoot. As a result, the BBC1 controller, Peter Fincham resigned.

To  help myself understand the intricacies of the subject and to test what I already know, I have decided to take the BBC Safeguarding Trust Interactive quiz, which was created after the Queensgate controversy to assure nothing like that happened again. I got almost every question right and learnt a lot about how difficult it is deal with different situations which deal with these issues.