Goodbye ITC

Not really, there is such a thing as too much regulation




Surely that is the democratisation of broadcasting. For the first time ever anyone, with enough money and they stay within the rules can have their own TV station. Plularity of the media is definately a good thing



It will be roughly the same, you can't suddenly impose 1980's rules on a 21st century broadcasting environment

Indeed, I think the vast majority of OFCOM's staff have transferred from one of the previous regulators. Those making the decisions about TV under OFCOM will be predominately the same people who did it under the ITC.

But then the vast majority of ITC and RA staff were from the IBA. Continuation of staff doesn't necessarily mean continuation of policy

I agree, but it is highly debatable whether 'a lot of regulation' is too much. At the moment there is too little regulation, and when it's got to the stage when broadcasters argue back decisions and the regulator tensely negotiates a settlement (like the way News at Ten was reinstated) rather than the broadcasters receiving their orders and just doing what they are told makes the regulator a laughing stock. The ITC's entirely life was spent bowing to the pressures of broadcasters to clear hurdles out of the way for even more deregulation. When regulations are simply hurdles rather than barriers, it makes a complete mockery of the point of reguation.


I agree. But there should be quality standards which every channel will be held to and you would then need enough money to make sure your service meets them. Cheaper access to TV means cheaper TV, which then means the more profitable broadcasters can cheapen their own output because there will always be someone cheaper than themselves and so they will never hit rock bottom - which I do not believe is a good thing.


The regulator sets the broadcasting environment! The current situation of hundreds of digital channels and an ITV network virtually turned into a single national channel was not some sort of destiny of British TV; It happened because the regulator let it happen. The '21st century market place' is a myth - it has changed only because the shackles which held it up to standard have been removed - if the IBA or a similar style of regulation had stayed on those shackles would still be there, TV would still be of a high standard and crucially, would still be commercially viable and financially sound just as it was in the 80's. And conversely, if those shackles had been removed in the 80's, TV would have gone the same way it has now, only 10 years earlier.

technology has advanced but that is not a direct cause nor a reason to introduce deregulation. Technology had advanced between the 60's and the 80's too, with a number of implications for commercial broadcasting, but this did not translate into a deregulated marketplace, standards stayed the same, the broadcasters still made money. Why then did are changes in technology between the 80's and the 2000's any different?

The marketplace did not have to change, there was no intrinsic need to deregulate commercial broadcasting (ITV in particular), no need to make TV so cheap to access that digital platforms have to have 3 digit channel numbers, TV was just fine the way it was.

Yes technology changed and yes there would be development of more services. Yes we would have digital broadcasting and widescreen and surround sound and 24 hour news channels and pay TV - but crucially, it would all be done with quality as it's centrepiece. Yes that does mean that Sky would probably only have 20 or 30 channels instead of hundreds - but they'd been 20 or 30 good channels instead of a few vaguely good channels, a lot of mediocre channels, and god knows how many shopping channels.

And this would be an entirely fair and viable system because every broadcaster would have to work to the same rulebook.

The broadcasters that have the money would be forced to spend it, and wannabe broadcasters who don't really have the means to put out a decent TV service wouldn't be allowed on the airwaves. The decent broadcasters are in and kept up to standard, the crap are kept out. I realise that means that shareholder payoffs and profits aren't as high as they are now, but it does mean that the viewer gets a decent quality service out of commercial broadcasters. Since that's what the regulator is supposed to be there for, what is so intrinsically bad about it?

God knows what it will be like seeing as we have self-proclaimed Christian Jonathan Edwards on the board.

Do you think that the government would allow such restrictive practises?
What if there was an organisation that regulated magazines and ruled that we could only have, say, 100 magazines and it had final say on all editorial. It would be ridiculous as would old style regulation today, in the globalised world of the internet.



The one thing that you're forgetting is that the change from 4 channels to lots was triggered by something outside the control of any UK authority, and it was related to a technological change. The availability of satelite television in a the world of mass consumer electronics and the way it allowed broadcasters to access UK viewers from outside the country.

It was that which changed everything. They couldn't leave them as unregulated foreign broadcasters so started regulating them.... but you can't have one set of rules for some and another for the others.

Well to some extent you do have one some of rules for some and another for others - the main 3 terrestrial commercial channels are still regulated a bit more tightly than the broadcasters - Channel 4 even has a public service remit. True, the gap is closing all the time, but I still don't see them ever being as completely free as the satellite broadcasters.

But assuming that they are moving to eventually having a completely even playing field, with ITV and Sky One being subject to identical levels of regulation, why could you not have brought the satellite broadcasters up to standard rather than lowering the terrestrials?

Since Sky Digital started, Sky overnight became much more rooted in the UK with their stranglehold (and for a time, complete monopoly) over UK dsat broadcasting. The technical possibility of regulating Sky more tightly exists in a way that never did before - and yet it's still more or less a law unto itself. The forcing of them to give up some of their football rights (and then only by a European court) is the first example I can think of in many years of serious control being weilded over them. What was the point of introducing regulation for satellite channels if their existing philosopy of 100% commercial, 0% quality was the benchmark from which they started - and from which the other more tightly controlled channels would aspire to become.

And in any case, I don't see that the multi tiered system (which still does exist, albeit not quite as markedly as it once did) was completely unworkable. Even today, the majority of people (and the vast, vast majority of TV sets) can still only pick up 4/5 channels - their viewing choice has not expanded at all. Only 2 commercial broadcasters in the country enjoy 100% reception on every TV. That has kept them up in the top - ITV still has 50% of advertising revenue. I don't see that that situation would be much different if they were still more tightly controlled.

In 10-15 years time when analogue terrestrial is gone and ITV/C4/C5 really do have to compete with lots of LCD channels, then it would be unfair to hold them up to standards with other broadcasters do not adhere to.

But as long as that is not the case, I see nothing wrong (and see nothing unworkable) with holding them up to standard as a cut above the rest. Deregulation might have been inevitable at some point, but imo that point is not even here now - and it certainly wasn't here in 1993.

I agree with cwathen on all his points.

If such plurality of the media is a good thing, does this mean that to extend this idea Larry Scutta's idea of good TV is where we all turn to the kind of amateur-produced pap that American PBS stations turf out from studios that are nothing more than huts with a camcorder or two in them, where members of the public just stand there and think of things to say, or project their neuroses or obscure personalitiies over the airwaves?

Do we really want all our TV to turn into Manhattan Cable?

Many DSat channels are a waste of time and are nothing more than money-making vehicles. Even magazines and newspapers have more editorial per advertising inches than many DSat channels - and even The Sun is wittier than the so-called 'celebrities' who front many of the shows.

So what if somebody has the cash to set up a shoestring TV operation and bring in loads of money by broadcasting Babe Station III or TeleShopperWorld in their night hours? Very often these channels start badly, continue badly and then get wound up. Friendly TV, for instance, would have closed long before now if they hadn't gone for the XXX factor in their night hours. It apparently was the only other thing they could show other than an open vision channel of a camera pointing at an empty set or at an LCD monitor between the sofas.

Then you get things like BEN (Black Entertainment Network) which, although worthy in its aims, is low in technical quality and should be kept to some sort of local distribution system. Allowing non-pros to broadcast as openly as pros means that real, live TV channels are being used as training grounds rather than spending the money on Media Colleges that could train these people to a professional standard in private and then point them towards apprenticeships with established channels, before creating their own. Very often the films that such channels show look like bootleg copies made by pointing a camcorder at a sheet onto which a film is projected with a 16mm projector, with the audio equally sounding as if it's coming through an open mike from the projector's loudspeaker. So much for pin-sharp digital picture and sound quality.

At least bid-up.tv and price-drop.tv and TV Travel Shop, etc. have decent technical standards, nice presentation and professional presenters who have personality. I'm not against "selling TV" per se and I'm not against a bit of free-market enterprise. However there should still be a quality threshold and it should still be enforcable.

I think any business should only be able to make money if it tries to make a decent product in order to make that money. All forms of media can be subserved by amateur outfits producing material outside regulatory systems - but that's no reason why there shouldn't be a "gold standard" which professional media merchants have to follow and which others are benchmarked against.

But the UK isn't the same as the US, we don't need cheap public service shows - we have the publically owned BBC and Ch4 producing quality public service programmes.





So what, it's their money, if they're no good and they go bust they go bust -no-one elses problem. Bandwidth is ample, their exsistance isn't preventing anyone else from broadcasting.




'Quality' is a subjective concept though. Who should be able to determine what is and isn't good

I would make a change to broadcasting law, such that all subscription channels become just that - with no advertising. You either become a free to air commercial advertising channel or a subscription channel with no advertising whatsoever.
At the moment Sky are getting away with murder, and will continue to do so as long as Murdoch has Tony Bleughh in his pocket.

Even though that would mean loads of channels closing down? You'd probably end up with extremely high subscriptions and everything else would be like Friendly TV. Sky and the other few big players would be more dominant than they are now



Other subscription TV stations are availiable

'getting away with murder' is a bit strong.... that's how commercial TV works, and not just in the UK either.

Just thinking... the new series of 'Footballers Wives' is meant to be an absolute sex show according to reports - with at least 2 gay storylines leaked so far. So I was thinking - could the newfound controversy be due to the relaxing of the laws?