Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin

Music videos.
Which according to the blurb were actually sponsored by Ford. At this point in time you'll never get that over here, by which I mean the concept of sponsoring an individual portion of a programme. You either sponsor the lot or you don't sponsor it at all. I don't mean sponsoring the weather, its often presented as a separate programme anyway.

Reading the Ofcom report would seem to suggest the music videos in question featured cars that were doing things on their own - one such entry reads "one video had a matador theme with a Ford Mustang car playing the part of the bull." What an image that conjures up.



Product Placement is currently prohibited in this country and Europe however if you watch any James Bond film you get hit with blatant plugs for Aston Martin, for example. Yet if we were to do "James Bond: The TV Series" he sure as heck wouldn't be driving an Aston Martin.

Even where ITV2 has tried to limit the amount of product placement that's all over American Idol, it's blatantly obvious that the programme's being funded by shots of Coca Cola cups and Ford Cars and anything and everything. I dare say the production would be cheap to make to them if the likes of Ford and Coca Cola are paying for the majority of it.

Having said that, there are good reasons for why we outlawed product placement in programming in the first place, mainly because we've had a specific requirement to keep editorial and advertising separate for many years now. We've only had sponsor bumpers since the late 1980s for example, and even today advertising is on average 12 mins an hour, even if it does feel a lot more on occasions.

Compared to the US where adverts are more frequent, anything and everything can be sponsored and product placement is rife in programming, British Television used to be regarded as the best in the world. Whether it still is is debatable, but it's more watchable than a lot of US TV filler-crap that isn't imported because they know its crap.

Looking down the list, what's this about animal welfare on Deal or No Deal? Higgly Town Heroes is complained about? Why? A Police Camera Action ITV4 airing was flagged up I see for accuracy. It was accurate when it originally aired ten years ago. Our old friend Quiz Call is still there with the same old complaints. People are too quick to complain these days considering the number of one-off complaints there are.

Are you complaining?

Yep - my understanding was that if the channel is originated here i.e. the programme playout operation and uplink are based in the UK then it requires a UK broadcast licence from Ofcom.



I believe God TV relocated so that their operation was based outside the Ofcom jurisdiction so that they could be more "flexible" with their content. In particular the Ofcom (and prior to that ITC) code had a very strong line on religious channels asking for money to fund their operations - i.e. televangelism.

ISTR that once God TV were no longer operating or uplinking from the UK they didn't need Ofcom licences and could do more or less what they liked (subject to the rules of their new home?)

Not sure what the "UK" platform access requires. Whether Sky EPG membership requires some standards to be met that Ofcom stipulate I doubt...



It may also be that they are uplinked from outside the UK - as well as being based outside the UK - though I thought British Eurosport was from Feltham (and uplinked by Arqiva) - so it could be more complex?

And sex/nudity on something called a ''Lawn or Porn Competition'' on some Scottish radio station.

That's what I thought, don't knw what they still do in Sunderland, they're curently advertising some jobs over here



There doesn't seem to be much on what the rules are, I suspect that a channel just has to be licensed in one country and the uplink doesn't matter.

Going by what they share a transponder with, I'm pretty sure that both British Eurosport and God TV are uplinked from the UK

How can you have nudity on radio?

Anyway I think it's fine for people to complain when something is obviously not acceptable and maybe even borderline.

But I swear some of these people do it for fun!

You can have sexual content on radio by inviting listeners to chat and interact on 696.9 SW.

Nudity, on the other hand, is a different matter. The radio receiver would need to have two subwoofers and a tuning knob.

If these people are doing it 'just for fun', then surely they're wasting public money by making Ofcom investigate these claims?

I am quite surprised that C4 got upheld on that actually.

I like the idea of a thread for this sort of thing - good to discuss it.

The most recent series of Richard and Judy has some features individually sponsored (by means of a simple caption at the start and the end of the segment).

Strong cheese?

That is definitely not the case. GMTV is a good example of segment advertising. They used to have the one minute TV segments which were sponsored, competitions are always courtesy of something, the Pick of the Day segment is sponsored, the weather is sponsored - LK Today is sponsored.

Then you go to the regions, and the weather is advertised there!

Thought people might be interested to read the latest (I am a couple of weeks late posting this) Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin as it contains a number of methods used to solve those "Add all the numbers" and "How many X?" style games that were popular during the phone quiz heyday.

The number of complaints and fines against the 'babe' channels in recent times is quite worrying. I wonder if someone or some organisation is running an orchestrated campaign against them.

Summary
Full Version