UK's State sponsored TV Programmes

Inquiry into television shows funded by ministers

The Government has spent almost £2 million to fund programmes that are all but indistinguishable from regular shows, The Sunday Telegraph has established.

But unlike normal documentaries, the programmes are commissioned by ministers with the purpose of showing their policies or activities in a sympathetic light.

The media watchdog Ofcom has disclosed that it had opened an investigation into one of the programmes, Beat: Life on the Street — about the Government’s controversial Police Community Support Officers, to see whether it breached its broadcasting code.

Media freedom campaigners, broadcasters and opposition politicians expressed alarm over the Government-funded documentaries.

The Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow said: “I find it extraordinary. So the Government is funding commercial television productions highlighting government policy? Presumably they don’t criticise government policy.”

The Government has funded at least eight television series or individual programmes in the past five years.

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I'm sure I remember seeing this is BROADCAST a couple of months ago and that Ofcom were already looking into whether it was politically driven reporting or not.

It's abit late for the Telegraph to suddenly jump on the story, unless there are new developments.

What channels have these programmes appeared on?

The article says it was on ITV.
Government funded advertising isn't new (think the regular "don't drink and drive" campaign) but Government funded programming (aside from party political broadcasts) is a potential slippery slope on the way to propaganda programming,

Propaganda broadcasting is often found in countries with a totalitarian dictatorship. Nazi Germany is probably the best known example of this, with every way of life singing the praises of Adolf Hitler at every opportunity.

Not that we're going to go this far, with any luck OFCOM will put paid to the programming with a suitably large fine which ironically will go back to the Government. Everybody knows that Community Support Officers are essentially plastic police and policing on the cheap, they can only do citizen's arrests which everybody is then told not to do as you can then be sued for assault. I don't quite see how a documentary is going to change an entire country's opinion of the plastic police.

> The article says it was on ITV.

<groan>

Quelle surprise...

This is a complete shambles. As much as I admire the work of PCSOs (especially under the red tape and stupidity they operate under) this is simply odious that ITV allowed the Government to taint its programming. Time for Ofcom to perform a quick summons of the hefty fine fairy, methinks...

I'm actually really shocked at this. That a government in a liberal democracy should try to manipulate the media in this way is nothing short of scandalous. It's something I might have expected to happen in Zimbabwe or North Korea, but not here in Britain. Absolutely, utterly appalling.

It's bad enough that the government spends millions buying advertising space on radio and TV (the COI is the biggest advertiser on commercial radio) to tacitly promote their policies, but that it should have an editorial influence on programming flies in the face of the fundamental principles of a democracy.

And the fact that ITV has allowed this to happen IMO is far worse than any premium-rate phone scandal.

Yes I totally agree with you, but I'm not surprised. Sadly our country is not much of a liberal democracy these days, decreasingly so in fact. This incident is redolent of North Korea or the former Soviet Union.... perhaps people have a point when they call Brown a "Stalinist".

In my opinion this government has consistently shown its commitment to authoritarian policies-- and consequently an obession with government spin. This incident is just the latest worrying development I feel. Private Eye's epithet of "Comrade Brown" is increasingly apt

I really do hope Ofcom come down hard on ITV for this, if Ofcom were any kind of regulator it would do so.