Ofcom

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Ofcom is the independent regulator and competition authority for the communication industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established in the enabling device, the Office of Communications Act 2002, but received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003. On December 29, 2003, Ofcom inherited the duties that had previously been the responsibility of five regulatory bodies:

• the Broadcasting Standards Commission,
• the Independent Television Commission,
• the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel),
• the Radio Authority, and
• the Radiocommunications Agency.

The inaugural chairman of Ofcom is David Currie, Dean of Cass Business School at City University and a life peer under the title Lord Currie of Marylebone. Its inaugural chief executive was Stephen Carter, formerly a senior executive of JWT UK and NTL. Its second, and current chief executive, is Ed Richards, formerly Ofcom strategy partner and COO and, previous to joining Ofcom, a government advisor.

The short form of the name is given as OFCOM (all capitals) in the Communications Act 2003, which established the Office of Communications. Ofcom itself uses the mixed case form seen here, which is also the more widespread in the media.

Ofcom's main office is at Riverside House, 2a, Southwark Bridge Road, Southwark, London SE1 9HA.

Responsibilities

Ofcom's responsibilities are wide-ranging, covering all manner of industries and processes. It has a statutory duty to further the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting consumers from harmful or offensive material.

Some of the main areas over which Ofcom presides are licensing, undertaking research, creating codes and policies, addressing complaints and looking into competition. Ofcom has developed a reputation for its tendency to issue a large number of consultations (there was even a consultation on the consultations). This however reflects Ofcom's intention to operate in a more open and accountable manner, being receptive to public and industry comments.

Consultations

Ofcom considers consultations to be a vital way of helping it to make the right decisions based upon the right evidence. Ofcom's formal process of consultation starts with their publishing a document (all of which are published on their website), asking for views and responses. If the document is long and complicated, Ofcom will usually publish a plain English summary.

Ofcom will then usually allow a period of ten weeks for interested persons, companies or organisations to read the document and send in their responses. After this ten week period, Ofcom will normally publish all of the responses on their website (excluding any which are marked by the respondent as confidential).

After the consultation has closed, Ofcom will prepare a summary of the responses, and may use this as a basis for some of their decisions. [1]

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Insert textInsert non-formatted text here]]===Programme complaints=== As the regulatory body for media broadcasts, part of Ofcom's duties are to examine specific complaints by viewers/listeners about programmes. When Ofcom receives a complaint it firstly asks the broadcaster for a copy of the programme, and it then examines the programme to see whether it is in breach of the broadcasting code. Ofcom also asks for a response from the broadcaster to the complaint. Considering these, Ofcom will mark the complaint as either upheld or not upheld, or alternatively 'resolved'.

In June 2004, Ofcom, having received complaints from twenty-four viewers, censured Fox News commentator John Gibson for stating that the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest". [2]. Ofcom held that these statements were untrue opinions based on false evidence that necessitated that Fox offer the BBC rebuttal time [3].

Perhaps one of the most controversial decisions made by Ofcom regarding a complaint was that regarding Jerry Springer: The Opera. Having received a large number of complaints from various viewers, Ofcom decided there had been no breach of the broadcasting code, citing the broadcaster's right of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

One recent decision which attracted much media attention was Ofcom's decision to restrict junk food advertising aimed at children.

In January 2007 Ofcom received over 44,500 complaints regarding the fifth series of Celebrity Big Brother and racial issues concerning Shilpa Shetty and Jade Goody. This was Ofcom's highest ever complaints response, and higher than that of any other media regulator.

Licensing

Ofcom is responsible for the management, regulation, assignment and licensing of the electromagnetic spectrum in the UK, and licenses portions of it for use in TV and radio broadcasts, mobile phone transmissions, private communications networks, and so on. The process of licensing varies depending on the type of usage required. Some licenses simply have to be applied for and paid for, others are subject to a bidding process. Most of the procedures in place have been inherited from the systems used by the legacy regulators. However, Ofcom may change some of the processes in future.

Criticism

Ofcom was created to take the place of five previous regulators to deal with the technological convergence of media platforms, and some claim this burden may be too great for it. For example in the broadband industry users complaining to Ofcom about poor services are met with "Ofcom does not investigate individual consumer complaints". Failed ISPs like E7Even and Euro1net are examples of this. E7Even collected fees for up to 4 years in advance and also took payments for MAX upgrades. It also had a "billing error" where most of the thousands of prepaying customers were billed incorrectly. Despite all these problems being reported to Ofcom it opened its "own-initiative investigation" by which time E7Even had collapsed, leaving customers and suppliers owed thousands of pounds.

Ofcom's failure to provide a compulsory MAC code scheme means that customers of failed ISPs like E7Even and Euro1net end up having to find new service providers and pay a connection fee of up to £60, which would not be required if they could use MAC codes to move to other providers.

In response to situations such as those highlighted above, however, Ofcom are making the MAC process compulsory from 14th February 2007 [4], meaning that in future similar situations, customers of failing ISPs will be less severely inconvenienced and cannot be "locked in", with Ofcom actually having authority to intervene when a service provider fails to comply with the MAC process.

Ofcom has also failed to make a single decision of infringement under its considerable competition law powers. Neither has it exercised its powers of dawn raid. During the same period, the Office of Fair Trading (which has competition law jurisdiction in other industries) has issued many infringement decisions and has exercised its dawn raid powers on multiple occasions.

Action on BSkyB

Ofcom has allegedly failed to regulate or take any corrective action against British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) in the way it operates the UK's dominant Dsat platform. On May 9 2007 a case brought by Rapture TV to Ofcom concerning the BSkyB EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) went to Appeal at the Competition Commission Appeals Tribunal (CAT).

During the hearing which was heard on 18th and 19th of December 2007 Ofcom was unable to answer questions as to why they had not investigated further the costs and claims made by BSkyB. It was confirmed by Ofcom that they had made no attempt to investigate the running costs or the investment claims made by BSkyB. Instead Ofcom confirmed that it has relied soley on a BSkyB supplied document called 'Sky Platfom Model'. Ofcom and BSkyB confirmed that the 'Sky Platform Model' was in fact several years out of date and had not been produced for the purpose of being supplied to the regulator.

Ofcom could also not offer any answer to the Tribnal as to why Ofocm had used its statuory powers under section 191 of the Communications Act 2003 to obtain confidential business plans from Rapture. The plans in question had not been disclosed to BSkyB or referred to in the previous failed negotiations between BSkyB and Rapture TV.

The transcript of the hearings are available at http://www.rapturetv.com/files/Tran(1)1082Rapture181207.pdf and http://www.rapturetv.com/files/Tran(2)1082Rapture191207.pdf

This case is the first of its kind and the ruling will have far reaching affects for the whole of the UK broadcasting industry.

See also

• Advertising Standards Authority
• Press Complaints Commission
• UK topics
• ISPA
• ITU
• FCC

External links

• Ofcom website
  • Ofcom Broadcast Codes
• OfcomWatch - Ofcom-related blog