UK TELEVISION

UK Television

UK Television

Until the dawn of the new millennia, the television regulation of the United Kingdom remained framed according to the 1990 Broadcasting Act which was introduced exactly ten years ago (Ward, 2008). The act, although pivotal in terms of allowing the authorization of digital services, did not do much to actually bring changes to the manner in which broadcasting was being regulated at the time. However, with the dawn of the 21st century, a series of radical changes were made into the television regulations and certain institutions were introduced as a result. From 2000 to 2010, a set of new institutions were established for the broadcasting regulation of the United Kingdom that were built upon a radical reconsideration over the communications policy of the country (Ward, 2008). The changes that were introduced were incremental in nature and set restrictions to several trends that were dominant in the television media such as liberalization and marketisation.

After it was elected in the year 1997, Labour for an entire decade until they were eventually ousted by a coalition government led by the conservatives in 2010. With the start of the 21st century, Labour published a document known as the White Paper which outlined a New Future for Communications (Snoddy, 1999). The White Paper proposed the establishment of an office of communications called Ofcom, detailing how it would propagate ideas regarding the 2003 Communications Act and the policies enclosed within it. In stark contrast to the policies introduced by its predecessors, the new Labour government, welcomed radical restructuring and reformation of traditional policies (Smith, 2006, p. 927-40). Until 2000, the regulatory framework had essentially remained unaltered from the one being used in 1990. However, ITC (Independent Television Commission regulated all the content that was being broadcast on public service channel such as Channel 5, Channel 4, and ITV (Petley, 2010, p. 602-13).

This was accompanied with a noticeable increase in the overall number of channels that were purely commercial in nature. Although self governed channels like the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) remained subject to a Royal Agreement and Charter, the trend of international governance was picking up pace and the influence was an overwhelming one. Broadcasting in the UK was influenced by, Television Without Frontiers, a European Directive launched in 1989 and refined in 1997 (Ofcom, 2004). The aim of the directive was to ensure relaxation of rules relating to the content teleshopping, advertising and self-promotion on channels. By 2007, the AVMS (Audio Visual Media Service) Directive was unveiled by the European Commission and this encouraged channels to become even more liberalized. It also defined a set of basic standards for content that was allowed to be broadcast on channels.

However, although broadcasting regulations were increasingly being influenced by supra-national rules, the authority to make critical decisions relating to the content and structure of channels stayed in the hands of the UK government. The ten-year period between 2000 and 2010 was marked with consistent devolution of the UK television ...