Applied Media Unit 1: Essay
With reference to specific examples, explain how Ofcom has affected the output of the 5 main British broadcasters.
Ofcom is a regulatory body for all television broadcasters, telecommunication and radio communication. It initially merged in 2003 taking full responsibilities that the 5 regulatory bodies previously had. It maintains control over these mediums so that inappropriate words and images, which could be seen as harmful or offensive, are not broadcasted to the millions of viewers of both television and radio. Ofcom supervises licensing, commissioning research, generating codes and policies and tackling complaints. On the other hand Ofcom also promotes competitions and helps to progress the interest of viewers.
Ofcom monitors what broadcasters outsource and allows them to outsource 25% of their programming. This enables independent production companies to make 25% of the programmes of for example the BBC and ITV. The BBC is owned by the public and is fed by TV licensing conversely, ITV is owned predominantly by Carlton/Granada. The obvious difference being BBC does not have advertisements where as ITV does. Thus putting ITV at an advantage however, BBC is more popular due to this difference. BBC has a wide variety of programmes from other countries varying from Hey Arthur to Diagnosis murder and most of the films broadcasted are also from outsourcing. Nevertheless, ITV also broadcasts Gossip girl, Americas got talent and Smallville yet again none of them being British. Second of all, it also allows other countries to purchase British programmes which could also increase their audiences and make the destinations more popular as on many occasions when there is nothing left to do whilst being abroad some people find comfort n being able to flick through channels and find at least one British programme being broadcasted.
On the one hand outsourcing increases the viewing audience as it allows the British audience to view programmes which we would be normally unable to watch, it provides a wider selection for the public to choose from and also it could make for e.g. the BBC and ITV more money.
On the contrary, outsourcing could also result in the loss of money if programmes are sold cheaply, the programmes bought may not be as popular as before or the people employed by for e.g. the BBC or ITV may get less work to do due to the amount of outsourcing.
Consequently, outsourcing has it advantages and disadvantages to the production and broadcasting of programmes and the companies themselves.
Although Ofcom helps to regulate what broadcasters emanate, there have been occasions where Ofcom has had to sanction some television channels in some major instances for example, the Shetty vs. Goody race row. During the fifth series of celebrity big brother 2007, a spin-off of big brother, a friction was born against Shetty from Goody, Lloyd and O’meara. This one series had engrossed the largest number of complaints to Watchdog giving meticulous apprehensions that Shetty had been subjected to bullying which connoted racism. She was called “Shilpa Poppa Dom” “dog” and told “to f*** off home” by Lloyd. Many protests were held; also as a result Big brothers main sponsor Carphone Warehouse suspended its sponsorship of the show, Goody’s perfume was boycotted by consumers and taken off the shelves by some stores. As a result of the complaints Ofcom suspended the show having run for only 26 days, also it made the contestants involved apologize to Shilpa. This had a massive impact on Big brother and channel 4 on a whole it slashed the number of viewers dramatically and the sixth edition of Big Brother was delayed and released in January 2009.
Another controversy was the Blue peter cat naming scandal in 2006 where viewers were asked via an online poll to name the latest animal to blue peter group. Many children voted and the name ‘cookie’ had come out on top however, blue peter did not choose that name and instead ignored the name ‘cookie’ and called it ‘socks’, creating again a wave of complaints from the viewers. As a result Ofcom intervened and fined BBC £50,000 due to the Blue peter scandal, the editor Richard Marson was moved from his post and later quit. Also as a result presenter Konnie Huq left Blue peter after 10 years of wanting to leave treating this as the final straw.
Blue peter lost ratings severly as it was cut from three shows per week to two and also lost the trust and respect of its loyal viewers after this scandal.
A second scandal from blue peter was the phone-in scandal where the ‘shoebiz appeal’ was rigged. That day someone visiting blue peter phoned in pretending to be a caller who had won the competition and had the opportunity to select a prize. The results were rigged they say because there was a technical error with the phone lines. This scandal along side the cat naming scandal accumulated to the severe loss of respect and initially a huge sum of money fined by Ofcom to the BBC. It is apparent that Blue Peter’s popularity has decreased and evidently it is losing the renowned name of the best longest running children’s programme in British television.
To conclude, Ofcom is like the fairy godmother for the public as it creates stability for smaller independent production companies, it allows viewers to complain about issues that upset them and also provides building blocks for the ever-evolving media industry. It holds together many aspects that without them the television and radio industries could be in a sense corrupt. It allows media to be spread amongst the world creating a bridge for viewers to gain educational aspects and also good entertainment. It allows public to have a sense of security from knowing that they can view or tune into moderately safe channels be it on the radio or television. Also it doesn’t allow television channels to take advantage of viewers and get away with it.
On the whole, I think that allowing Ofcom to have this control over the telecommunication and radio communication industries it has aided British media to mature.
