Service Ethos & Regulations

Public Ethos- The Royal Charter Agreement

Public service broadcasting is based on the principles of universality of service. From 1st January The Royal Charter Agreement set out the public purposes of the BBC and is the constitutional basis for the BBC. The Charter outlines the duties of the trust and Executive Board and guarantees its independence, and has been throughout it’s history. Their mission is ‘to enrich peoples lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.’

Free Market Ethos- The Broadcasting Act 1990

The Broadcasting Act 1990 is a law of the British parliament, the aim was to reform the entire structure of British broadcasting British Television. The act allowed for the creation of a 5th analogue television channel, which was named Channel 5, it also allowed the growth of multichannel satellite television. It also limited the power of the BBC, which previously produced the vast majority of its television programming in-house, was now obliged to source at least 25% of its output from independent production companies. The act allowed companies that had hold of the ITV franchise to take over other companies, this process led to the creation of ITV plc.

Regulation

TV is currently regulated by the media regulator Ofcom. The Office of Communications Act 2002 set up Ofcom with  the aim to protect audiences in areas such as taste, decency, fairness and privacy. With the increase of on-demand services self-regulated company called the Association for Television on Demand, was set up to regulate online programming, with similar aims than Ofcom.

Currently online videos are much harder to regulate because anyone, anywhere can upload a video to the internet, and there is no legal regulation of online video. Many elements such as, racial hatred and blasphemy are still illegal online, but there is so much content created all the time coming from all around the world, making it extremely difficult to create any applicable laws. The European Union is in the process of updating its laws, with the aim to protect children from sex and violence and set new limits on advertising. But many people are against this as this will take away peoples freedom with posting what ever they what instantly online.

Television Ratings

Rating Wars

In 2006 the digital switchover occurred where analog television broadcasting is converted to and replaced by digital television. Before this switch over and digital television channels  there were only up to five channels. After the digital switchover and there was no terrestrial analogue television being broadcast, freeview is now that only way terrestrial TV gets delivered. Freeview is a television service which broadcasts over 60 channels,  26 digital radio channels, 4, HD channels and 6 text services.

With the huge increase of all these new free-to-air channels, plus popularity increase of pay-tv satellite broadcasting such as SKY there are a huge number of channels available, this makes it harder for broadcasters such as BBC and ITV to maintain a mass audiences as now its becoming more competitive than ever to attract more audiences in different ways and stay profitable. As the two channels are competing for the same element, they are sometimes seen to battle against each other. One of the most popular conflict is the ratings war between The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing which are two completely different talent show, but every weekend the shows battle against each other to receive the highest ratings.

Effects of on-demand services 

There are many television on demand and catch up services such as, 4oD, BBC inlayer, Demand 5, ITV player and Sky Go. These are internet services allowing the audience to access programmes through the internet. We now live in a society where people want to be able to watch what they want, where they want, when they want, and services like these do exactly that. The problem with having a fragment audience is that it makes it much difficult to measure the overall audience, and clearly understand which programme is most successful.

Effects of streaming on line in terms of censorship

Many online services try and to protect young people from seeing inappropriate material online, like the fact that you have to fill in your age before viewing over rated material, but many young people under the required age just fill in a fake age, this is an example of why protecting young people from certain material is extreamly difficult. Many services online now require you to prove your age through your email, which is difficlut for people to get pass and lie, therefore this process would be more effective. Programming  online services like 4oD are blocked by a pin, which again is a good way from prevented young people from seeing certain things, but isnt secure as it won’t be hard to get hold of the pin.