Sexuality in the Media
by Martin Williams, June 7th, 2011
The government has called for sexual imagery in the media to be significantly reduced, and possibly even for legislation to be drafted to deal with this problem. David Cameron is supporting the Mothers’ Union chaired by Reg Bailey, who have called for Ofcom to review the current broadcasting code to prevent “raunchy” performances being aired before 21:00.
Everyone who watched it will recall the highly sexual shows put on by Rihanna and Christina Aguilera in ITV’s X Factor final show in 2010. The two female performers are international popstars and during the show Christina pranced about with semi-nude burlesque dancers, while Rihanna was strutting her stuff in a strapless bra and a pair of knickers. The show brought about numerous complaints by parents whose children had been watching the provocative performances.
More recently, the government has recommended that sexually suggestive scenes are not permitted to be broadcast before the watershed. Lesbian embraces broadcast on evening soap operas and explicit advertisements displayed on high street billboards or bus stops are examples of the kind of material being considered to be banned.
The intention is to prevent children from being exposed to “indecent images” and to ensure that their innocence remains in tact.
The report prepared by Reg Bailey following a review has for now indicated that regulation of sexualisation is voluntary.
At the end of the day, it may just be a question of the old saying that sex sells and what is suitable for children under the age of 15 is for their parents to decide.
By Rebecca Pitt
Two fingers up to Mr Murdoch and the FAPL
by Martin Williams, February 5th, 2011
Although the European Court of Justice, based in Luxembourg, is yet to provide a final ruling on this issue, European Commission advocate genera Juliette Kokott has given a good indication of what that ruling might be.
A landlady, Karen Murphy from Portsmouth, was prosecuted by Football Association Premier League Limited (FAPL) and convicted for using a Greek satellite TV provider to watch Premier League football and she ended up paying out £8,000.00 in fines and legal fees.
In the UK, the only service providers with rights to broadcast Premier League Football are Sky and ESPN – before ESPN, it was Setanta but they ended up insolvent.
The advocate from ECJ has said that broadcasters cannot stop customers using foreign satellite services for TV that are cheaper, and that to try to prevent customers from doing so would breach European law.
According to FAPL, if the ECJ make a formal ruling endorsing the advocate’s view, then it will “damage the interests of broadcasters and viewers of Premier League football across the EU”. Quite what this “damage” would be is not quite clear…
If the ruling is confirmed, it will mean that broadcasters will not be able to sell sports, movies or any other television content on an exclusive territory-by territory basis.
This is another kick in the teeth to the Murdoch empire following all the bad publicity surrounding the Gray and Keys video leaks.
Local TV Stations, a Media Owner’s View
by Jason Edge, January 29th, 2011
“Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is to invite companies to run local TV stations and make the proposed new services a reality.”
As Managing Director of a local radio station, Juice 107.2FM, based in Brighton & Hove, I welcome this news. For too long listeners and viewers alike have seen local content fall away considerably from their media outlets. Yes, the huge technological advances have enabled consumers to digest their media across a variety of high speed platforms with minimum effort and at low cost.
However, all of the research conducted by our radio station shows that the people of our City want: local news; local sports updates; local event highlights; local weather reports and local traffic/travel bulletins as opposed to news stretching 150 miles away as part of massive media regions in some cases stretching across Hants; Sussex; Surrey; Oxfordshire and Kent.
With regions this large, it makes it almost impossible to dedicate too much airtime/tv coverage to local content. Juice 107.2 has increased its listener figures to 70,000 per week – a rise of 50% over a 5 year period. This growth is largely down to the “super local” content we offer to our listeners and I am sure similar TV content would be well received within the City of Brighton & Hove.
RYAN HEAL
Managing Director
Brighton’s Juice 107.2
RADIO MADE IN BRIGHTON
Localism, Coming to a TV Screen Near You?
by Dean Orgill, January 28th, 2011
Yes, and soon if Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s vision materialises.
Mr Hunt’s department has set out its wishes in the Local Media Action Plan.
The Big Society on TV would see more local, as opposed to regional, programming.
But how will that aim, generally accepted by the media industry as a laudable one, be achieved and by whom?
The proposal, in broad outline, is for a further digital channel to act as a national “spine” of programming with local partners opting in and out to the extent that they feel is appropriate and/or viable.
This has been criticised as a “top down” policy, rather than being a “bottom up” grass roots policy which community groups see as being essential to reflect truly local needs and issues.
Unless that approach is adopted, they argue, there can be no television equivalent of the local press or local radio, which all parties in the debate appear to agree, currently performs a vital role in reflecting local issues and (crucially) scrutinising local democratic government.
Unless it can perform those functions local TV will struggle to justify its existence.
The present proposal however also seems to have practical issues as well as philosophical ones to address.
The balancing of the required funding needs of the central spine and those of the local channels is an extremely difficult conundrum, and not one which appears to be solved in the current proposals.
The local advertising spend and media investment are already allocated to existing radio and print media. The total pot of business spend is very unlikely to increase in the foreseeable future.
Also, the spine channel will be competing in a national arena which is already seeing a significant battle for advertising revenue between the existing players. Again it is unlikely that this pot will increase in the short to medium term – if at all.
Ultimately, as with so much of life, the future is likely to be internet based. IPTV is deemed to be some years off, yet surely some form of convergence with existing media outlets and delivery over the Internet is far more likely to deliver the truly local TV desired.
The current proposal may therefore be viewed by many as an interim one and as such will that be attractive to capital investment?
If not, and the plans go ahead, it seems public subsidy may be required. This will eat up funds better allocated elsewhere whilst in the meantime entrepreneurs and innovators could develop and evolve IPTV of some sort. This is likely to have a greater long term stability and so provide sustainable localism from grass roots upwards.