Category Archives: Regulation
Monday 21st May 2012
Two weeks ago, as reported in our news section, the European Commission released its latest Study of the Audiovisual Services Directive (AVMS). This Study specifically reviewed Articles 13, 16 and 17. The Study is a result of a requirement in the Directive that the performance of these clauses should be reviewed every two years. These clauses are about securing a given amount of European content on broadcast media, including new online services. They do not relate to cinematic releases of films or retail media like DVDs. The clauses … Read more…
Tuesday 24th April 2012
The BBC is advertising for a new Director General. Like many others I have been asked what I think. About 25 years ago I was asked the same question by the Times. It was a very different era. The UK was arousing itself from a long period of decline. What I wrote looks naive now. The UK needs growth again but the Government’s “growth strategy” does not include the BBC, the UK’s largest media company — though outside observers remind us from time to time that the UK should be … Read more…
Thursday 19th January 2012
Overseas Performance Matters The Report makes one obvious point about film that is too easily forgotten. From 72% of the box office for films made exclusively with UK money to 86% of the box office for co-productions, all successful films in which Britain is involved must get over ¾ of their revenue overseas. That should not be a surprise. If a middle sized country is to be a player in a global world, it must have premium products and services that get most of their revenues from somewhere … Read more…
Thursday 17th November 2011
A recent piece in the Economist drew attention to the leading role of the UK in the global format business. According to research from Fremantle, the international producer and format owner, the UK currently provides 43% of the formats in international distribution. As the article correctly argues, this is a direct result of reforms in Britain starting in the 1990’s. As the Economist writes: Like financial services, television production took off in London as a result of government action. In the early 1990s broadcasters were told to commission at … Read more…
Tuesday 30th August 2011
I was fortunate to hear Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, speak at the Edinburgh Television Festival and to attend the Question and Answer session the following morning. Schmidt posed one big question — in my view a massively important one: why hasn’t a country like the UK built large technology companies? (He reminded us that the first commercial use of a computer was at the headquarters of J. Lyons, once famous for its tea shops, in West London). For the audience of British TV Executives the question took a … Read more…
Posted in
AVMS Directive,
BBC,
C4,
Communications Bill,
European Union,
Exports,
Globalisation,
Google,
Media,
Ofcom,
Regulation,
Sky,
TV,
You Tube
Thursday 7th July 2011
For most outsiders, Europe’s Public Service Broadcasting system is a mystery. Most of them will understand what happens in the US. That system gets a small amount of money from Government and raises sponsorship for its network of radio and TV stations around the country. They broadcast “public service” content not found on commercial networks. But in Europe “public” broadcasters continue to be a major part of the landscape. The BBC may be the best known globally, but ARD in Germany, France Television, RAI in Italy are also … Read more…
Friday 10th June 2011
We are in the middle of a large project for the European Commission and just beginning to see the picture that is emerging from this work — that is a picture of Europe’s audiovisual industries seen from a pan-European perspective. We find, as before, a series of cultural islands, with some island clusters — the Scandinavian countries act like a kind of cluster as do the countries that share the same language, France, Belgium, parts of Switzerland, for example. The UK is part of a more complex structure … Read more…
Sunday 29th May 2011
In the “old days” TV advertising was quite a simple business. It was sold on “ratings”, the number of people who watched a show and the commercial spots around it. To be precise we didn’t really know exactly how many people watched a show, but we knew they were in the room with the TV on when it was on the air. That is because a “peoplemeter” in the TV identifies what is on in a selected household and everyone in the household is asked to press … Read more…
Thursday 12th May 2011
There is going to be a new Communications Bill in the UK soon. The lobbying has started. That may be interesting outside the UK too, especially to other European countries. The UK’s regulatory system is highly regarded in Europe and the BBC is the aspiration of public broadcasters everywhere. Just out is a paper called Creative UK, written by Robin Foster and Tom Broughton and commissioned by Channel 4, ITV, PACT and Sky. It has a simple two-part message: the UK audiovisual sector is a “success story” in … Read more…
Thursday 28th April 2011
A new book by economist Pankaj Ghemawat has pointed out the limits of globalisation. (A review in the Economist called it the “case against globaloney”). We are less international in our tastes and preferences than many imagine. The book points to a kind of residue of localism that is deeply embedded. (For example former colonial powers do a disproportionate amount of trade with former colonies). Moreover a mere increase in trade – often used as a measure of globalisation — can be put down to technology and structural … Read more…
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