TV and Radio Compliance Consultant
The shooting dead of Mehwish Arshad (pictured) in Faisalabad in Pakistan was shown repeatedly on a TV channel in Britain at 3pm during a 45 minute broadcast in June 2018. The murderer of the 19-year-old bus hostess was Umar Daraz… Continue
This week’s Broadcast Bulletin from Ofcom is a bumper one: 132 pages in total, and although the Jimmy Carr decision (on which more later) grabbed the headlines, many of the others are worthy of comment – not least that involving… Continue
Sky is breaking out the bubbly this week! In a move that shows that Ofcom is – if slowly – adjusting to the rapidly changing audiovisual environment, the regulator is allowing TV broadcasters in the UK to show post 9pm… Continue
A fascinating decision today by Ofcom (8 October 2018) suggests the regulator might be adopting a slightly softer line on due impartiality. All broadcasters involved in this area should study it very closely. It is quite exceptional for Ofcom to… Continue
Ofcom’s latest Broadcast Bulletin (25 September 2018) offers a timely reminder to broadcasters about the need to stop star presenters turning into crusaders on air and ignoring the need to be duly impartial and fair. The… Continue
With young Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS, pictured) at the helm and trying to present a more modern image of Saudi Arabia, a bureaucrat in the Kingdom’s Centre for International Communication must have thought it would be a good plan to advertise… Continue
So the BBC’s new editorial director, Kamal Ahmed, has said at the Edinburgh Book Festival that somebody coming forward from 1990 to view the News At Ten in 2018 would “pretty much recognise what they are… Continue
The due care of young people when making programmes is a tricky compliance area. Rule 1.28 requires broadcasters to take ‘due care’ of the welfare of under 18s who are involved in programmes. Where it is an entertainment broadcast and… Continue
It is not every day that I am phoned up by The Sun on Sunday to comment on one of their exclusives. But this happened on Saturday when the newspaper was preparing its… Continue