Memorandum submitted by Ofcom
REF: OFCOM
ANNUAL PLAN
EVIDENCE—1 DECEMBER
2009
When Ed Richards and I appeared before your
Committees last week to discuss Ofcom's Annual Plan 2009-10 we
agreed to provide some more detail on a number of issues.
BROADCASTING FINES
Mike Hall MP asked for details on broadcasting
fines issued in 2009. Below is a table setting out all fines for
breaches of the Broadcasting Code so far this year.
Broadcaster
| Fine | Case |
ITV plc | £20,000 on each 11 regional licensees ie £220,000 in total
| Failure on Out of London quotas |
| Stv Central, STV North, UTV plc and Channel Television
| £5,000 | Failure on Out of London quotas
|
| Playboy TV | £22,500 |
Explicit sexual content that was on free-to-air services
|
| BBC Radio 2 | £150,000
| Two editions of The Russell Brand Show which contained offensive material relating to the actor Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter, and content which unwarrantably infringed their privacy.
|
| RHF Productions Ltd. and Portland Enterprises
| £25,000 and £27,500 | Sexual content and references to websites containing content equivalent to BBFC
R18-rated material which could be viewed without registration
|
| Lakeland Radio Ltd. | £15,000
| In respect of the broadcast of three listener competitions called Suss the Celeb
|
| Channel Television Ltd. | £80,000
| British Comedy Awards |
| |
|
THE X FACTOR
COMPLAINTS
Mike Hall MP also asked whether Ofcom was investigating The
X Factor following complaints that one of the judges referred
a decision to "deadlock".
We received around 1,300 complaints following the broadcast
of The X Factor on ITV1 on 8 November 2009. The majority
of complainants were concerned about an issue that arose following
the "deadlock" stage of that evening's round. At this
stage of the contest, the two acts who receive the least votes
in that evening's public vote compete to stay in the contest,
with the judges making the final decision. On this occasion judge
Simon Cowell claimed he was unable to make a decision between
the "bottom two" acts. Instead, he reverted to the public
vote, which had been strongly in favour of one of the two acts,
the twins known as Jedward.
Many of the complainants alleged that, as Cowell had made
clear his opposition to Jedward in previous rounds, his decision
to revert to the public vote on this occasion, which enabled Jedward
to stay in the contest, was evidence that the contest, and therefore
the vote, was in some way "fixed".
Complaints about the general fairness of a broadcast contest's
format or rules do not generally raise issues under the Broadcasting
Code. When considering complaints about audience voting or allegations
that such votes are "fixed", we assess them under Rule
2.2 of the Code, which requires that the "... portrayal of
factual matters must not materially mislead the audience".
In this case, ITV's published terms and conditions for The
X Factor make clear that the format of the contest at this
stage involves a public vote to determine the "bottom two"
acts, who must then compete for a place in the next round. The
final decision between those two acts is then made by the judges.
Therefore Simon Cowell's decision to follow the public vote on
this occasion did not involve any contravention of the broadcaster's
terms and conditions of the contest or the audience vote.
Having carefully assessed these complaints, our view is that
there is no evidence to suggest that the audience generally (and
more particularly, those who had paid to vote in this round),
had been materially misled, on the basis of Cowell's actions.
We therefore do not intend to proceed to launching a formal investigation
of these complaints under the Code.
We have published a number of previous findings in the Broadcast
Bulletin which illustrate how complaints relating to the general
fairness of the rules of such contests do not raise issues under
the Code. To date, this particular instance has been an isolated
case of such complaints in this year's series of The X Factor.
Therefore we are unlikely to publish a "not in breach"
finding in the Bulletin specifically on this particular issue.
However, we are continuing to assess other complaints about the
series as we receive them, and may publish a finding on the series
as a whole if the issues raised, overall, merit one.
EMERGENCY TEXT
SERVICES
Adrian Sanders MP asked about use of SMS/text messaging as
a means of contacting the emergency services, and I said I would
come back with more information on registration.
There is currently a trial taking place to allow deaf, hard
of hearing and speech impaired people to send a text message to
the 999 service where it will be passed to the police, ambulance,
fire rescue, or coastguard.
The service is open to anyone who wishes to register, whether
or not they are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired. Registering
is easy to do, and requires the individual to text the word "register"
to 999. They will then receive the Terms and Conditions in two
SMS/text messages. When they have read the Terms and Conditions
they send "accept" in an SMS/text message to 999. Finally,
they will receive a SMS/text message telling them that their mobile
phone is registered or if there is a problem with your registration.
If the trial, which is being run by the 999 Liaison Committee,
is successful then the services will be launched in 2010. So far
there have been around 2,500 registrations—around 50 a day.
I have set up a meeting with Adrian Sanders early next year
to discuss this issue further.
In addition to these points, we committed to keep you updated
on the two forthcoming spectrum auctions and any changes in our
proposed timetable, which we will of course do.
I have copied this letter to both Committee clerks and to
Mike Hall MP and Adrian Sanders MP who raised specific points
as set out above. I will follow up separately with Ian Stewart
MP on his kind invitation to speak to the All Party Community
Media Group.
8 December 2009
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