United Kingdom
| Author | David Goldberg, Tony Prosser, Stefaan Verhulst |
| Pages | 625-682 |
THE
UNITED
KINGDOH1
BY
DAVID
GOLDBERG, TONY PROSSER,
AND
STEFAAN VERHULST
i)
Locally Owned Mass Media
a)
Electronic
Media
n the
United Kingdom,
the
electronic media (radio
and
television)
are
subject
to
much more stringent laws
and
regulatory systems
than
is the
press. This discrimination
was
originally justified
on
grounds
of
fre-
quency scarcity, although this could
not
justify
the
British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) monopoly, which
continued
until
the
introduction
of
commercial television
in
1954
and
commercial radio
in
1971.
The
justifica-
This report
was
produced
in
March 1997
and is
accurate till then. Minimal updating
has
been done
in the
interim. When dealing with
the
legal framework
of the
United
Kingdom
relating
to
media,
a
distinction
has to be
made between Scots law, English
law,
and the law
applicable
in
Northern Ireland. Despite
the
tendency towards
harmonization (many Acts
of
Parliament apply
to the
whole United Kingdom), there
remain
several
different
approaches
and
features
on
both sides
of the
border
and
these
have
to be
borne
in
mind throughout this report.
It
should also
be
noted that
the UK
laws
are
increasingly
affected
by the
Directives issued
by the
European
Community/
Union.
On 1 May
1997, Labour
won the
general elections.
No
major changes
to
the
legal regime have been made
but the
government
has
announced
a
detailed
assessment
of the
regulation
of
commercial television broadcasting,
and has set out a
number
of
measures being taken
to
improve cooperation between regulators
of the
communications industries. Steps have also been suggested
in
implementing
the
lifting
of
restrictions
on
British Telecom's provision
of
entertainment services, which
will
remove
one of the
perceived regulatory barriers
to
convergence. Freedom
of
information
proposals were also introduced. Finally,
at
European level,
the
major
legislative
changes have been
the
revision
of
both
the
1989
Television
without
Frontiers
Directive
at
the end of
1997 (European Community)
and the
1989
Convention
on
Tmnsfrontier
Televisionin
1998 (Council
of
Europe).
625
1.
A.
OWNERSHIP
AND
REGULATION
OF
THE
MASS MEDIA
i
tion
is now
even more questionable given that
new
communications tech-
nologies provide viewers with
a
greater number
of
channels
to
choose
from
than there
are
newspapers
to
purchase.
i)
State Ownership
The
United Kingdom does
not
have
any
state-owned electronic media,
in
the
strictest sense
of
"state-owned."
However,
the BBC is the
public
broad
-
casting
body. Established
in
1927
to
succeed
the
private British Broadcast-
ing
Company,
on the
basis
of a
royal charter
and
licence
from
the
Postmas-
ter
General
for the
operation
of
radio broadcasting,
its
licence
was
extended
in the
1940s
to
include television broadcasting.
At the
time
of
writing,
the BBC
supplied programming
to two
television
channels
and
five
radio networks,
as
well
as to a
variety
of
local radio broadcasters.
There
are
basically
two
major
ways
the
state
can
interfere
with
the
BBC's
structure. First,
the
members
of the
Board
of
Governors
— the
BBC's man-
aging
body
— are
nominally appointed
by the
Queen-in-Council,
although
the
authority
effectively
lies with
the
prime
minister.
Traditionally,
these
appointments
are
preceded
by an
accord between
the
government
and the
opposition,
as
well
as by
contact with
the BBC
itself.
The
Board itself
appoints
its
director general. However,
the
Board's
appointment procedures
and its
responsibilities were recently criticized
by the
Labour
party2
and the
Select
Committee
of
National
Heritage.3
Reforms
have been proposed.
Second,
the BBC is financed by the
licence
fee,4
which
is fixed by
Par-
liament upon
a
proposal
by the
home secretary. Thus, political authorities
are
provided with
the
opportunity
to
exert influence
on the
development
of
the
BBC. However,
the
government
has
recently announced details
of
the
formula
for
increases
in the
licence
fee
over
the
next
five
years.
To
min-
imize
government pressure, which could occur
if the
funding were renego-
tiated each year,
the new
formula
is
linked
to the
annual inflation rate,
determined
by the
change
in the
Retail Price Index
(RPI).5
Moreover,
the
2.
A.
Culf,
"Labour plans
new
media regulator" Guardian
(22
January 1997)
and
"Retreat
by
Cunningham" Guardian
(23
January
1997).
3.
U.K.,
H.C., National Heritage
Committee,
"The
BBC and the
Future
of
Broadcasting,"
Fourth Report,
HC 147
Session
1996-97
(13
March 1997).
4.
Licence
fee or
revenue means
"such
sums
as are
collected
by the
Corporation
in
respect
of the
issue
and
renewal
of
television licences under section
1
of
the
Wireless
Telegraphy
Act
1949."
U.K.,
Royal
Charter
for the
Continuance
of
The
British
Broadcasting
Corporation
(London:
HMSO,
May
1996),
Cmnd.
3248,
section
25.
5.
Department
of
National Heritage Press Release 408/96, available
at
www.worldserver.pipex.com/coi/depts/GHE/cois5213.ok>.
626
COUNTRY
REPORTS
BBC
has
diversified
its
revenue base, developing
complementary
commer-
cial
interests,
and it
intends
to
follow
a
similar strategy with television.
Such
commercial endeavours
can be
controversial
and
provoke protests
and
resistance
from
competitors wary
that
licence
fees
will
be
misused
and
that
the BBC
will exploit
its
licence-fee funded brands.
ii)
Effect
of
State Ownership
on
Free
Expression
Though
it
establishes
a
framework
for BBC
operations,
the
Royal
Charter
(renewed
in
19966)
does
not lay a
foundation
for
wide-ranging powers exer-
cised
by the
government. However,
the
licence, which
is
currently granted
by
the
Home Secretary, provides
the
government with authority
to
inter-
vene,
including
the
ability
to
prohibit
the
transmission
of a
program.7
Moreover,
the
government
may put
pressure
—
publicly
or
privately
— on
broadcasting
executives
to
discourage
them
from making
or
screening
par-
ticular
programs.8
The BBC is
also precluded
from
broadcasting
its own
views
on
matters
of
public policy, other than those relating
to
broadcasting.
Editorial independence
is one of the
founding principles
of the
BBC.
Despite
its
broad authority
to
intervene,
the
government
has
consistently
used
its
reserve powers sparingly.
It has
thereby contributed
to a
broad
political consensus that
the
independence
of
broadcasting
is to be
respected. This consensus
has
remained more
or
less intact.
However,
the BBC
remains more vulnerable
to
political pressures tha
n
do
other broadcasting institutions. This weakness
is
evident
in
comparing
the
Corporation's behaviour
in
relation
to the
broadcast
of
"Real
Lives"9
in
1985,
with
the
Independent Broadcasting Authority's
(IBA)
stand over
"Death
on the
Rock"10
three years later. Both programs were condemned,
in
advance
of
being
screened,
by
Cabinet
ministers
who
believed
them
to
be
supportive
of
terrorism.11
The IBA
permitted "Death
on the
Rock"
to go
ahead
as
scheduled.
It
defended
the
program
and its
makers,
who
were
6.
The new BBC
Royal
Charter
and
Agreement
came into
effect
on 1 May
1996; see,
for
the new
Charter (Cmnd.
3248)
and
Agreement
(Cmnd. 3152).
The
secretary
of
state
for
trade
and
industry
has
also issued
new
licences under
the
Wireless
Telegraphy
Act
1949.
7.
Clause 13(4)
of the BBC
Licence.
8. G.
Robertson,
Freedom,
the
Individual
and the Law
(London: Penguin, 1993)
at
273.
9.
"Real Lives"
was a
program about
an IRA
sympathizer
in
Belfast.
Following
a
one-day
strike
at
both
the BBC and
ITV,
it was
screened with
a few
face-saving
deletions.
10.
"Death
on the
Rock"
was a
"This Week" investigation that
was
critical
of the
Special
Air
Service
(SAS)
regiment over
the
killing
of
three
IRA
members
in
Gibraltar.
11.
G.
Robertson
and A.
Nicol,
Media
Law
(London: Penguin Books, 1992)
at
626.
The
United Kingdom
627
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