Legal obligations in the TV and Film Industries

Legal obligations are set in place by the government and must be abided by in order for TV and film companies to stay on the right side of the law. There are a number of acts and regulatory bodies that are relevant to the TV and film industries. In my media classes we already covered contractual issues, employment legislation and ethical obligations. In this post I cover important acts that have affected the media industry and in another post, I will look at Ofcom and the BBFC that regulate the TV and film industries.

The Race Relations Act of 1976 and later amendments to the act were put in place to ensure that racial discrimination would not be tolerated and respect and tolerance should be promoted between racial groups. Most recently the Act was amended to ensure public bodies promote racial equality and in terms of broadcasting, it ensured that racial discrimination or hatred was not allowed to be practised. ‘Under the Race Relations Act 1976, organisations can offer training to specific groups that are under-represented in their workforce, but it remains illegal to offer a job to one person over someone equally qualified on the basis of their skin colour’.  The BBC was nevertheless attacked by some for recruiting many ethnic minorities to one of its trainee schemes. There is a desire to employ more people from diverse backgrounds at the BBC but they have to be very careful that they do not discriminate against anyone for the colour of their skin.

Another Act that affects the TV and film industries is the Broadcasting Act of 1990 and the later amendments. A big part of this was to ensure that no one media company gained too great a monopoly over the industry. For example the Act states that ‘National newspaper owners prevented from holding more than a 20% stake in TV companies, with similar restrictions on cross-ownership between commercial TV, satellite TV and national radio stations’. Channel 5 was set up and Channel 4 lost its link with ITV to spread ownership of the major TV channels and offer the public greater choice but a loophole also meant that Rupert Murdoch got around this as Sky was defined as a non-UK service. Many have criticized the monopoly that News International who own Sky and many newspapers have over the industry.

The Obscene Publications Act of 1959 and later amendments is an incredibly difficult and subjective law to enforce. The intention of the Act is to stop material that could deprave or corrupt people from being published or broadcast. Extreme images of torture, bestiality or necrophilia would most likely be classed as obscene and it would therefore be illegal to broadcast them. Channel 4 states that there are ‘stricter tests relating to harm and offence under the Communications Act 2003 and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code’ and so material like this would not be broadcast for fear of breaking specific laws, but also on grounds of taste.

Next, I'll look at Ofcom and the BBFC in more depth.

Ethical Obligations in the TV and Film Industries

Ethical obligations are less likely to be required by law than contractual and employment legislation though they can be equally important as if a TV or film company does not behave ethically, there could be financial and legal repercussions. In my media classes, we have already looked at:

Contractual obligations

Employment legislation

Codes of practice

A code of practice sets out how employees of a company may act. Though it is not legally binding, the purpose is to stop employees behaving in unethical ways, ensuring the creator of a piece of content behaves according to ethical standards. For example the BBC has a commissioning code of practice that sets out the principles by which they should abide when commissioning work from independent production companies. ‘The intention of the Code is to ensure that relations between the BBC and independent producers are conducted on a fair and transparent basis.’ The code includes guidelines for dealing with independent production companies and covers issues such as payment, editorial control and rights over the programmes. This ensures that the BBC has a good working relationship and behaves in an ethical manner with producers.

 Policies and procedures

TV and film companies will also have a number of policies and procedures in place to maintain and encourage ethical practice. These can relate to business conduct, recruitment, employment and records management. They are often informed by legislation such as health and safety and equal opportunities laws. One of the most interesting policies is the BBC’s on advertising. It states that advertising is not allowed in order to keep the channel free from commercial pressures. This means they can truly serve the public without having to make profits or have their schedules and programming dictated by external pressure. They also have a policy on the safeguarding of children that they work with in their programmes and also a watershed policy that ensures certain subjects, matters, issues and images are not on the channel before 9pm. These ethical policies make the BBC avoid legal action and give them a good reputation and standing in the country.

Emerging social concerns

A company’s ethical policies might extend to dealing with emerging social concerns such as the treatment of people with disabilities, the sexual exploitation of children and empowering youth. Channel 4 for example is committed to highlighting issues around those with disabilities. They broadcast the Paralympics and have commissioned a range of programmes dealing with disabled people and their lives. They also have documentaries under the Dispatches series that tackle and highlight a huge range of very serious issues including Britain’s sex gangs. These investigative shows fulfil ethical obligations to help the country improve.

Representation

Finally broadcasters will always consider the representation of social groups in their programmes. Channel 4 has come under fire for its representation of gypsy culture in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and also for its titling of a show about disabled people dating called The Undateables. These shows can damage the reputation of Channel 4 and lead to accusations of racism and making people’s perceptions of certain social groups worse or they can be praised for highlighting parts of culture that are not often represented on the television.

Similarly Hollywood blockbusters are also often criticised for characters that could be considered racist stereotypes. Paramount, Dreamworks and director Michael Bay were all criticised for Transformers 2’s racist caricature robots that sounded ‘black’ and could not read. Avatar and Fox also came under fire for casting African and Native Americans as aliens. However these huge blockbusters and their financial backers seem less concerned with ethical obligations as they still make huge profits even if a minority of people complain.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/how-we-work/business-requirements/code-of-practice.shtml

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tags/disability

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/transformers-jivetalking-_n_220005.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/6968020/Avatar-hit-by-claims-of-racism.html

Funding and Ownership of the TV Industry

For my recent article on the ownership and funding of the film industry, please click here.

The television industry is made up of many different companies, some publicly owned and some privately owned. The BBC is privately owned and is funded by a license fee that is paid be every household that has a television. ‘The BBC used its income from the licence fee to pay for its TV, radio and online services, plus other costs’. This means it is guaranteed an income every year no matter the quality of the products it produces. It also means that it is not allowed to make any money from product placement like other TV channels can, as it says in its editorial guidelines, ‘the BBC must not commission, produce or co-produce output for its license fee funded services which contains product placement’. There have recently been concerns over how the money raised by the license fee is being spent with many people raising the issue of how much BBC stars’ salaries are. The BBC has come under pressure to reveal the salaries of their highest paid stars but have not done this, citing the right to privacy of the stars. Some have called for the license fee to be scrapped so the BBC will not be funded by the public and then it will only be funded by its profits. These ‘profits at BBC Worldwide, their commercial arm, rose by 10.3% to £160.2 million’ in 2010 so there is clearly a strong argument for this.

 The funding of the BBC through the license fee has many critics with people arguing it is just another tax people are forced to pay and anti-competitive. Historically the BBC had a monopoly over the television and radio industries in Britain, meaning it had absolutely no competition and dominated the industries, but this was broken with the ‘arrival, first of independent television in 1955, then commercial radio in 1973’. Further calls for the license fee to be scrapped were renewed with the introduction of cable and satellite TV and particularly the increasing popularity of Sky in the 1990s.

However the funding of the BBC through the license fee also has many supporters. Some argue ‘the BBC produces a lot of output that the commercial sector wouldn't even consider. It is vital to the cultural health of the nation’. The argument that the BBC has an obligation to provide a public service and therefore to educate as well as entertain means that it does not have to fight for ratings by bidding for the most popular American shows and can afford to cater for niche audiences as well as the mainstream.

On the other hand ‘Channel 4 is a publicly-owned, commercially-funded public service broadcaster’. This means that they do not make money from the license fee and instead are funded from advertising and sponsorship. They are also allowed to gain income from product placement which is where ‘is where a company pays a TV channel or a programme-maker/production company to include its products or brands in a programme’. Channel 4 is a business not made for profit and can buy and sell programmes as it sees fit in order to be a successful enterprise. It was set up (with aid from the government) to be an alternative to the BBC and to feature more cultural and ethnic diversity. All its profits go back into the business and it is a rare example of a publicly owned business that does not sell shares in the business.

Other television companies such as British Sky Broadcasting are funded through subscription and pay-per-view means. BSkyB is also a publicly owned company so it has shareholders that own shares in the company and can be consulted in the decision making process and also share in the profits and losses of the company. Sky operates a range of services and subscriptions and these services start from above £20 per month. These services are increasingly multimedia so people can have Sky TV, Broadband and Mobile apps. Their Sky Box Office and internet TV services bring in further income by allowing viewers to watch certain programmes for an extra pay per view fee. For example a recent Rolling Stones concert could be watched live by paying a one off charge and now Premier League football matches are being offered on a pay per view basis whereas before only those who subscribed to Sky Sports could watch them.

Many have accused BSkyB of being too dominant in the TV market and having a monopoly that means there is less chance of competition being able to thrive. It has even been investigated by the Competition Commission for this reason but the commission found that there is little that can be done in the face of BSkyB’s market power. Competition has increased in the form of subscriber streaming services for film and television shows such Netflix and LoveFilm but these do not have the same market share as Sky.

Ownership and funding in the TV and film industries is complex and includes many different means of making income from the licence fee to shareholders to ploughing existing profits back into the business. Concerns over the dominance of a limited number of companies are justified with huge multimedia, multinational conglomerates controlling much of the market and making it hard for other companies to emerge and compete. This is a major issue for the media because TV, film, print and radio play such a huge part of many people’s lives and it is undesirable for so much of it to be controlled by so few.

Bibliography

http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/whoweare/licencefee/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/page/guidance-product-placement

http://www.atthegrapevine.com/politics/funding-the-bbc

http://www.transdiffusion.org/tv/aspidistra/funding_the_bbc

http://www.channel4.com/info/corporate/about

http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/faq/name/productplacement/id/501310053

http://www.sky.com/mysky/latestnews/article/my-sky-updates/2012-12/watch-the-rolling-stones-live-on-sky/

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/sky-make-premier-league-matches-available-on-payperview-8475243.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/02/bskyb-power-rivals-competition-commission

Black Mirror: The Waldo Moment

The final part of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror series 2 aired last night, titled The Waldo Moment. I'll get this dash of negativity straight out of the way first of all by saying nothing could touch last week's episode White Bear which was possibly the best bit of TV I've seen since This is England 88. But The Waldo Moment was still smart satire; occasionally chilling, always clever but never quite hitting the highs of the previous two episodes of this series.

The Waldo Moment is all about a computer generated character voiced by a down on his luck comedian who finds that taunting and teasing politicians is the best way to grab attention. The character Waldo quickly becomes popular and the team behind him decide to put him in the running for the election. His knob gags, foul mouth and crude humour win the attention of the public and his putting down of the politicians makes him a refreshing alternative to their manipulative fakery.

I noticed in the credits of the episode that this one was based on an original idea by Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker from when they were working on Nathan Barley. I never saw that show but love a lot of Chris Morris' old stuff like The Day Today and Brass Eye. Nathan Barley was on TV in 2005 and what immediately struck me about Waldo was that he was based on Sacha Baron Cohen's character Ali G from the 11 o Clock Show and his own later TV series.

The tackling of politicians with ignorance and silly humour, the idea that the character would not work if he was given his own show and guests knew what to expect of him, the comedian hiding behind a character and satire to attack politicians but without suggesting alternatives all struck me as an attack on Ali G. I personally loved Ali G and found his early interviews for the 11 o Clock show some of the funniest television I'd ever seen. It did all go down hill when he was given his own show and the guests were in on the joke from the start. Sacha Baron Cohen could also always be accused of hiding behind his characters and causing apathy by humiliating everyone from feminists, to Tories to foxhunters to hippies. No target is safe from his satire and its easy for hime to take the piss mercilessly out of any of them.

The Waldo Moment seems to suggest that the public are stupid and easily led enough to allow someone like Waldo or Ali G with no policies, no party allegiance and no clue to run our country. It shows how an icon can be manipulated by darker forces back stage who want to gain power and it shows how if people cannot trust politicians then they might just turn to the more entertaining and seemingly truthful option, even if he is just a silly big blue bear who keeps getting his computer generated cock out. All this might of course have absolutely nothing to do with Ali G and I might be completely wrong.

The ending was a bit too abrupt for my liking and went a bit far in its depiction of a disturbing dystopian future. Its warning seemed a bit too far fetched (I hope) and revealed Brooker's complete lack of faith in humanity.

I must add all the scenes on the high street were filmed in my home town of High Wycombe and I actually remember running past as they were filming one day. I wish I hadn't been in such a rush and had stopped to check it out now! The Waldo wagon had drew a little crowd and people certainly had been drawn to the big blue bear so perhaps Brooker's vision isn't so far fecthed!

The Waldo Moment may have been the worst episode in the series but it's still better than most TV and plenty thought provoking. If you haven't seen the second episode of this series, titled White Bear, go find it now! You can still watch it on 4oD right here for the nxt 20 days or so. The first season is also all brilliant and I recommend you watch it before Hollywood starts its production of remaking them! I hope they give Black Mirror a third series.

Did you see it? What did you think?