Ofcom orders review of regional UK TV production and programming guidance
Details
Editor
| 19 December 2018

Seeking to ensure that non-metropolitan produced TV programmes deliver more tangible creative and economic benefits to the its nations and regions, the UK’s broadcast regulator is proposing a series of changes to its regulatory guidance regarding the issues.

To help support and strengthen the creative economies in the nations and regions, Ofcom requires the BBC and the country’s commercial broadcasters — ITV/channel 3, Channel 4 and Channel 5 — to meet expenditure and programme hours quotas for productions made outside of the M25, for UK-wide broadcast. BBC One and Two, and Channel 3 services must also meet quotas to provide regional programmes that are of particular interest to people living in the area where the service is broadcast.

Ofcom publishes guidance to assist the broadcasters in meeting these obligations but is now concerned that its guidance may not always have been consistently applied in practice.

To emphasise the importance of its work in this area, Ofcom noted that production outside of London plays a crucial role in the UK TV sector by stimulating investment and job opportunities throughout the country. It also helps contribute to the diversity of editorial perspectives in a wide variety of programmes made for the benefit of UK viewers.

To address the issue Ofcom is now proposing a series of changes to its official guidance. These include clarifying how regional production criteria should be satisfied in practice, including a new requirement that a production company’s ‘substantive business and production base’ must be operational prior to the point a programme is commissioned; excluding self-promotional content from counting towards regional production quotas; adding explanatory examples of how the guidance should be applied; changing the process for how productions are allocated to different parts of the UK, to better reflect where they are actually made.

The regulator is also planning to improve its monitoring regime by requiring public service broadcasters to provide more data to evidence how productions meet the criteria, and increase the amount of information it publishes to provide greater transparency. Ofcom also intend to carry out spot checks to monitor how the guidance is being practically applied.

Ofcom is seeking views on its proposals by 27 February 2019.