Legal Research

Bang Media licence death wish continues

By scott

They’ve been away for a couple of weeks since I wrote this , but Bang Media are back in their rightful place in Ofcom’s Broadcast Bulletin again today. [They were joined by Over 18 TV and Babeworld TV ]. Once again it was Earlybird its daytime (05:30 and 09:00 ) interactive chat programme, and Bang Babes it’s late night interactive chat programme ? both broadcast on Tease Me TV, free to air, that were the problem.

And once again it seems that Bang Media have decided that they want to lose their licences, so ignored Ofcom’s requested for comments on the complaints in one instance and ignored request to provide a recording of the programme complained about (a blatant breach of Condition 11 of its licence) in the other instance.

The compliance problem in the sector was highlighted brilliantly by the ‘junior producer’ for Over 18 TV who had decided the attire of his female presenters was ok, because he’d seen presenters on other channels dressed that way.

As I have said over and over, this sector’s default position is incompliance. By its nature it has to be. It’s about getting (mostly) men to phone up to talk dirty with the onscreen presenters for god’s sake. So when Ofcom says of the attire and behaviour of the ‘presenters’ of these programmes that there is “no editorial justification since its sole purpose was to elicit PRS calls.”, you have to say, I think you’re missing the point. The ’sole purpose to elicit PRS calls’ IS the SOLE purpose of the programmes ? they don’t have any other purpose, and that is exactly where the problem lies, especially as most of these channels are broadcasting unencrypted ? and once again, I ask why?

Bang Media and Bang Channels should lose their licences. Their actions and lack of response to Ofcom mean I have no problem with that either, they have quite frankly been taking the piss. They may be lucky, and Ofcom may just try throwing another fine at them first, but I would take the licences. The rules and licence conditions may be stupid but they are the ones they agreed to and signed up to when they were licenced.. Repeatedly showing your disregard for that means you don’t deserve to be licenced. That said, they shouldn’t be in this position in the first place if they ? and all other PRS chat programmes of this ilk were made to broadcast encrypted.

Full post as published by Information Overload on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).