The ILO-forecasting the future of employment

The ILO is an arm of the United Nations charged with surveying the labour market worldwide.  In 1997 it published a seminal report on the future of emploment.  although dated now the paper was almost clairvoyant in its assessment of the impact of digital technology.

www.oit.org/public/english/bureau/inf/magazine/19/multi.htm

Creative Industries-strategic Plan

This is DCAL's strategic plan for Nothern Irelnad's Creative industries

http://www.dcalni.gov.uk/strategic_action_plan_for_creative_industries.doc

Current Controversies at the BBC

The BBC has been included in the Governments's sopending review.  This may be seen as a directive from the government to a supposedly independent organisation.  The link below gives a flavour of the controversy entailed by the freezing of the licence fee

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/20/bbc-licence-fee-spending-review?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Read this link and make conections between recent events and the BBC's political status

Working with Material

Part 3:          Crafting the Material

Objectives         

To 

explain the principlal provisions of the Communications Act 2003
recapitulate the information given previously
practice the re-purposing of information

Development

The students are re-presented with the ideas and facts met during the previous sessions. References will include:

1.      Law & the Media industry-specifically the Communications act 2003

2.      Regulation-the case of OfCom & the BBC Charter

3.      Specific Cases-Broadcasting to children & broadcasting for Children

4.      TV Funding-the BBC

5.      TV Funding –ITV

6.      Audiences-young people

Session delivery

3 Steps:

The session will begin with students becoming familiar with the concepts of law and regulation. 

                    I.      Students summarise the concepts of law and the main ideas of the Communications act 2003

                 II.      Students recap the concept of Regulation

               III.      Students view Open University sketch from the Ronnie Barker sketch.

 Watch the sketch at the link below and think how you might create a sketch in the same vein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFLOHu8Ozm8&feature=related

Ownership of the media

The ownership of media organisations is highly contentious issue.  It touches on many aspects of political and economic life.  The link from the Guardian newspaper gives a flavour of the highly charged battle that rages over the ownership of media organisations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/11/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-takeover

Measuring Audiences

Audience Measurement

For any broadcaster to know their costs they need some idea of how many people are viewing their channel.  Organisations such as BARB undertake audience measurement for all the broadcasters. 

http://www.barb.co.uk/report/monthlyViewing?period%5B%5D=20100801&button_submit=View+Figures

The Methodology which  BARB arrives at these figures in given in the link below
http://www.barb.co.uk/about/academic?_s=3

Funding ITV

This is a rather more complex affair.  ITV’s income is derived from selling airtime to advertisers.  Therefore it is mainly interested in people who need or want to buy goods and services.  So ITV is interested in who watches what and when.  The BBC is also interested but for different reasons.  ITV segments its audience in various ways but all the segments relate to advertisers interests

http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/assets/itvmedia/content/downloadables/CPTsbyAudience.ppt

The Chart   ITV 1 Network Annual CPTs by Audience demonstrates a number of things.  These include:

1.      That to understand commercial broadcasting you have to get to grips with the concept of segmentation

2.      This segmentation of the audience is not natural but devised for the benefit of advertisers

3.      That advertisers use television to reach large numbers of viewers and very interested in the cost per thousand viewer (CPT)

4.      This segmentation of the audience will also influence the programmes that are made. 

5.      Some audiences are more valuable than others

6.      Some audiences are more difficult to reach than others

Have a look at the chart from Pearl & Dean the Cinema advertising company and compare it with the previous chart from ITV.  Who finds it easier to reach you.

http://business.pearlanddean.com/research/touchpoints_cinema.html

BBC-how it spends the money

How does the BBC spend its money?

There are several ways of looking at this.  We can simply look at the Global sum and state the total expenditure.  We could look at the cost of producing an individual programme.  Or we could look at it the way BBC managers look at it and calculate cost per broadcast hour viewers.  Note as its says in the article broadcasting statistics are notoriously hard to calculate not because of deviousness but because different organisations ask different questions

http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/09/24/how-much-do-bbc-services-really-cost/

Funding Television-The BBC

Part 2 –Funding Television

The cases of ITV and The BBC

There are 4 main ways to pay for television

ü      A compulsory licence fee e.g. the BBC

ü      Subscriptions e.g. Sky TV

ü      Advertising supported programming e.g.  ITV

ü      Pay per view e.g. TV Gold

The one thing every one who works on television is agreed is that it is colossally expensive.  Television involves a huge amount of money.  If we look at the page showing a summary of the BBC’s accounts you will see that it had an income from the licence fee of over

£3,000 million   in 2009.  So you can see that this organisation is richer than some small countries.

How does the BBC get its money?

The answer to this is simple but very controversial.  The BBC receives money from everyone who owns a TV set in the UK.  Even if you never watch the BBC you still have to pay for it. The current licence fee is about £145.00. 

The advantage of this levy on the viewer is that it is simple and goes directly to the broadcaster.

The link gives access to a summary of the BBC's revenue and expenditure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/exec/financial/consolidated.shtml

Broadcasting for Children

Where Ofcom has powers in relation to the protection of children it has no power in relation to the provision of programmes for television

 Provision for Children

You will see from the quotation below that broadcasting in broken down into 3 levels (Tiers 1, 2, 3.)  Broadcasters have a set of impositions placed on them by the Communications Act.  Note the explanation of the 3 tiers referred to in the comment by OfCom.  The context is ITV 's decision to get out of Children’s programming

This statement sets out Ofcom’s views on ITV1’s proposals on the amount of children’s programmes to be broadcast in 2008. Although ITV’s Statement of Programme Policy, published today, does not refer to specific volumes of output for 2008, information on this has been supplied by ITV to Ofcom.

Regulatory background

Regulation of commercial Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs) is arranged in three levels or ‘tiers’. At Tier 1, the Ofcom Broadcasting Code sets standards in matters such as offence, protection of children, and political impartiality; this applies to PSBs and all other broadcasters licensed by Ofcom. Tier 2 requires Ofcom to set quotas for particular types of output. Tier 3 refers to other area of public service output, where Ofcom has no power to set quotas, and broadcasters are primarily responsible for deciding what volume of output to deliver.
Under the Act, Ofcom is required to set minimum requirements (or quotas) for the following ‘Tier 2’ genres: news and current affairs programmes on ITV1, Channel 4 and Five; nations and regions programming on ITV1; and schools output on Channel 4. Whilst Ofcom will consider broadcasters’ proposals for change in these Tier 2 areas, it remains for Ofcom to set the quotas at the level it considers appropriate.

This quotation was taken from the OfCom's regulationhttp://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/tv/children-itv/

Broadcasting to children

Ofcom has powers to regulate the content of television programmes with regard to programming for children.  It has powers to regulate the content of television programmes with regard to children.

Example 1-The Protection of Children

OfCom

OfCom has stated that there should be rules on the content of TV programmes transmitted before 9.00pm.  This is set out in OfCom’s Code of Conduct.  An example of such rule is given below:

This is an example from OfCom’s Code for Broadcasters.  It is concerned with the showing of programmes.  This is something that Broadcasters have to pay attention to.

Rule 1.4 Watershed (including trails)

The ‘watershed’ is a well understood concept and audiences are concerned if they believe programme content is ‘pushing the boundaries’ of what is generally accepted close to the watershed. Audience research shows strong support and recognition for the watershed on all television channels. The watershed plays a crucial role for parents and carers with children aged 5 to 8 and trust in pre-watershed programming is essential, particularly leading up to 1930. It is also important that the content of pre watershed trails is appropriate for the time of broadcast.

The above quotation is from Ofcoms guidance to stakeholders
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/guidance/section1_2009.pdf

Law & the Media Industry

In this session we spoke of 3 major concepts.  That

1.  the media is governed by law and  exists under legislation
2.  there are 2 basic types of Broadcaster: The Commercial Broadcaster & the Public Service Broadcaster
3.  the media is regulated.

At the end of this session you had notes on the following

ü      the main provisions of the principal law that governs broadcasting in the UK

ü     the ways are does the principal law organise broadcasting

ü      the name & role of the Brodacasting regulator

Some Basic Ideas

Before we can get down to the “nitty gritty” about broadcasting we need to sort out some basic terms.  First what is law?

All the rules of conduct established and enforced by the authority, legislation, or custom of a given community, state, or other group

Law is created by an authority-in Britain this is the Houses of Parliament.  Law is created by an Act of Parliament.  In the UK 2 Acts of Parliament concern us.  The Communications Act 2003 & the BBC Charter

The Communications Act 2003

The Communications Act according to the handout aims to sort out 3 big areas of interest for broadcasters

ü      It sets up OFCOM to regulate or administer broadcasting and the Media

ü      It establishes rules for the ownership of Broadcasters

ü      It sets up regulations that broadcasters have to meet.
The link below provides a summary of the main provisions of the 2003 Act

http://www.northallertoncoll.org.uk/media/media%20web/ofcom.doc