BRITAIN’S TV REGULATOR RAPS CHANNEL FOR UNSUITABLE SEXY AD

Britain’s Channel 4 was taken to task by OFCOM, the country’s broadcast regulator, for airing a humorous, steamy ad immediately following a rape scene in the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last December. “The effect was to cut from the face of the screaming woman in the film’s rape scene to the face […]

U.K. MEDIA REGULATOR CENSURES BBC FOR USING KID IN VIOLENT DRAMA

The BBC has been censured by British media regulator OFCOM for not doing enough to protect a child actor who appeared in two violent scenes of the drama Line of Duty and in other scenes that “included sexually explicit language.” The regulator acted on the complaint of a single viewer, noting that its rules call […]

MAJOR NEWS CORP INVESTORS PREPARE TO BATTLE MURDOCH

The reported decision by News Corp to name James Murdoch to run the company’s Fox TV operations after he was strongly censured by OFCOM, the British broadcasting regulator, for his failure to take action in the British hacking scandal, is being seen as an unconscionable act of defiance by some News Corp shareholders. Julie Tanner, […]

JAMES MURDOCH: CENSURED IN UK, UPPED IN US

A day after the British media regulator OFCOM said that James Murdoch’s conduct as head of News International while the telephone hacking scandal unfolded “repeatedly fell short of the conduct to be expected of him as a chief executive officer and chairman,” reports emerged that News Corp is about to appoint him as head of […]

U.K. REGULATOR SLAPS MURDOCH’S WRISTS

OFCOM, Britain’s TV regulator, will not yank News Corp’s license to operate BSkyB, the British satellite TV service. In a ruling issued today (Thursday), OFCOM said that while some of former News International Chairman James Murdoch’s actions were “ill-judged,” there was no evidence to date that he had “deliberately engaged in any wrongdoing.” The regulator […]

BRITAIN’S BIG BROTHER FACING PROBE

OFCOM, Britain’s television regulator, has launched an investigation of the British version of Big Brother after receiving more than 1,200 complaints from viewers who charged that it encouraged bullying, racist remarks, and demeaning epithets, according to the British wire service Press Association. In one episode that generated 114 complaints, one of the Big Brother housemates […]

WILL THE FCC YANK MURDOCH’S TV LICENSES?

A report by a parliamentary committee on Monday calling Rupert Murdoch unfit to oversee his media empire has inevitably touched off demands in the U.S. that he be stripped of his Fox TV broadcast licenses in this country. Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a letter to […]

INVESTOR STORM BUILDS AROUND MURDOCH

A day of testimony about the telephone hacking scandal by James Murdoch and two days by his father, Rupert Murdoch, in which they acknowledged that they allowed subordinates to dupe them about the extent of the matter have riled News Corp shareholders. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported today (Friday) that they are particularly concerned about how […]

U.K. REGULATOR WARNS STATIONS ABOUT OBSCENE LANGUAGE

Several of the satellite-distributed digital channels that have sprung up in Britain in recent years have been airing libraries of older television shows, many of which originally were broadcast after 9:00 p.m. — the so-called watershed hour — and airing them earlier in the evening when children are likely to be watching, according to the […]

REGULATORS COULD YANK MURDOCH’S TV LICENSES

OFCOM, Britain’s official television regulator, is considering the possibility of yanking the license that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp holds to operate BSkyB as its controlling owner, the London Financial Times reported today (Friday). OFCOM is also assessing the question of whether James Murdoch should be allowed to continue to head the satellite broadcaster, according to […]

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