[Community Television] BBC criticises draft broadcasting code

[Michelle McGuire]

BBC criticises draft broadcasting code
  06 October 2004 10:38


  The BBC has criticised Ofcom for overstepping the mark in its drafting 
of a new broadcasting code.

  In its official response to the regulator’s draft guidelines, 
published yesterday (Tuesday), the corporation has taken issue with a 
clause which shifts responsibility for factual programme content away 
from the BBC’s board of governors.

  The clause stipulates that "factual programmes must respect the truth" 
and has been interpreted by BBC as an attempt to regulate the 
truthfulness of non-news programmes.

"If respect for truth means something more than the requirements for 
accuracy in news as set out in the Communications Act then this should 
be clearly set out in the Code," the BBC said. " It is, in our 
submission, neither justifiable nor appropriate within a section on 
harm or offence."

The BBC has also taken issue with Ofcom’s guidelines for religious 
content and called for clearer definitions. "Ofcom seems in its 
approach to religion to suggest that it is so dangerous that children 
should be protected from it," it said.

  Ofcom’s plan to put an age definition on the watershed also remains a 
bone of contention with the BBC, as revealed by Broadcast last week. 
"We are concerned by this rule which for the first time links the 9pm 
watershed with the age of 15, a more restrictive position than that 
taken by the legacy regulators," the BBC said.

  If introduced, this rule would require the "re-education" of the 
audience, it added.

  Ofcom has so far received over 600 responses to the consultation on 
the proposed code, which officially closed yesterday. The regulator is 
still accepting late responses and intends to publish a revised code in 
January.

Source: broadcastnow.co.uk