British media proprietors and regulators seem confident they have made sure that the UK’s development of online television will remain out of reach of interference by the European Union.
Internet services which are considered to be "television-like" could face control under the terms of the European audio-visual directive which takes effect as from January 2009. But the British newspaper owners – backed by the Press Complaints Commission and Ofcom – believe that the rapidly expanding audio-visual output of their websites will escape European control. Television clips and videos on sites like Sun tv and Telegraph tv will not be caught under the European directive on “television-type services” says Stewart Purvis, Ofcom partner for content and standards, because a television service is considered to be one that offers a sequence of programmes and is saying to the viewer “stay with us”. As a result websites like Sun tv and Telegraph tv will not be deemed to be broadcast services and would not be subject to the rules on political impartiality – a state of affairs which Ofcom has no intention of challenging. Purvis told a seminar held by the Westminster Media Forum (12.12.2008) that as newspaper websites expanded their audio-visual output there probably would be more pressure on the British authorities to monitor their output so as to see whether they were offering services which “look like television”; France was keen to apply the “television-like” rule to web television as a way of protecting French culture. But in Ofcom’s opinion if Sun tv was showing six video clips that could not be considered a “television-like” service. Purvis believed that Ofcom and the government were a “long way” from requiring newspaper websites to fall into line with the rules on political impartiality which had to be observed by mainstream broadcasters. Throughout the consultation on the European directive Britain had favoured self-regulation of the content of newspaper websites, the option which the Press Complaints Commission had argued for consistently, on the grounds that the pure on line environment should not be caught by rules on broadcast material. But the speed with which on line television is blurring the edges with traditional broadcasters was highlighted by Lindsay Charlton, director of programming and content for ITV local websites. He told the seminar that internet television was already “another television channel” to all intents and purposes and he thought there would be a growing debate as to whether web television should be regulated. Charlton was convinced that the news content of ITV local websites would remain politically impartial because if they were to win the trust of advertisers they had to apply to their output on the web the same editorial rules that applied to ITV’s public service content on television. However, he believed that politically partisan material could still be used on-line in a way which would not be possible on an existing television channel. User generated videos which would not pass the rules on political impartiality were already appearing on the opinion pages of ITV local sites which he said would have the same editorial freedom as the opinion pages of a local newspaper. END