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28|09|05

Note of the Thirty First Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board Held at Riverside House on 28 September 2005

Chairman’s Introduction

1. The Chairman welcomed Members to the thirty-first meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, which was being held for the purpose of a review. The following members were present throughout the meeting: Richard Hooper, Sue Balsom and Kath Worrall. Nicola Ebdon (Assistant Secretary to the Corporation), Chris Banatvala - Director of Standards and Caroline Smith - Legal Director were present throughout.

Content Board – Broadcaster Appeal

2. The Content Board considered a paper and a recording of the material which had been previously circulated. In addition, Members noted the contents of the Broadcasting Standards Commission ( BSC ) Code on Standards and the wording of the current ‘Upheld’ Finding. Content Board Members were being asked to consider the BBC ’s third appeal of Ofcom’s Finding that the BBC had contravened Ofcom’s Code (formerly the BSC ’s Code) in its scheduling of Pulp Fiction at 9.10pm on BBC 2 on Saturday 7 August 2004 . Members noted that the decision made at the meeting would be the final decision in this matter.

3. Members noted that there would not be any oral representations from the BBC at the meeting and that all of the BBC ’s representations were set out in the correspondence annexed to the paper circulated.

4. The Content Board noted that Ofcom’s Guidelines for the handling of standards complaints and cases allow for the possibility of a maximum of three appeals of an Ofcom Standards decision. It was noted that it was at the discretion of Ofcom whether any appeal was allowed in any particular case. Members noted that in this case, the BBC had already been allowed to appeal twice. In addition, it was noted that no Finding had yet been published.

5. Following consideration of the specific points of appeal which had been raised by the BBC in its third appeal, the Content Board concluded that it would not uphold the appeal. Members then gave consideration to whether the wording of the Finding for publication should be altered in the light of the BBC ’s points of appeal and the Content Board ’s conclusions and a number of amendments were agreed.

6. Members noted that following the meeting, the amended Finding and draft response to the third appeal containing the Content Board ’s decision and reasons would be circulated to the Members present for their approval. Once approval had been confirmed, the Finding and response would be communicated to the BBC .

October 2005

Ofcom’s published adjudication can be found via http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/obb/prog_cb/pcb49/

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