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15|05|07

Response to Culture Media and Sport Committee questions on Call TV quiz services

Ed Richards, Ofcom Chief Executive, 15 May 2007

There has been a lot of activity and a lot of progress since Ofcom responded to the Committee’s Report into Call TV quiz shows, so I’m glad we can talk to you directly about this now.

There have been some policy changes. ICSTIS have clarified the rules about what must be shown on-screen in relation to these things, making sure there is transparency about the odds of getting through, transparency about call costs and of course also that there are cost warnings as people incur bigger and bigger bills. We have given further advice to broadcasters on the nature of quizzes, making sure that there are not unreasonably obscure questions for example. There is a programme of monitoring which is in place and ICSTIS are indeed going to consult on a scheme for auditing the premium rate suppliers. So an awful lot has moved forward. The policy framework which was in place has now been modified and advanced.

As a consequence of the publicity that has arisen from the committee’s work and everything else that has been going on, we have now seen a very significant reduction in the activity in this area. There were previously nine dedicated quiz programme blocks and four dedicated quiz channels. That has now fallen to four blocks and only one channel. So there has been a significant exit from the market in this area as people have understood more clearly, as they should have done originally, what compliance means and what the regulatory framework requires of them.

In addition we have had three investigations that have found breaches, ICSTIS have also recorded one further breach. All that has happened, but there is further to go in our view. The issue that has emerged this year is less about dedicated quiz programmes than the use of premium rate services by the public service broadcasters for phone-ins to their mainstream programmes. We currently have over 20 investigations still in play in relation to specific incidents, and those are being pursued. You’ll understand that this is a quasi-judicial process, we need to put those accusations to broadcasters, we need to permit them a right of response and we need to go through that process. Many of those are very well advanced and we would expect results on many of those in the coming weeks.

Similarly and in parallel we have the Richard Ayre Inquiry. The Ayre Inquiry we set up because what appeared to emerge over the preceding months was a problem of systematic or systemic failure of compliance. Not one or two individual breaches, which investigations would deal with, but once you get to people in our organisation conducting in excess of 20 investigations, you are looking at something that appears to be more systemic. The Richard Ayre Inquiry is looking at that and will ask fundamental questions of broadcasters, premium rate suppliers and independent producers, who are an important link in this chain, and ask whether there are more fundamental changes that need to take place, and it will do so in the broadest possible context. We have asked Richard to pose us difficult questions and not shy away from doing that should there be things that we need to confront more fundamentally ourselves. We’re expecting Richard to report to us before the summer, so that should be more or less in parallel with the outcome of individual investigations.

I should say in conclusion that the core issue here has always been, and remains one of compliance. There has been regulation in place from the outset, that is why we have got so many investigations taking place. The core issue is compliance, and the question, which I think will work its way through over the coming weeks and months and will be rehearsed as the Ayre Inquiry is published, will be how do broadcasters, in particular the public service broadcasters, how do they ensure that they restore and retain the trust of viewers in relation to the use of these services? And that is the central question that we have to keep returning to.

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