Ofcom Content Board

The Content Board is a committee of the main Ofcom Board, with delegated and advisory responsibility for a wide range of content issues, predominantly dealing with broadcasting. It is set up under statute, specifically Section 12(1) of the Communications Act 2003.

The Ofcom Board will seek advice and recommendations from the Content Board on any content-related aspects of decisions it has reserved for itself. All other content-related decisions are delegated to the Content Board.

The Content Board serves as Ofcom's primary forum for the regulation of television and radio quality and standards. It is charged with understanding, analysing and championing the voices and interest of the viewer, the listener and citizen. It will examine issues where the citizen interest extends beyond the consumer interest, with focus on those aspects of the public interest which competition and market forces do not reach.

Content Board members will consider content issues in three categories:

Tier 1 concerns negative content regulation. It covers matters principally concerning harm and offence, accuracy and impartiality, fairness and privacy.

Tier 2 relates to quantitative matters, such as quotas for independent television production, regional production and original EU/UK production.

Tier 3 covers the public service broadcasters; and in this context Ofcom has particular responsibility for ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

Members will also consider format regulation for radio and will advise the Ofcom Board on other issues as required.

The majority of Content Board members are part-time and drawn from diverse backgrounds across the UK. Four are appointed to represent to Ofcom the interests and opinions of people living in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English Regions.

26 January 2021

30 March 2021

11 May 2021

6 July 2021

5 October 2021

30 November 2021

Dr Aled Eirug

Aled Eirug joined the Content Board with effect from December 2015. He is also a freelance strategic policy adviser and works for Swansea University and other clients. He was a member of the governing authority for the Welsh language broadcasting service, S4C (2012 -2015), chairman of the British Council’s advisory committee for Wales (2012-2015) and a member of the British Council’s Board of Trustees (2013-2015).

He is an experienced journalist and broadcaster with over 30 years experience in ITV and the BBC, and was for 14 years BBC Wales’ Head of News and Current Affairs and a member of BBC Wales’ Board of Management. He has extensive experience of radio, television and online production across news, current affairs and documentary making.

Aled Eirug is the Content Board member for Wales. He joined the Board on 1 December 2015 and his appointment runs until 30 November 2021.

Janey Walker

Janey Walker is Deputy Chair of the Board of Governors at the University of Brighton. She was Managing Director of the Indie Training Fund from 2014-2016, providing television training for many of the UK's leading indies. Janey was Director of IGGY at the University of Warwick from 2011-2013 and launched its award-winning online network for gifted teenagers.

Janey worked at Channel 4 from 1996-2010. She was Managing Editor for Commissioning from 2000 as well as Head of Education from 2006. She was Channel 4's Commissioning Editor for Arts and Music 1996-2000. Janey worked in the independent sector 1994-1996 and at the BBC from 1982-1994.

Janey joined the Board on 1 April 2011. Her appointment runs until 30 April 2021.

Robin Foster

Robin is an expert in media policy, regulation and strategy, and a founder of Communications Chambers, a consultancy specialising in telecoms and media policy and regulation. In that role, he advises overseas governments and regulatory authorities on media policy. He is a member of the Advertising Advisory Committee at the Advertising Standards Authority, and an independent Panel Member for the Competition and Markets Authority.

Previously, he held senior level strategy positions at the BBC, the Independent Television Commission and Ofcom.

Robin has written extensively on trends and changes in media markets, and the implication of digital and social media for the future shape and health of UK broadcasting. His publications include reports on the UK creative sector, the future of TV news, the future of PSB, and the impact of digital intermediaries on news plurality.

Robin joined the Board on 1 January 2016. His appointment runs until 31 December 2021.

Kevin Bakhurst

Kevin Bakhurst joined Ofcom as Group Director for the Content and Media Policy Group on 31 October 2016. Previously he was the Deputy Director General and Managing Director of News and Current Affairs at RTE, the Irish public service broadcaster. Kevin has also spent a significant period with the BBC, where his roles included Deputy Head of the BBC Newsroom and Controller of the BBC News Channel. He also held several key editorial positions with the BBC including as Editor of the Ten O’Clock News and as Assistant Editor of the Nine O’Clock News. He started he career with Price Waterhouse.

Tim Suter

Tim Suter was appointed to the Ofcom Board with effect from 2 October 2017. He is currently Chairman of the Content Board and a member of the Remuneration Committee and Nominations Committee.

Tim Suter was a BBC producer, editor and senior manager for 15 years, working across television, radio and on-line and in genres as diverse as drama, documentary and current affairs.

In 2002 he was appointed Head of Broadcasting Policy in the Department for Culture Media and Sport, responsible for the Communications Act of 2003 that overhauled the policy approach to the converging industries of media and telecommunications and included the creation of the converged regulator, Ofcom.

Tim joined Ofcom at its inception in 2003 as the founding Partner for Content and Standards, overseeing the regulation of all broadcast content, the development of policy and its implementation. After five years at Ofcom, Tim left to found Perspective Associates, advising media companies, governments and regulators on media policy and regulation. As well as working with major international media companies across the UK, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Tim has also been a special advisor to the House of Lords Communications Committee, and the chair of an expert panel advising the Council of Europe of the governance of Public Service Media.

Tim joined the Board on 2 October 2017. His appointment runs until 1 October 2021.

Monisha Shah

Monisha Shah has senior level experience of broadcast and digital media and has served on a diverse range of public and commercial Boards.

She is a Board member of the Office for Students, the independent regulator of Higher Education in England, and a member of the Queen’s Counsel Appointments Panel. She is also a Member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, appointed by the Prime Minister in 2015.

She also serves on several charities. She is Chair of the Board of Governors at the Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, Trustee of the ArtFund and Trustee of Caterham School.

In previous roles, Monisha served on the boards of Tate, the National Gallery and the Donmar Warehouse. She was Non-executive Director on the Board of Next Mediaworks Plc, a media company operating FM radio in India and Non-Executive Director of Imagen Limited, a digital media company specialising in media asset management and content distribution solutions.

Monisha worked at BBC Worldwide from 2000-2010. As Director of Emerging Markets, she was responsible for initiating and delivering business strategy for the commercial exploitation of British intellectual property in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa. She led several strategic initiatives including new business ventures in formats, local productions, and co-productions across EMEIA. Monisha represented BBC Worldwide on several internal and external boards, including joint ventures in India for FM radio and magazines, and BBC World India Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the television channel, BBC World News.

Monisha joined the Board on 1 October 2017. Her appointment runs until 30 September 2023.

Jonathan Baker

Jonathan brings more than 40 years’ journalism experience.

He began his career as a reporter at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, before joining the BBC, where he held several senior roles in radio and television news. He was Editor of the Nine O’Clock News bulletin when it moved to its current 10pm slot. The programme received a BAFTA and Royal Television Society Awards under his editorship.

Jonathan also spent five years as BBC World News Editor, later becoming Deputy Head, for six months Acting Head, of the wider Newsgathering department. He was also appointed Head of the College of Journalism, with responsibility for training 8,000 BBC journalists.

From 2014-2018 he was founding Professor of Journalism at the University of Essex. Jonathan joined the Board on 1 October 2017 and his appointment runs until 30 September 2023.

Angelina Fusco

Angelina Fusco is an independent media and journalism training consultant living in Northern Ireland.  She works as an associate trainer with Channel56, a locally based communications company.  She has been a journalist for 40 years and spent more than 30 years in the Belfast newsroom of BBC Northern Ireland holding a variety of roles from regional journalist, producer, News Organiser and Editor Newsgathering.  For 15 years she was Editor of the BBC NI’s TV News brand’ ‘BBC Newsline’.  As Editor she faced challenging ethical, editorial and legal dilemmas on a regular basis. During that time the BBC Newsline team won two IFTAs for best news programme and was nominated for several RTS awards.  Angelina played a leading role in the introduction of transformational digital technologies, changing work practices as well as introducing social media platforms to the newsroom. She spent a year as a trainer at the BBC’s College of Journalism in London and in 2012 was awarded an Ochberg Fellowship on Journalism & Trauma from the Dart Centre, Columbia University, NYC.  Since leaving the BBC in 2013 Angelina has delivered journalism and trauma awareness training in Ukraine, Armenia and the UK.

Angelina is a member of the Board of Tourism NI and is on the Northern Ireland Committee of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Angelina is the Content Board member for Northern Ireland. She joined the Board on 1 June 2018 and her appointment runs until 31 May 2021.

Maggie Cunningham

Maggie Cunningham is the Content Board member representing the interests and opinions of people living in Scotland. Maggie has worked in the media sector for almost 40 years, 20 of which were at a senior editorial level in the BBC. Her roles included Head of Radio, Scotland and Joint Head of Programmes and Services, Scotland. Since 2009, she has worked as a leadership and executive coach. She chaired the Board of MG Alba for six years from July 2012. She is involved with the charity Sistema Scotland, having been a founding Board member until December 2019. She is an independent member of the Edinburgh Festivals’ Forum.

Maggie joined the Board on 1 October 2018. Her appointment runs until 30 September 2021.

Bob Downes

Bob Downes is the current chairman of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and of CENSIS, an innovation centre for sensors and imaging systems. Bob is a trustee of the Mackintosh Campus Renewal Appeal for Glasgow School of Art, and an advisor to a number of small technology businesses. Formerly he was a senior executive with BT Group.

Bob joined the Board on 1 February 2018. His appointment runs until 31 December 2022.

Sophie Morgan

Sophie is a television presenter and entrepreneur. She is a lead presenter of all live Paralympic sport on Channel 4, and has presented events including the 2016 Rio Paralympics and the 2017 Winter Paralympics. Sophie has also presented a range of other programmes such as Unreported World, Tricks of the Restaurant Trade and Best Laid Plans. She is also a consultant working to improve disability representation in retail.

Sophie, who was paralysed from the chest down aged 18, has twice been voted one of the top 100 most influential disabled people in the UK. An active campaigner, Sophie is a patron of the charity Scope and an ambassador for Human Rights Watch, Leonard Cheshire and Lumos.

Sophie joined the Board on 1 November 2018. Her appointment runs until 31 October 2021.

Stephen Nuttall

Stephen Nuttall has more than thirty years’ experience working as a senior executive and a consultant in the sports, media and digital industries. Stephen’s previous positions include Senior Director at YouTube EMEA and Group Commercial Director at Sky.

Stephen has also been a board member of Team Sky (Sky’s professional cycling team), Freeview, and the National Geographic Channel.

Stephen has an MBA from SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, a degree in Applied Physics from the University of Nottingham and is the Vice President for Engagement at the British Science Association.

Stephen joined the Board on 10 December 2018. His appointment runs until 9 December 2021.

Alison Marsden

Alison joined Ofcom in 2007. She is currently Ofcom’s Director of Content Standards, Licensing & Enforcement. She leads a team with responsibility for setting and enforcing content standards for television, radio and on-demand services and for Ofcom’s broadcast licensing programme.

Alison joined Ofcom as a broadcasting standards specialist and in 2016 became Director of the Standards and Audience Protection team, responsible for setting and enforcing Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code. Before joining Ofcom, Alison worked in television production, firstly at the BBC producing and directing specialist factual and factual programmes, and later for various independent production companies.

Peter Horrocks

Peter is an experienced leader in the fields of media, higher education and economic development. At the BBC he was Editor of Panorama, Newsnight and Elections. His leadership roles included Head of Current Affairs, Head of TV News and Head of the Multimedia Newsroom. He was Director of the BBC World Service from 2009 to 2014.

He was a member of the BBC Commercial Board and of the BBC Direction Group. He won BAFTA awards as editor of Newsnight and as executive producer of the documentary series The Power of Nightmares. Peter was Vice Chancellor of the Open University from 2015 to 2018 and is currently Chair of the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership. In 2015 he received a CBE for Services to Broadcasting.

Peter joined the Content Board on 1 November 2020. His appointment runs until 31 October 2023.

Dekan Apajee

Dekan graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering yet decided to follow his passion for journalism and joined the BBC in 2002. He worked his way up through the BBC, starting as a researcher and progressing to a broadcast journalist and producer working for several departments including BBC London, BBC News Channel and BBC Comedy. He produced a variety of unique community focused digital content ahead of the London 2012 Games before leaving the corporation and starting his own training and production company.

Combining his passion for community engagement and the arts Dekan founded Allsortz Open Mic (2011-2017), which he set up as a Community Interest Company; its aim was to provide emerging artists with the opportunity to perform in professional venues while developing their confidence and experience. Dekan sat on the board of the Youth Media Agency (2012-2015), providing support and guidance to small startup media platforms. He also sat on the programming committee for the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation (2012-2016).  Dekan is currently a Senior Lecturer and Joint Course Leader at the University of East London where he specialises in sports journalism, broadcast and digital media.

Dekan joined the Content Board on 1 November 2020. His appointment runs until 31 October 2023.

Anna-Sophie Harling

Anna-Sophie Harling is Managing Director for Europe at NewsGuard, based in London. Prior to joining NewsGuard, Harling worked at a technology startup in London, and at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, an international law firm. She has previously worked at two German newspapers, Der Tagesspiegel and the Märkische Allgemeine.

She graduated from Yale University, where she was a Yale Journalism Scholar.

Anna-Sophie joined the Content Board on 1 November 2020. Her appointment runs until 31 October 2023.

Kim Shillinglaw

Kim Shillinglaw has 30-years experience in the Media Industry, as Controller of BBC2 and BBC4, Director of Factual for one of the UK’s largest production entities EndemolShine, and Head of Commissioning for Science and Natural History among other roles. She is a Non-Exec Director of Natural England, a Trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation; and previously, of the innovation think tank, NESTA.  

At EndemolShine, Kim led commercial production companies from loss to profit, substantially growing turnover and ebitda ahead of a successful trade sale. At BBC2 and BBC4 she contemporised the channels, commissioning multi-award winning shows from Muslims Like Us to Exodus and Mum to Britain’s first transgender sitcom Boy Meets Girl. She introduced Women’s Football, the first female presenter of QI and the first non-white presenter of the Christmas Lectures. At Science and Natural History she brought new ambition with programmes from Frozen Planet, Africa, Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II to domestic brands like Stargazing Live and Springwatch. She led the BBC’s acclaimed Year of Science, and championed a much wider range of presenters to screen. She instigated the corporation's largest outreach campaign, Make It Digital. Previously, she worked in Children’s Commissioning, creating the multi-award winning Horrible Histories.

Kim chaired the BBC’s Commercial Income Taskforce, the BBC’s Factual Genre Board and NESTA’s Creative Economy Board, has advised organisations from the Science Museum to the AHRC’s Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, government panels for DCMS and BEIS, and committees for the Royal Society, Edinburgh TV Festival and others.

Kim joined the Content Board on 1 November 2020. Her appointment runs until 31 October 2023.

Rachel Coldicutt

Rachel Coldicutt is an expert on the social impact of new and emerging technologies, and director of research consultancy Careful Industries.

She was previously founding CEO of responsible technology think tank Doteveryone where she led influential and ground-breaking research into how technology is changing society and developed practical tools for responsible innovation. Prior to that, she spent almost 20 years working at the cutting edge of new technology for companies including the BBC, Microsoft, BT, and Channel 4, and was a pioneer in the digital art world. Rachel is an influential voice on the UK technology scene, and is an advisor, board member and trustee for a number of companies and charities. In 2019, Rachel was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours for services for the digital society.

She is currently writing a book about careful innovation.

Rachel joined the Content Board on 1 November 2020. Her appointment runs until 31 October 2023.

Tobin Ireland

Tobin has 25 years experience working as a senior executive in the digital media industry. He started his career at McKinsey & Company and has served as the Commercial Director of BSkyB, Chief Marketing Officer of AOL Europe, and Global Director of Strategy and Business Development at Vodafone.

While at Vodafone, Tobin led the GSMA global initiatives on mobile advertising and consumer privacy, and subsequently has become an active investor and advisor in the digital media and data sectors. He is Special Industry Advisor to the World Health Organisation and the Mobile Marketing Association – both focused on the future of the mobile data ecosystem. He is an angel investor in European mobile, data, AI and D2C start-ups and a non-executive/chairman on a range of technology and online companies, including Cyan Forensics.

Tobin has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the LSE, and a BSc in Pure Mathematics and Economics from the University of Bristol.

Tobin joined the Content Board on 1 November 2020. His appointment runs until 31 October 2023.

2020

Minutes of the 165th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 23 June 2020 (PDF, 149.7 KB)

Minutes of the 164th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 19 May 2020 (PDF, 143.1 KB)

Minutes of the 163rd Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 31 March 2020 (PDF, 134.7 KB)

Minutes of the 162nd Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 25 February 2020 (PDF, 183.2 KB)

2019

Minutes of the 161st Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 3 December 2019 (PDF, 148.4 KB)

Minutes of the 160th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 1 October 2019 (PDF, 171.0 KB)

Minutes of the 159th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 2 July 2019 (PDF, 168.7 KB)

Minutes of the 158th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 21 May 2019 (PDF, 166.0 KB)

Minutes of the 157th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 2 April 2019 (PDF, 163.0 KB)

Minutes of the 156th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 26 February 2019 (PDF, 159.7 KB)

2018

Minutes of the 155th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 18 December 2018  (PDF, 190.1 KB)

Minutes of the 154th Meeting of the Ofcom Content Board, London, 6 November 2018 (PDF, 188.6 KB)

It is our policy to keep board and committee minutes on our site for two years only. Older minutes can be accessed via the National Archives.