UNIT 8 - Broadcasting Act 1990

Broadcasting Act 1990

President Thatcher at the time had created this act as she believed that this would stimulate competition, widen consumer choice and increase efficiency. The aim of the Broadcasting Act was to reform the entire structure of British Broadcasting Television, in particular, it had been described by Lady Thatcher as "the last bastion of restrictive practices". She saw that the main competition with Britain at the time was with America, this was one of the things that led her to create this act and implement it into broadcasting and television.

The impact this had on the regulation system was that they had to follow the conventions that thatcher had set out for them.  this led to the abolition of Independent Broadcasting Authority and its replacement with the Independent Television Commission and Radio Authority. The ITC then started to regulate non terrestrial channels and the IBA had started to regulate channels such as ITV, Channel 4 and the British Satellite Broadcasting. The ITC had also took over the responsibility of  he cable authority which had regulated the early non terrestrial channels which were less popular as they had a smaller audience.

The Independent TV commission main job was to regulate and license all commercial television services in the United kingdom. They had to check all the commercial channels and check to see if what they are producing fit their standards of authority. They had been an independent regulation company. Before they were called the Independent Broadcasting Authority until the Broadcasting Act in 1990 had replaced it. 

The act allowed for the final terrestrial channel to be created, Channel 5 in 1997. This was seen as an advantage by many as it allowed variety in the UK TV industry and meant that more channels with different variety of shows could be viewed by the audience/viewers who tuned in. The act also allowed for multi-channel satellite TV to be implemented, which opened up the TV industry to other channels and made for a more interesting TV industry. It was also seen as a negative however as it may have led to confusion and made it more difficult for the audience to pick a channel to watch, too much variety can also have its down side to it as channels can get repetitive.

The BBC before the Act was implemented as introduced to make its programme “in-house”. This meant that they had control of everything they produced and no one else. However after the act had been introduced BBC had no other option but to outsource to other companies by 25%, a quarter of the BBC was sold to other companies for them to have as a share in order for them to stop a so called “Monopoly” within the television industry with the obvious BBC being the more popular and dominant firm.

One of the most controversial parts of the Act itself was that it lead to a successful business for the well-known Rupert Murdoch. This act enabled Murdoch to expand and grow his business into the UK. In effect this made the rich profit off of this. This caused a lot of controversy in the media and society at the time as it showed that the government did not care or concern themselves about the low income population of the UK, this can be still brought up to present day. The Broadcasting Act allowed Rupert Murdoch to introduce SKY into the UK. SKY is now the largest satellite television company in the UK. Many say that that Murdoch’s pro-conservative media broadcasting may have had an effect on the Act.

The Act altogether had benefits in the TV industry such as giving and allowing there to be more variety and creativity for the viewers to watch, it enabled for de-regulation so companies and broadcaster were allowed to have the freedom to broadcast programmes easily for a more creative and entertaining UK TV industry. By doing this it opened up the industry for more competition which allowed for more efficiency within the TV industry. This attracted more viewers and consumers as they will be wanting the best product, the industry was also aware of the foreign companies who wanted in on the shares, this made sure that the BBC and other domestic firms would make better and higher quality television.

The whole point of the 1990 Act was that the ITV was set up to regulate all the television services within the UK, however the BBC was excused from this, The Channel 4 was allowed to sell advertising through their channel meaning ITV was no longer the only advertisement featuring channel to get money. This of course gained both channels a profit. The Channel 5 was the last terrestrial TV being set up in 1997 before the digital move/revolution of television, the TV license was introduced to whoever owned a TV set.