Originally Posted by popeye13:
“You'd be hard pushed to blame it on OFCOM for someone being a bonehead!
OFCOM isn't there to do that either.”
I know - but the argument would be that "OFCOM should have rules in place to stop this". Not my argument - I agree that you'd have to be a bonehead to do this, let alone to think this needed regulating... but apparently somebody does, because it's there...
Quote:
“
They'd be less likely because BT were only found in technical breach of the rules because OFCOM were snooping. No complained and the fact is non of the broadcasters can do much to stop this and if one of the broadcasters were to challenge a ruling from OFCOM about something like this in court, they'd likely win as there harm to a viewer is zero, the broadcaster isn't paid for the ads, they don't want the ads on there but they're taking a 3rd party feed that has these on which makes entirely beyond their control.
OFCOM would have to clearly show where the harm was. There is non!”
I wouldn't agree that they are less likely - in fact I would have said that if anything it would have made it more likely that having found a breach, OFCOM would have done a further set of sweeps of similar programming.
It's not likely that the broadcaster would take legal action over it, since it's clearly a breach. To overturn the decision the broadcaster would have to show evidence that they weren't in breach, not that OFCOM would have to prove further that there was any harm caused (which is a slightly different scenario for a technical breach like this than for something which is the result of a complaint, usually because the complaint is alleging some form of harm, unfairness or defamation)
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“The rules are stupid and OFCOM needs serious reform, but so do NFL International and MLB International, for the fact they still send out the feeds with all this crap on anyway.”
This doesn't seem to be so much of an issue with the NFL International and MLB International feeds - more those provided by an independent broadcaster, who is, naturally, being paid to mention their sponsors.
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“Its massively unprofessional for a start and when broadcasters are having to put the feeds on a 10 second delay to catch these ads and cut away in time, you know you're having the piss taken.”
I agree that it looks unprofessional, but given the regime that we have for oversight of broadcasting, it isn't a surprise. Perhaps OFCOM does need reforming to remove some of this kind of intervention, but there would, presumably, need to be some sort of known demand for it beyond a few folks moaning on a bulletin board.
The feed delay isn't really anything new. In fact, IIRC, WWF/E were put on a 7 second delay for all their live programming back in the late 90s or early 2000s, because they ran in to trouble with the US broadcasting authorities (might have been for the Pillman incident), and I think they still run on it.