Race Relations Act 1976

The Race Relations Act 1976 was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent
discrimination. This act incorporated discrimination in the bases of race, colour, nationality, ehtnic and
national origin in the fields of employment, the provision of goods and services, and education and
public functions. This act helps make sure that it actually prevents discrimination and also promotes race
equality.

This act impacted football player Paul Ince, who became the first Black player to captain England in its
“National sport”, in 1994 on national TV. Six years later, Indian-born Nasser Hussain performed the same
task for England’s cricket side.
The Race Relations Act 1976 was later repealed by the Equality Act 2010, which superseded and
consolidated previous discrimination law in the UK.

Broadcasting Act 1990

The Broadcasting Act 1990 was established by the Peacock Committee, a former review on the financing
of the BBC. The government expected the Peacock Committee in its review to report that the BBC
television license fee that funds the BBC would be thrown out, but they did not, instead the Committee
was in favour of retaining the license fee and thought it was a good idea and the least worst option.

The immediate recommendations of the report were:

 BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 should be privatised.

 All televised receivers should be built fitted with encryption decoders.
 The television license fee should be indexed to inflation and the BBC should become responsible
for the collection of the license fee.
 The license fee should be extended to car radios.
 Pensioners dependent on benefits should be exempt from the license fee.
 Not less than 40% of the BBC’s and ITV’s output should be sourced from independent producers.
 The transmission space used by the BBC and ITV overnight should be sold.
 ITV franchises should be put out to competitive tender.
 Channel 4 should be able to sell its own advertising.
 Censorship should be phased out.

In television, the act allowed Channel 5 to be created and it was the growth of satellite television. The
BBC is also obliged to source at least 25% of its output from independent countries. An example is that
the BBC bought the rights of The Voice from an independent company being, Endemol “John De Mol’s”
company.
Obscene Publications Act 1959

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament that
significantly reformed the law related to obscenity in England and Wales. The act created a new offence
for publishing obscene material, repealing the common law offence of obscene libel which was
previously used, and allows Justices of the Peace to issue warrants allowing the police to seize such
materials. At the same time, it creates two defences; firstly, the defence of innocent dissemination, and
secondly the defence of public good.

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 was extended to include films, videos, and TV in 1977. Under the
Obscene Publications Act, a film may be deemed obscene when, taken as a whole, the work has
tendency to “deprave and corrupt” a signification proportion of those likely to see it. It is important to
note that a film must be considered as a whole and that individual scenes must not be judged out of
wider context of the complete work. A film that would normally be considered obscene can be excused
and shown if it is in the interests of science, art, literature, or learning or of other objects of general
concern.

For example, the movie Crash (1996) was accused by its critics of being obscene, but no prosecution was
brought. Indeed, a leading QC gave his opinion that the film was not obscene.

British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)

The British Board of Film Classification is a non-government organisation founded by the film industry in
1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films exhibited at cinemas and
video works. It is also responsible for giving a media product an age rating based on content. The BBFC’s
role in the UK is to help everyone choose age-appropriate films, videos, and websites, wherever and
however they watch or use them. Additionally, once the media has been rated no one below the given
age rating can view it.

Some specific classification considerations the BBFC follow is nudity with no sexual context is in principle
acceptable at all classification levels but will not generally occur more than occasionally at U. Whereas
nudity with a sexual context will receive a higher classification. Where the principal purpose of depicting
nudity is to sexually arouse it will usually only be passed at the adult categories (18 or R18).

Another consideration is drugs, no work taken as a whole may promote the misuse of drugs and any
detailed portrayal of drug misuse likely to promote the activity may be cut. Works which normalise or
glamorise drug misuse are likely to receive a higher classification than works which show drug misuse
while emphasising the dangers.

Finally, another consideration is discrimination, potentially offensive content relating to matter such as
race, gender, religion, disability, or sexuality may arise in a wide range of works, and the classification
decision will take account of the strength or impact of their inclusion.

In 1970, now a counter-cultural curio, Andy Warhol’s Trash was deemed unclassifiable when it crossed
the BBFC’s screens in 1970. Scenes of intravenous drug use, combined with graphic sex and nudity were
a heady cocktail, even before they got to the bit with the self-abuse and the beer bottles. The major
problem, according to the BBFC, was its “ambivalent attitude” to drug taking. Watered down with cuts,
it got an X rating in 1972

In 2011, with its crazed scientist recreating the first Human Centipede and literally stitching people
together willy-nilly, Tom Six’s even more controversial sequence was seen to represent “a real risk to
potential viewers” and banned by the BBFC. Eventually, after two minutes 27 seconds of cuts that left
fans of buttock stapling cursing, it was passed 18 on DVD.
In March 2019, Netflix and the BBFC announced an age classification partnership, where the former will
classify their content in the United Kingdom with BBFC ratings. The partnership came at the time when
digital is on the rise worldwide and when parents are concerned about children seeing inappropriate
content on video on demand or online gaming platforms. The implementation of BBFC into Netflix UK
content took effect at the end of October 2019.
Ofcom

The Office of Communications is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the
broadcasting, telecommunications, and postal industries of the UK. Some of the main responsibilities
that Ofcom have is to publish the broadcasting code which is the guidelines all television and radio
stations must follow, as this code make sure no inappropriate content is shown to children before 9pm
which is known as the watershed period of time and the penalty of breaking this guideline is losing your
license. Premium-rate film services may broadcast content equivalent to a BBFC 15 certificate at any
time of day provided a pin protected system is in place to restrict access to those authorised to view it.
Some of the main areas Ofcom preside over are licensing, research, codes and policies, complaints,
competition and projecting the radio spectrum from abuse, for example pirate radio stations. In
addition, it has a permitted duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting
competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material.

UK hate speech regulation: Ofcom has defined hate speech as “all form of expression which spread,
incite, promote or justify hatred based on tolerance on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, social origin,
sex, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, colour, genetic
features, language, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth or
age”.

Since Ofcom is strong on hate speech, in December 2020, Ofcom fined Christian TV Channel Loveworld
for airing “harmful” claims about the Covid-19 pandemic in their 29-hour programme entitled Global
Day of Prayer on its channel. During the programme, there were also statements broadcast that
described the Covid-19 pandemic as a “planned” event, which was claimed to have been planned by the
“deep state”. The Covid-19 vaccines were described as “sinister” and were said to be used to control
recipients through the use of “nanochips”. The show also included statements suggesting a link between
Covid-19 and the use of 5G signals. This fine from Ofcom followed a previous notice to the network in
January.
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