What may perhaps explain the inability of the KBP to enforce its rules among its members is its very nature: it is a self-regulatory body composed of - who else but TV and radio owners themselves! So it's not surprising then that our broadcasting networks rather have a free-wheeling attitude in the way they conceptualize and run their programs.
Which brings me to what this post is all about. I was so shocked this morning when I read that the BBC (yes, the UK's independent public service broadcasting company which runs on people's TV license fees) was penalized with a whooping £400,000 fine 'for misleading its audiences by "faking" phone-ins'. The Office of Communication (Ofcom) found eight of the BBC's programs, both TV and radio, to have deliberately faked winners of competitions. The violations appear to have been committed over a three-year period.
But the BBC's closest competitor,ITV, must be reeling from a much heavier fine - £5.68 MILLION 'for abusing premium rate phone services in viewer competitions'. Wow! In 2007, another TV channel, GMTV, was fined £2M 'for failings in its phone-in quizzes'. I wonder if our own TV and radio programs which ask viewers to text in votes might also be guilty of the same violations?
But then, I guess we will never find out because we don't have an independent body similar to Ofcom. It's a government body created by law specifically to 'promote competition and protect consumers from harmful or offensive material'. Don't the Pinoy consuming public deserve to be protected from devious schemes by radio and TV companies?
While I'm very proud of our tradition of free speech and free press in the country, I'm appalled by how we've interpreted them to various extremes. I wonder what media consumers think about some of the crap that we get to watch on TV or hear on the radio? I wonder how we can make TV and radio stations more accountable to us, the audience...
