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The Broadcasting Act 1990 is a law of the
British parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...
, initiated in part due to a 1989 European Council Directive (89/552), also known as the Television Without Frontiers directive. The aim of the Act was to liberalise and deregulate the British broadcasting industry by promoting competition; ITV, in particular, had earlier been described by
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
as "the last bastion of restrictive practices". The act came about after the finding from the Peacock Committee. It led directly to the abolition of the
Independent Broadcasting Authority The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television ( ITV and Channel 4 and limited satellite television regulation – cable television was the responsibility of the Cable Author ...
and its replacement with the
Independent Television Commission The Independent Television Commission (ITC) licensed and regulated commercial television services in the United Kingdom (except S4C in Wales) between 1 January 1991 and 28 December 2003. History The creation of ITC, by the Broadcasting Act ...
and
Radio Authority Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...
(both themselves now replaced by Ofcom), which were given the remit of regulating with a "lighter touch" and did not have such strong powers as the IBA; some referred to this as "deregulation". The ITC also began regulating non-terrestrial channels, whereas the IBA had only regulated ITV,
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
and
British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was a television company, headquartered in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. They started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company was merged with ...
; the ITC thus took over the responsibilities of the Cable Authority which had regulated the early non-terrestrial channels, which were only available to a very small audience in the 1980s.


Effects of the Act

An effect of this Act was that, in the letter of the law, the television or radio companies rather than the regulator became the broadcasters, as had been the case in the early (1955–1964) era of the
Independent Television Authority The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" ( ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ITA existed from 1954 un ...
when it had fewer regulatory powers than it would later assume.


In television

In television, the Act allowed for the creation of a fifth analogue terrestrial television channel in the UK, which turned out to be Channel 5, and the growth of multichannel satellite television. It also stipulated that the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, which had previously produced the vast majority of its television programming
in-house Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...
, was now obliged to source at least 25% of its output from independent production companies. The act has sometimes been described, both as praise and as criticism, as a key enabling force for
Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
's ambitions in Britain. It reformed the system of awarding ITV franchises, which proved controversial when
Thames Television Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Thames Television broa ...
was replaced by Carlton Television, for what some felt were political reasons (see '' Death on the Rock''), and when
TV-am TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchis ...
, admired by Mrs Thatcher for its management's defiance of the trade unions, lost its franchise to GMTV (the now-former Prime Minister personally apologised to the senior TV-am executive
Bruce Gyngell Bruce Gyngell AO (8 July 1929 – 7 September 2000) was an Australian television executive, active for more than 40 years in both Australian and UK television. Although Gyngell began his career in radio, in the 1950s he stepped into the arena o ...
). It also allowed companies holding ITV franchises to merge with each other starting in 1994, beginning the process which eventually led to all franchises in England and Wales coming under the control of
ITV plc ITV plc is a British media company that holds 13 of the 15 regional television licences that make up the ITV network (Channel 3), the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom. ITV plc is listed on the ...
in 2004.


In radio

In radio, it allowed for the launch of three
Independent National Radio Independent National Radio is the official term for the three national commercial radio stations currently or previously broadcasting on analogue radio in the United Kingdom. The two stations currently or previously broadcasting on AM were allocat ...
stations, two of them on medium wave using frequencies formerly used by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, and the other on FM using frequencies formerly used by the emergency services. It set out plans for many more local and regional
commercial radio Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship. It was the United States′ first model of radio (a ...
stations, generally using parts of the FM band not previously used for broadcasting, which have since come to fruition. Its plans for expanding
community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popula ...
were only really developed in the 2000s.


Controversy

The Act passed through Parliament despite opposition from much of the Labour Party and from some members of the ruling Conservative Party, who saw it as representative of a decline in standards, and on occasions saw it as enabling what was, for them, an unwelcome
Americanisation Americanization or Americanisation (see spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the United States of America, including their media, cuisine, business practices, popular culture, te ...
. Notably,
Douglas Hurd Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, (born 8 March 1930) is a British Conservative Party politician who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1979 to 1995. A career diplomat and political secretary to P ...
has since criticised the Act's after-effects, describing it as "one of the less successful reforms of those years". These Conservatives would have described their position as paternalistic as a term of praise, while supporters of the Act would use it against them as a term of abuse. During
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
's tenure as leader, the Labour Party's broadcasting policy generally shifted much more towards that expounded in the Act. The then
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
,
David Waddington David Charles Waddington, Baron Waddington, (2 August 1929 – 23 February 2017) was a British politician and barrister. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons from 1968 to 1974 a ...
, described the Act as heralding "a massive expansion in choice", and supporters of the multichannel age in British broadcasting have praised the Act, and later regulation influenced by it, for such reasons. Supporters of the previous, more regulated system have strongly criticised the Act, and some have blamed it for what they see as a "
dumbing down Dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, literature, and cinema, news, video games, and culture. Originated in 1933, the term "dumbing down" was movie-business slang, used by screenplay writers, mean ...
" of British television and radio. Like many other reforms of the Thatcher years, it has a tendency to polarise opinion very strongly. One initially less-obvious effect of the Act was that technical standards ceased to be monitored and enforced by the regulatory body along with the programme content.


See also

*
History of ITV The history of ITV, the United Kingdom " Independent Television" commercial network, goes back to 1955. Independent Television began as a network of independently-owned regional companies that were both broadcasters and programme makers, beginn ...
*
Television Act 1954 The Television Act 1954 was a British law which permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom, ITV. Until the early 1950s, the only television service in Britain was operated as a monopoly by the Briti ...
*
Communications Act 2003 The Communications Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act, which came into force on 25 July 2003, superseded the Telecommunications Act 1984. The new act was the responsibility of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. It ...


References


External links

*
Torycasting
– an account of the Act (among other things) from a perspective generally critical of the latter-day Conservative Party. {{UK legislation United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1990 1990 in British television Media legislation Broadcasting in the United Kingdom History of mass media in the United Kingdom