1. When is Ofcom taking on regulation of the BBC?
As stated in the BBC Charter, our duties start on 3 April 2017.
2. What is your role?
Ofcom will become the new external regulator of the BBC. Our job will be to hold the BBC to account.
Our new BBC responsibilities will fall into three main areas:
- Content standards
– including assessing the impartiality and accuracy of BBC news and current affairs programmes.
- Competition issues
– including the final determination on new BBC services or significant changes to existing services, and ensuring the BBC’s commercial services are not unfairly cross-subsidised by the licence fee.
- Reviewing the BBC’s performance
against its mission and public purposes.
The Government has decided that a new BBC unitary board will govern and run the BBC, and ultimately be responsible for editorial and management decisions.
3. Doesn’t Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code already apply to the BBC?
Yes, but not all of our rules currently apply to the BBC. Our rules about the protection of children, harm and offence, crime, disorder, hatred and abuse, religion, and fairness and privacy, all apply to the BBC already.
When the new arrangements start, the remaining rules - on accuracy and impartiality, elections and referendums, and commercial references in programmes, will also apply to the BBC.
4. What is happening to the BBC Trust?
The BBC Trust will cease when Ofcom takes on responsibility for the BBC’s regulation on 3 April. The governance functions carried out by the BBC Trust will move to the new BBC unitary board.