THE ANNUAL REPORT OF mediawatch-uk
Presented at the Annual General Meeting
30 May 2009

CAMPAIGN ISSUES

Media Violence Must be Reduced
In 2008 we launched an online petition to the Prime Minister calling for violence in the media to be substantially reduced in the light of the alarming growth of gun and knife crime.  This petition closed with only 2112 signatures.  The Director wrote to Mr Brown urging him to make clear to broadcasters and film-makers that portraying guns and knives, simply for entertainment, was no longer tolerable.

We commissioned a public opinion poll in November on the question of media violence.  The results of this poll, conducted by ComRes, were that a big majority believe there is too much violence on TV.  This initiative was timed to coincide with the mediamarch conference in November in Parliament.

Having sent in a detailed submission to the Home Office in November 2005 we followed closely the progress of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill which includes provisions to make the possession of extreme pornography a new criminal offence.  This received Royal Assent in July 2008 and became effective from February 2009.

Mary in the Media
We also followed the progress of the BBC2 production Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story shown in May.  Carol Gould suggested that we might consider hosting a fund raising screening of the programme at the BAFTA cinema in London as the scheduling of it by the BBC was then uncertain.  The production company, Wall to Wall, told us that this would not be possible. 

All agreed that the programme, which focused on the early years of the campaign, was better than it might have been and that it showed how the campaign impacted on Mary Whitehouse and her family and it showed her engaging in negotiations at the highest political level.

The Problem with Video Games
mediawatch-uk sent in a detailed submission to the Byron Review which was set up by the Prime Minister to investigate and make recommendations on how to protect children and young people from violence and pornography on the Internet and in Video Games. 

As a response to Dr Byron's report the Government set up the UK Council for Child Internet Safety in September 2008.  mediawatch-uk is a member of this council and your director attended meetings associated with it.  The Internet Watch Foundation, the NSPCC and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection service are represented on the Council.

Excellent TV!
The Executive Committee made plans to present awards or certificates for excellence for good TV and radio programmes.  The first Certificate of Excellence was presented in March 2009 to Liberty Bell Productions for their Channel 4 Learning programme ‘TV is Dead?'

In 2008 there were three issues of the mediawatch-uk newsletter in Spring, Summer and Autumn.  The subjects covered included the Byron Review, product placement advertising, threats to the law against blasphemy, focus on Ofcom, swearing on TV, the nature of TV and the ‘shifting battleground'.

Media Matters in Parliament
We undertook a separate mailing to members asking them to write to their own Members of Parliament urging them to support Julian Brazier's Private Members' Bill aiming to make the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) more accountable to Parliament.  Sadly, this Bill ran out of parliamentary time at the Second Reading debate in February.  Many good points were made by Mr Brazier, who commended our work, and by Mr Keith Vaz, MP, the current Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee.

The Director raised the important matter of the regulation of programmes accessed via On-Demand services such as the BBC's iPlayer.  At the present time these are outside the regulatory remit of the Office of Communications and are subject only to a voluntary agreement among the providers.  On-Demand access undermines the "watershed" completely.  We note that late last year the BBC announced plans for a Children's iPlayer.

In October the Director and Promotions and Development officer had a private meeting with the Secretary of State, Andy Burnham MP, to set out our concerns about the regulation of On-Demand TV programming and ‘product placement' advertising.

Regional News
It was agreed that we should write to Michael Grade, the Executive Chairman of ITV, asking him to reconsider the decision to reduce ITV's regional news provision.  mediawatch-uk members were involved in this matter and those who replied expressed the wish that ITV should maintain its regional news coverage in competition with the BBC.  Mr Grade replied that costs had to be reduced because of the downturn in advertising revenue and the cuts had to be made.

Online Petition - Cut Swearing!
David Turtle proposed that we initiate an on-line petition to the Prime Minister on the question of swearing on TV.  The level of swearing in programmes had become a national issue sparked by the excessive language used by Jamie Oliver in his Ministry of Food series.  The issue was given fresh impetus by the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross obscene telephone call controversy.  The petition was launched in November and will run until 20 May 2009.

During the year mediawatch-uk sent in a submissions to the Ofcom review of Public Service Broadcasting and to the Department of Culture Media and Sport on Video Game Classification and the Audio Visual Media Services directive.

COMMITTEE BUSINESS

In 2008 there were six meetings of your Executive Committee in January, March, June, July, October and November with an average attendance of 7.  All meetings began with the mediawatch-uk prayer and all were held in London.  John Beyer, the Director, acted as Chairman of the Executive Committee throughout the year and Richard Chamberlain ably acted as the minutes' secretary which were always approved, amended as necessary and signed by the Acting Chairman.

The Way Forward
Richard Chamberlain chaired the ‘Finance' subcommittee, assisted by Roy Smith and Tony Woollett.  Roy Smith chaired the ‘New Shape' subcommittee assisted by Pippa Smith and Duke Munroe.  This was set up to make recommendations and to execute plans for the future of mediawatch-uk after the retirement of the John Beyer in September 2009.

Roy also led the Committee in a ‘brainstorming' session to consider new ways to attract members and supporters.  Clearly our website was a key factor in keeping people informed of our activities and of media issues generally.  Margaret Brown suggested that we invest up to £3,000 in advertising to attract members and supporters in some carefully selected Christian publications. 

In the event the budget was exceeded slightly by the Director, after consultation with the EC, who decided, with the assistance of Pauline Webborn, the Promotions and Development Officer, to place specially designed advertisements in the Easter editions of the biggest circulation papers.  At this time the circulation was estimated to be double that of ordinary weeks.

The Committee carefully considered the activities and progress of Pauline Webborn.  She drew the committee's attention to the concerns that people had expressed to her at meetings, in particular to the need for an easy way to send in comments to the regulator. 

It was decided to design and print post cards for this purpose.  These were distributed to members with the newsletter.  It was decided to renew her contract for a further 9 months to October 2008.

Mrs Webborn attended 3 meetings as an observer and to report on her activities and progress.  She demonstrated a power point presentation for meetings, to the committee, and showed an attractive tabletop display panel designed to enhance the talks to numerous groups throughout the year.  She had also done a great deal to promote the Children and the Media booklet, and worked hard to attract signatures to our online petitions on violence and swearing.

Children & the Media
The Committee continued to seek ways to get the Children and the Media booklet into circulation.  A meeting with the National Association of Head Teachers was arranged but did not materialise owing to their other commitments.  We were encouraged that a number of schools had asked for copies to distribute to every parent.  Mrs Webborn undertook a mailing to all head teachers in East Kent. 

We believe that financial constraints were a disincentive even at a reduced price.  We considered circulating a leaflet to all primary schools throughout the UK using the Hamilton House shared mailing system.  We decided that the cost of this at £1,000 was too much to risk when the returns were not certain.

Thank You
Early in the year the Committee was joined as observers by Carol Gould, the American writer and broadcaster, and Anna Firth, from Open Eye, a Campaign for Open Early Years Education.  Both later decided for good reasons that they could not, after all, offer themselves for election to the Committee.

After many years service on the Committee Margaret Brown decided to resign in November which meant that the number of people who make up the EC fell below eight, the number required in the Constitution.  In order to continue to conduct business on behalf of the members we needed to change the constitution to reduce the number to six.  All members would have to be asked to agree to this change.  

A letter and form was sent to all members at the beginning of January 2009.  Up until the time of her resignation, Margaret continued to focus on recovering subscriptions from members who had not renewed.  Typically her success rate exceeded 50 per cent and in 2008 more than £5,000 was received from members who we might otherwise have lost.  This work resumed from December 2008 but instead of telephoning the members they were sent a short letter, with a simplified form, from the office.

Administration
In 2008 the Committee considered the possibility of making the organisation a Limited Company.  After investigating the matter we concluded that there were no practical advantages in doing this.  However, we decided to increase our public liability insurance.

The possibility of an ISDN line being installed at the office was considered.  This would enable broadcast quality interviews and would obviate the need for the Director to travel to studios to be interviewed for radio programmes.

The Newspaper Licensing Agency contacted us about monitoring the press and asking if we copy any newspaper cuttings.  As we did not fit any of the categories of organisations listed I arranged a meeting at their Tunbridge Wells office to discuss the matter.  After discussions we found that we were liable and the cost of full indemnity for previous copying was £2,716.00.  Our annual subscription, on a much-reduced basis, will result in a cost of around £250 per year in future.

The Committee agreed that we should continue to occupy the office in Ashford and In June due notice was given to the landlord that we would stay for a further 12 months to the end of September 2009.

David Turtle expressed the view that we needed to reappraise our strategy with the press and media generally.  The newsletter is currently sent, with a news release, to national and regional daily newspapers, some weekly and Sunday newspapers as well at national, regional and local TV and radio services.

John Beyer and Richard Chamberlain attended the Memorial Service in London held for Lord Deedes of Aldington who had been a good friend of the late Mary Whitehouse and the Association.  He had been a speaker at our first Annual Convention in 1965 and had presented our Annual Award in 1997.

The Committee agreed to purchase 50 copies of Detoxing Childhood by Sue Palmer with an option to buy more.  These would be given to new members.  In 2008 more than 90 new members were enrolled.

It was discovered that we were not being notified of people using the website joining form. This led to a redesign of the form, which now includes a standing order form.  Our present membership administration system cannot handle on-line joining and a new system is needed for the future.  This matter is currently being investigated.  Although it took some time, all contributions via PayPal have now been identified and the joiners added to the system.

Throughout the year the Director provided the Committee with a detailed account of his activities and a report to the AGM is below.

DIRECTOR'S REPORT

SWEARING - A NEW NATIONAL CAMPAIGN

It has been another extremely busy year dealing with numerous press and other media enquiries and this has resulted in numerous quotes in several national newspapers. 

The Daily Mail and The Sunday Express, in particular, have been rather more sympathetic to our concerns than some of the others but The Sunday Telegraph took up the matter of swearing on TV in a very forceful way finding that a majority (56%) of people believed that the f*** word should not be transmitted at all.

Jamie Oliver's programme ‘Ministry of Food' was full of gratuitous swearing and this angered, quite rightly, an enormous number of people and I made statements to numerous newspapers and had many interviews with different radio programmes.  For some reason Mr Oliver feels as if he has to compete with Gordon Ramsey and maybe he thinks that all the publicity he gets is worth it to enhance his celebrity position.  If only their language was a good as their cooking!

We were very grateful to The Sunday Express when, towards the end of the year, it launched a Clean Up TV Crusade after the Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand incident when an obscene message was left on Andrew Sachs' answer ‘phone.  Brand resigned and the controller of BBC Radio 2 with the Compliance officer, resigned over the matter.  Ross was suspended from the BBC for three months without pay. 

This incident caused many people to complain to the BBC but we felt it was the tip of an iceberg of much wider discontent viewers felt generally about poor standards on TV.   During the week that the Ross/Brand incident occurred we were inundated with requests to do radio interviews from BBC Derbyshire, Somerset, Nottingham, Merseyside, Leeds, Northampton, Leicester, Kent, Newcastle and many more.

I would like to thank David Turtle who has been a tremendous help over the year by handling media interviews that could not be done from the office, either because of annual leave or that there were just so many requests for comment to handle.

Because the issue of swearing on TV had become so high profile, mediawatch-uk launched another on-line petition to the Prime Minister on the No 10 Downing Street website calling upon him to intervene over the matter. 

These petitions are a good way of enabling members of the general public to express their concerns directly to Mr Brown but it is not always clear if anything actually results from these initiatives.  In this case, however, we know that a review of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code is now being undertaken.

I was interviewed in London by the comedian Frank Skinner about swearing on TV.  This was for a Panorama programme ‘Have I Got Bad Language For You?'.  Although the interview took almost two hours only a very short clip was used.  It was a good programme, shown on BBC1 TV, and a survey found that the majority believe there is too much swearing on TV.

I was also interviewed on the Sunday Life programme on BBC TV talking about Mary Whitehouse in the run-up to the Mary Whitehouse Story.  This was also a short live interview requiring a very long drive of hundreds of miles to the studio close to Bradford.

THE MARY WHITEHOUSE STORY

The late great Mary Whitehouse was portrayed in a TV drama, shown at the end of May called Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story.  It was unfortunate that neither mediawatch-uk nor her surviving family were consulted.  Had we been, some of the more obvious inaccuracies could easily have been avoided. 

The programme was undoubtedly a sympathetic portrayal of the enormous struggle Mary had to fight to make people realise how powerful the media is and the influence it has on us all but particularly the young.  

Her phrase, "if you constantly portray violence on the TV screen it will help to create a violent society" is so true today.  The Times magazine, The Knowledge, featured a 500-word article from me about Mary and there was a lengthy interview with The Daily Express, which resulted in a two-page feature.

I spent a very pleasant evening in London speaking to some members of The Carlton Club about Mary Whitehouse's legacy.

GAMERS AND GAMING

The games industry and their supporters were very strident in e-mails telling me, in not very polite terms, that we were wrong to say that violent video games might cause impressionable youngsters to commit copycat crimes, that they should not be made and that the BBFC classification is wrong. 

A very violent game called MadWorld, subsequently classified ‘18' by the BBFC, was the subject of much heated comment from gamers.  The Culture Select Committee published a report on Computer Game classification and the Department for Culture Media and Sport issued a public consultation to which we responded.  In our submission we said there is too much emphasis on parental responsibility and too little on the industry's responsibilities.

TAKING ISSUE WITH OFCOM

Another very big story in the newspapers and on the radio was the Sky TV programme called ‘Right to Die'.  We were involved in many interviews and our comments appeared in several newspapers. 

We took up the matter with Ofcom suggesting that the programme breached the Broadcasting Code because it did not treat this matter of public policy with due impartiality examining, as it did, only the case for assisted suicide.  After some weeks Ofcom predictably concluded that their Code had not been breached.

I had a number of meetings with officials at Ofcom and aired our concerns about standards very strongly.  We were pleased that Ofcom announced that they would maintain the prohibition on product placement advertising, which we felt would have a detrimental effect on television, and that they have fined pornography channels for breaches of the Broadcasting Code.  We were pleased also about the substantial fine given to the BBC and other broadcasters for misleading audiences on phone-in quiz shows.

Ofcom's Communications Market 2008 report showed that 55% of people are concerned about what is on TV.  We were pleased that Ofcom upheld complaints about violence in Taggart, now shown on ITV1 during the day.  Ofcom, because of its duty to protect children from harmful material, said that such violent imagery is not appropriate for daytime showing.

RESPONDING TO CONSULTATIONS

mediawatch-uk was busy again this year responding to several consultations. 

The first was our response to the Dr Tanya Byron Review. This was a lengthy paper in which we made a good case for including Broadcasting in the Review.  Dr Byron told us, however, that Broadcasting had been excluded on the advice of the then Culture Secretary, The Rt Hon James Purnell MP. 

The second was a much shorter paper on Ofcom's Public Service Broadcasting Review in which we stated again that high standards of content should always be the priority.  The third was the DCMS consultation on Video Game Classification where we drew attention to the failure of the industry to agree a unified system of classification and the failure of retailers to observe the various classifications. 

The fourth was a response to the Audio Visual Media Directive in which we again stated our opposition to product placement advertising and called for proper and effective regulation by Ofcom of downloaded programming.

Apart from the articles already mentioned, we had one published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Health entitled ‘These Terrible Issues' and a Kent on Sunday article called ‘The Whitehouse Aide'.  I was asked to write an article on the implications for the Licence Fee and an edited version was published in the Daily Express.

ACTION AND INFORMATION ALERTS

Throughout the year we maintained regular contact with our e-members giving them information about a number of issues including the cut in ITV's regional news programmes and the Government's launch of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, proposed by Dr Tanya Byron in her Review. We also advised members of the BBC's review of services for younger people calling for young people to take part in the survey.

We asked our e-members to take action on different subjects including the disturbing scenes in ITV's drama Wire in the Blood asking them to send in one of their Ofcom postcards or email if they found it unacceptable.  We also asked our e-members to sign and support our Stop Swearing On TV petition and to pass on the information to their contacts and friends urging them to sign it as well.

MEDIA POLITICS

In March I had an article published in The House Magazine on the question of regulating downloaded programmes.  It was at an important time when discussions were taking place in Parliament.   My article was alongside one by Don Foster MP, LibDem Culture spokesman.  Articles by Jeremy Hunt MP, Shadow Culture Secretary, and Andy Burnham MP, the Culture Secretary were on adjacent pages.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, Hugo Swire MP, Margaret Hodge MP, Lord Attenborough and Sir Michael Lyons are just a few of the people we wrote to during the year on various subjects from downloading programmes on-line, Internet Standards Authority, knife crime, Internet safety and the BBC's review of "taste and decency guidelines".

We commissioned ComRes to conduct two opinion polls.  The first was associated with Julian Brazier's Private Members' Bill to make the British Board of Film Classification more accountable to Parliament.  The second was aimed at discovering how much public concern continues to exist about violence on TV and the majority, over 80%, agreed there is too much violence on TV that action was necessary to reduce it.

MEETINGS & CONFERENCES

I made many visits to London during the year for meetings with officials from the BBC, Ofcom, and Channel 4 and also for conferences, such as, mediamarch's Conference on the Harmful Effects of Violent Films and Computer Games on Young People's Behaviour, and Preventive Action, the publication of Dr Tanya Byron's report and I have met some very useful contacts. 

I also attended the BBC presentation ‘Beyond the Broadcast' which showcased the BBC's activities to help children understand broadcasting and being involved in community activities such as dance and music.  I attended an important conference at the London Business School on Public Service Broadcasting addressed by Lord Currie, the retiring chairman of Ofcom.  His approach to this matter was entirely related to funding.

I also had a very cordial meeting with Shari Glaydon in London to swap notes.  She heads Media Watch Canada and experiences many of the same problems that we do in Britain.

HELPING STUDENTS

During 2008 we were again asked by a number of students to help them with their projects, dissertations and research.  They have all been very grateful and I feel it is very important to engage with young people in this way.  Several students wanted to film an interview either at our office or at their college.

I also took part, with Dr Guy Cumberbatch, in the national final of the Debating Matters Competition where some very bright students asked some very difficult questions about the points of debate.

PRAISING THE GOOD

On a lighter and more encouraging note, throughout the year there have been a number of very praiseworthy programmes on television. 

These include Joanne Lumley's programme In the Land of the Northern Lights, Riverside Cottage, Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain, Tonight with Trevor McDonald, Grand Designs, Wild China, Springwatch, Wainwright Walks, Maestro, Cranford, Life in Cold Blood, and Strictly Come Dancing. 

We were amazed at how much interest there was, some positive and some quite hostile, about John Sergeant's dancing abilities.  We tend to agree he made the right decision to retire!

FINANCIAL AFFAIRS

We were very grateful to Tony Woollett for his continued management of the mediawatch-uk finances.  In 2008 the income remained buoyant as most members renewed their annual subscriptions and added donations, some very generous.  Mr Woollett provided the Committee meetings with a quarterly balance sheet and he prepared the Annual Accounts, which were presented to the Annual General Meeting for approval and acceptance.

It was agreed that David Turtle should be a signatory to the Current Account.  It was also agreed that each Newsletter should include a note about legacies and how these enhance our income.

Mr Woollett informed us that after being our Honorary Treasurer for ten years he would like to be relieved of his duties by the end of September 2009.  Mr George Gibbs, the Independent Financial Examiner also advised the committee that he would like to be relieved of his duties from September 2009.

PROMPTION & DEVELOPMENT

Report from Pauline Webborn

The challenge of creating enthusiasm and action from the public in response to media content continues to be the focus of the Promotions and Development Officer (P&DO).  Invitations to speak to groups/exhibitions with numbers in excess of 30 people attending have been welcomed. 

We are grateful to the many different groups particularly around the South East of England for the opportunity to share about the real challenges of media viewing on both society and young people in particular. Most audiences are shocked and challenged by the content of much of the media diet that is reaching the young.

A professional point of sales display and stimulating power point presentation has been developed to keep listeners engaged and responsive during the meetings.  Attendees are encouraged to use the new mediawatch-uk Action postcards at every opportunity to complain to Ofcom about inappropriate media viewing.

An attempt was made to set up a local area mediawatch-uk pressure group in the Sutton/Cheam area where we have a good nucleus of members. Unfortunately, to date, this has not been successful.

It is then, very encouraging to be invited to develop initiatives involving the education of children and young people in raising awareness of media influence issues. The P&DO has so far been invited to lead a half-day session on ‘Helping Young People with Media Issues', at two regional Training Days for around 100 Girls Brigade Leaders.

I have also been able to develop an all day educational conference aimed at 6th form students. The interactive content has been developed in conjunction with the RE department of a Kent secondary school and its recent launch at the Archbishops School in Canterbury with 300 students was a real success.

Entitled ‘Brave New World', students were challenged to consider issues of media influence relating to advertising, language and sexual and violent behaviour. As a final challenge at the end of the day, groups of students enjoyed producing their own ‘influential' video aimed at changing public opinion on media issues.

During the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand fiasco, a draft letter was compiled for young people to sign and send to Mark Thompson at the BBC supporting his decision to suspend both performers. This was well received by many young people in the Kent area, who were delighted to receive a personal letter from Mr Thompson in response. Emails were also sent to individuals and youth orientated organisations encouraging participation in the BBC Review of Services for Younger Audiences.

The P&DO was privileged to be a special guest on Unity FM's ‘Family Matters' hour long, weekly programme. The one off request was extended to cover three weeks due to a record number of phone-in's and emails from listeners.

Mass marketing of the mediawatch-uk online petition to Gordon Brown regarding swearing on TV has been an overwhelming but necessary task.  It is encouraging to see that nearly 5,000 have signed, but disappointing that this does not reflect the numbers that the national survey statistics show as well over 50% of the nation claim to think that there is too much swearing on TV.

Work has continued to distribute our excellent publication ‘Children in the Media', targeting schools, foster care organisations and other family and children focussed groups.

Continued improvement and updating of the website is always a priority as well as improving the site's listing.  Web pages most frequently visited are regularly enhanced to ensure clarity and user friendly pages.  A small number of marketing initiatives have been undertaken, namely, a mediawatch-uk Internet advertising banner which has been trialled with a couple of websites so far.

The technical and administrative difficulties of online joining will hopefully be resolved during the next year to improve our ability to attract online joiners. The mediawatch-uk Newsletter has been given a makeover and we are investigating the technology for producing a weekly email news bulletin for members with topical news and action suggestions.