(Bloomberg) —
The U.K. will force on-demand video services like Netflix Inc. to curb material deemed harmful, such as “unchallenged health claims,” or risk fines of as much as 5% of their annual sales under a package of proposed reforms to TV laws.
A broadcasting bill handing new powers to media regulator Ofcom was set out in a so-called white paper on Thursday by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
It will give people a route to complain about content that currently escapes regulation. For example, a chief of the U.K.’s National Health Service attacked Netflix’s “The Goop Lab,” about Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness brand, for spreading “misinformation.”
The new rules could mean Ofcom investigates such complaints, leading to warnings and fines. At the time, Netflix responded saying the series was “designed to entertain, not provide medical advice.”
Updating decades-old laws, the U.K. will factor the internet into the obligations for its so-called public service broadcasters — channels that receive extra prominence in exchange for additional responsibilities like regional programming and news coverage. The PSBs are the British Broadcasting Corp., ITV Plc, Channel 4, Paramount Global’s Channel 5, STV Group Plc and S4C.
The new law will also force technology companies to carry PSBs prominently on pay-TV, digital platforms, and devices like smart TVs and streaming sticks in the U.K., amid fears they could be squeezed into irrelevance as traditional TV use plummets and overseas firms are increasingly able to gate-keep content.
Companies including Comcast Corp. and Liberty Global Plc have launched devices to vie with the likes of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. in a battle to control how people access programming.
Ministers will also consult on making PSBs commission “distinctively British” programs so they don’t remove local idioms and expressions to appeal to global audiences and become “indistinguishable” from international shows.
Media lawyer John Enser, a partner at CMS, said the video-on-demand proposals give U.K. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries the final choice on whether individual services like Netflix will be regulated or not.
“This is a massive re-insertion of political control into media regulation, and not permitted in the EU, where media regulators have to be independent,” Enser said via email.
He pointed to Article 30 of the bloc’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which says member states’ regulators should be legally distinct and functionally independent of their respective governments.
A spokesman for DCMS said “an independent regulator will write, oversee and enforce the regulatory Code, not the government.”
Dorries will also push ahead with the sale of state-owned free-to-air broadcaster Channel Four Television Corp, which faces opposition from all of Britain’s major political parties.
Channel 4 will be allowed to produce and sell its own content, but it will keep various obligations to commission shows from independent producers, produce outside London, and a remit to show news as well as original and “innovative” programs.
A spokesman for ITV said it would study the proposals but they “look very sensible” at first glance.
(Updates with DCMS response in eleventh paragraph)
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