Content Monitoring System

Ofcom is seeking to purchase a content monitoring system to give it expanded capacity to record television and radio channels. Ofcom is responsible for licensing television and radio services, and setting and enforcing standards for the content provided on television, radio and on demand services in the UK.

The primary method by which Ofcom is alerted to potential compliance failures is the assessment of complaints from viewers and listeners and we receive approximately 25 000 broadcasting complaints on average each year. We currently rely on in-house recording equipment to record continuously a number of channels (mainly the channels about which we receive the majority of complaints), so we are able to handle and resolve complaints quickly.

To assess complaints about the other 2 000+ services that Ofcom licenses (beyond the limited number of channels that are captured by the in-house recording equipment), we request formally recordings from broadcasters. Assessing complaints is a proportionate means of meeting our general duties.

Ofcom conducts routine targeted monitoring exercises of individual channels or sectors of the broadcasting industry. The aim of monitoring is either to identify individual compliance failures (for example, the broadcast of material which incites hatred or crime, or would cause harm or offence to the audience) or to generally assess a licensed channel's compliance with our rules over a number of hours.

When Ofcom conducts structured targeted monitoring exercises, we use our in-house recording equipment to record a set number of channels. We then look back at the content recorded by the in-house recording equipment to assess the material.

There is currently a limitation on the number of channels that can be dedicated to this form of monitoring using the current equipment. We rely on using the current limited number of channels for both the assessment of complaints and also for monitoring.

This means there is a limit on the scale of our monitoring exercises. For example, the only way to increase the number of channels being recorded at any 1 time for monitoring is to reduce the number of channels being recorded for the assessment of complaints.

We are now in the process of expanding our content monitoring programme to increase our ability to detect content which raises issues of potential harm to the audience. This will enable us to check whether licensees found in breach of our rules and licence conditions, and on those whom we have imposed sanctions, have improved their compliance.

It will also enable us to check content broadcast on channels/stations about which we receive low numbers of complaints. We therefore require access to recording equipment that has expanded capacity to record more channels. In-line with Ofcom's strategy of using more cloud based services, where appropriate, we wish to procure a scalable hosted service which provides the capacity to record broadcast content.