Ofcom gets tough on new media sharing rights

Ofcom gives two month deadline

Ofcom has told television producers and broadcasters that they have a little over two months to settle their differences over sharing rights on new media platforms, according to reports in the Financial Times.

The watchdog says that if agreement has not been reached by 21 March it will bring out amendments to its code of practice to settle the matter.

So far it has stated that new media rights should be divided into what it calls two 'windows'.

This would allow a public service broadcaster full rights across all platforms to any programme it acquires – the 'primary window'.

This would then be followed by a 'hold-back' period during which the programme's producer could exploit the rights subject to restrictions applied by the broadcaster.

But Ofcom declined to put a time limit on these windows or detail how secondary revenues are shared.

According to the Financial Times, the BBC has agreed a seven day primary window but Channel 4 is pushing for a 30 day period.

In the absence of a way to legally buy TV downloads online, Britain is the world's biggest market for illegal TV downloads, according to research last year from web tracking firm Envisional.