UK TV and Radio News

China's state propaganda channel CGTN could soon be back on British TV screens, as French authorities have agreed to regulate, so overriding a decision by the UK TV censor Ofcom to ban the channel.

Ofcom decided to pull CGTN off air in February after finding it unacceptable that the channel is editorially controlled by the Chinese Communist party.

France does not have rules that prohibit state-controlled broadcasters from airing in the country.

But now that the channel is officially regulated by another Council of Europe country, then Ofcom is bound by treaty to accept that CGTN can now broadcast to Britain.

The treaty between members of the Council of Europe, a 47-member organisation that is separate from the EU and therefore not affected by Brexit, mandates that an international broadcaster can beam into the territories of signatories as long as it falls under the jurisdiction of one member.

Saying that, it is not yet clear whether Sky will be including the channel in its package. However Sky currently carries the channel on its networks in Italy and Germany.

Ofcom has imposed a fine of £125,000 on Loveworld Limited after a programme broadcast on its religious service Loveworld Television Network featured inaccurate and supposedly potentially harmful claims about the Coronavirus without providing adequate protection for viewers. This was the second time in a year that the broadcaster rules on accuracy in news, and harm in its coverage of the Coronavirus.

Ofcom considered these breaches to be serious, repeated and reckless, warranting the imposition of a statutory sanction beyond the direction to broadcast a statement of our findings that Ofcom issued in its Decision published 15 January 2021.

Ofcom's investigation found that the 29-hour programme, Global Day of Prayer , included statements claiming that the pandemic is a planned event created by the deep state for nefarious purposes, and that the vaccine is a sinister means of administering nanochips to control and harm people. Some statements claimed that fraudulent testing had been carried out to deceive the public about the existence of the virus and the scale of the pandemic. Others linked the cause of Covid-19 to the roll out of 5G technology.

Ofcom was particularly concerned that this breach followed previous, similar breaches in 2020 during the investigation of which, Loveworld Limited gave Ofcom a number of assurances as to how it would improve its compliance procedures.

There was a time a few years ago when the BBC was considered an essential and integral component of any TV platform that sought to get established in the UK.

More recently the British Wokecasting Corporation decided to alienate much of its viewership with biased news and programming that was more about woke morality preaching than entertainment.

So now in the face of increasing unpopularity, the BBC is having to seek the help of government in forcing TV platforms to carry the BBC by law.

The BBC is calling for legislation to ban the sale of plug-in devices, such as Amazon's Fire TV Stick, that don't carry the BBC prominently on its platform. Clare Sumner, BBC director of policy, called for for urgent legislation to update the 2003 Communications Act to modernise the regulatory framework to ensure public service broadcasters (PSBs) are prominent and available on all major TV platforms.

The new law would prevent providers of TV user interfaces (for example, smart TV manufacturers or global tech providers) from releasing products in the UK without complying with these rules. TV censor Ofcom is said to support such a law change to give services like the BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub guaranteed prominence on Smart TVs.

Fawlty Towers is set to be re-aired on BBC but racial slurs made by characters such as Major Gowen will be omitted from the show mirror

The offending scene is when Major Gowan discusses the difference between 'niggers' and 'wogs'.

Last year writer and star John Cleese, who plays Basil Fawlty, branded Beeb bosses gutless for temporarily removing the episode with the Major's remarks from the UKTV streaming platform. He argued that the remarks were fine in the context of the major being shown as an old fossil:

We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them.

A separate episode, The Anniversary , starts with the Fawlty Towers sign re-arranged into the anagram 'Flowery Twats', which is also cut.

The series is available on iPlayer from Monday.