ITC publish guidance on Codes of Practice on independent programme commissioning

The ITC have published guidance to public service broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, five and S4C) on what will be expected in their Codes of Practice for dealings with the independent production sector.
The Communications Bill currently sets out a number of provisions outlining the issues that these Codes of Practice will need to address. This guidance seeks to develop the principles behind the provisions in the Bill in order to assist the PSBs in drawing up their Codes.
The guidance reflects extensive consultation carried out by the ITC as part of the Programme Supply Market review and takes into account further discussions with PACT and the public service broadcasters (PSBs) over the past two months.
The guidance is not prescriptive but seeks to develop the principles set out in the recommendations of the ITC's Programme Supply Market review and represents part of an on-going dialogue with broadcasters in terms of developing and reviewing the Codes of Practice.
The ITC have been charged by the Secretary of State of Culture, Media and Sport with monitoring the development of the Codes so that they will be ready to submit to Ofcom for approval once Ofcom becomes fully operational. The ITC have consulted with Ofcom on the process to be followed for submission of the Codes.
The core principles the Codes should cover will include:
A clear and transparent process for independent programme commissioning; The definition of a minimum set of primary rights, the duration of such rights and how negotiations for primary rights will be conducted separately from secondary and tertiary rights negotiations; A list of indicative tariffs relating to the fees for primary rights by genre and daypart; Proposals for development funding and cash flowing of productions; Procedures for broadcasters to provide periodic reports to Ofcom to monitor the application of the Codes; Provision of a dispute resolution mechanism in the event of dispute between the broadcaster and producer.
The next step, following the publication of the ITC guidance, will be for the PSBs to submit draft Codes for approval to the ITC by the end of July 2003.
Ofcom and the ITC will jointly review the draft Codes over the summer with the aim of putting recommendations to Ofcom for approval later in the year.
(GB)