The Aim of the Independent Producer Handbook
This Independent Producer Handbook aims to give helpful and practical guidance to all of Channel 4’s and Five’s programme- makers and editorial staff on the Ofcom Broadcasting Code rules and the main areas of law that apply to the making and broadcast of programmes on Channel 4 and Five.
It is the responsibility of every executive producer and producer making a programme for Channel 4 or Five to ensure that every member of the production team has read and is familiar with the relevant sections of the Handbook (including best practice guidelines) and follows the rules and procedures it contains.
The Handbook contains:
- Channel 4’s and Five’s own internal compliance procedures;
- A summary of the most important Ofcom Code rules;
- A more detailed explanation and commentary on the Code rules;
- A summary of the main areas of media law;
- Best practice check-lists for specific programme areas;
- Programme-makers’ FAQs and answers for each area of the Code and media law, together with some practical examples;
- Channel 4’s and Five’s own best practice guidelines and protocols for certain areas of programme-making and broadcasting.
We are the UK’s only public service commercial broadcasters that commission all our original programming from independent production companies.
Our aim is for this Handbook to be a genuinely useful tool for programme-makers at every level. We hope that by creating a ‘one-stop shop’ for best practice and compliance, the Handbook will lead to greater clarity and consistency of approach in the industry. We hope that you will both welcome and benefit from this.
The compliance process works most effectively as a shared responsibility between the broadcasters’ editorial teams and the programme-makers, with appropriate and timely advice from a programme lawyer in the legal and compliance department. Effective compliance means being able to broadcast the most creatively challenging programmes and defend them successfully before the courts, to Ofcom after broadcast, and in the press where necessary. It is essential that programme-makers work closely with their editorial colleagues at Channel 4 and Five and with their respective legal and compliance departments. Judgements are often difficult and subjective but the earlier potential problems and issues are addressed, the more likely it is that the creative ambitions for your programme can be achieved.
Channel 4 and Five are responsible broadcasters and we want our programme-makers to follow best practice at all times. In our experience, sound practical knowledge of both the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and the law equips programme-makers to identify and address problems and understand the need to seek advice. This in turn enables the most challenging programmes to be both made and broadcast and to be successfully defended after transmission. We are committed to freedom of expression – our own, that of our programme-makers and that of our audiences to receive creative and bold material within the parameters of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and the law.
Viewer trust is of paramount importance to Channel 4 and Five and this issue must be given the highest priority by our programme-makers to ensure that our audiences can be confident that our programmes are true, accurate and fair and that they are never misled by them.