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The following is issued on behalf of the Communications Authority:
The Communications Authority (CA) approved the recommendations of its Broadcast Codes of Practice Committee to make the following revisions to the provisions in the Television and Radio Programme Codes governing editorial programmes and personal view programmes (PVPs):
(a) editorial programmes, being programmes which contain a broadcasting licensee's views or perspective on matters of public policy or controversial issues of public importance in Hong Kong, should be regarded as one type of PVPs. It follows that the existing ground rules on PVPs, namely accuracy, fairness, suitable opportunity for response and sufficiently broad range of views, should apply to editorial programmes;
(b) views of the "person providing the service" would be regarded as views of the licensees. The "person providing the service" should be defined as the licensee, and the persons exercising control of the licensee such as directors, principal officers and major voting controllers of a licensee;
(c) for a programme containing views of the person providing the service, a suitable announcement should be made at the start of the programme to identify clearly that the views expressed therein are or include those of the person providing the service;
(d) a suitable opportunity for response to a PVP should be provided on the same platform, i.e. either in the same programme, in the same series of programmes or in similar types of programmes targeting a like audience within an appropriate period; and
(e) the PVP provisions should apply to segments of factual programmes containing personal view content.
The CA conducted a public consultation from December 17, 2013 to February 17, 2014 to gauge the views of members of the public and the licensees on the proposed amendments to the Television and Radio Programme Codes. A summary of the responses from members of the public is available at: www.coms-auth.hk/filemanager/en/content_711/cp20140226_views_e.pdf.0
In approving the revisions, the CA has taken into consideration views from the public and the licensees. The CA considers that the revisions have struck a proper balance between licensees' right to freedom of expression on one hand, and a more responsible use of their broadcast rights on the other. The CA will closely monitor the implementation of the new rules on the editorial programmes and PVPs broadcast by licensees.
The revisions would take effect on July 1, 2014 and details of the revisions are at www.coms-auth.hk/filemanager/en/content_713/appx_20140502_en.pdf.
Ends/Friday, May 2, 2014
Issued at HKT 12:09
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