Transactional TV Gambling To Be Treated As Teleshopping

On 26 May 2009, Ofcom announced in a statement on the Regulation

of Transactional TV Gambling Channels that all transactional TV

gambling services or transactional gambling "windows" on

TV that invite viewers to pay money to take part in gaming (such as

roulette or bingo) or to place bets (for example, on virtual horse

or dog races) will be treated as teleshopping.

Ofcom stated that:

Licensees who choose to provide services comprising

transactional gambling should be treated as providing teleshopping,

rather than editorial output (e.g. output designed to be

"genuine programming"), which will therefore require a

teleshopping licence. This will also apply to transactional

gambling "windows" (gaming or betting features that

appear on otherwise editorial services usually of between 15

minutes to three hours in length).

Licensees will still be able to decide which output they wish

to provide, i.e. a purely editorial gambling-themed service or a

teleshopping service. However, to qualify as editorial, any such

services should provide genuine programming and not include

transactional gambling in which offers are made - express or

implied - to viewers to participate in the services on screen.

Prior to this announcement, licencees who wished to provide

transactional gambling services had the choice of the form of

authorisation to apply for, and could either apply to be authorised

for editorial output, or for teleshopping. This meant that similar

channels were regulated under different codes and by different

bodies.

Transactional gambling services will, as from 1 June 2009, be

regulated as teleshopping, being advertising consisting of direct

offers to the public, under the Broadcast Committee of Advertising

Practice Code ("BCAP Code") administered through the

Advertising Standards Authority. Accordingly, licensees operating

under an existing "editorial" licence in respect of

transactional gambling services/windows should ensure they are also

compliant with the BCAP Code.

Ofcom has indicated that the implementation of the policy change

will be made quickly, with variations to existing licences taking

place by mid-June. Ofcom will be contacting those licensees who

hold "editorial" licences with details of the proposed

variations and will provide the opportunity to make representations

on the proposed variations.

The reclassification of transactional gambling windows within

otherwise editorial content as teleshopping windows took effect

from 1 June 2009...