From the WSJ Opinion Archives
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Banned in Britain
Regulators censor our program to protect the BBC.
For those of us who make a living turning dead trees into the product some readers of this editorial hold in their hands, the business of television can be full of mysteries. No more so than in recent days, as we wrap our minds around the news that our TV program has been banned in Britain.
Here in the U.S., "The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board With Stuart Varney" is shown on CNBC, with which the Journal has a deal to contribute content. Dow Jones, publisher of this newspaper, co-owns CNBC overseas. Readers who watch the program know that "Editorial Board" is a current-affairs show in which senior members of the editorial-page staff elaborate on the issues and viewpoints discussed in these columns. In Europe, "Editorial Board" has been seen on CNBC Europe, most recently in August. But thanks to British regulators, that probably won't happen again.
The Independent Television Commission, which regulates commercial television in Britain, sharply reprimanded CNBC Europe recently for airing "Editorial Board" and threatened to fine the network 3% of earnings should it repeat the offense. We aren't the only ones. CNN was similarly scolded for a show associated with Time magazine, with which it shares a parent company.
The ITC takes the view that the Journal "sponsors" the show for purposes of advertising a product--namely, the Journal. As it said in a letter yesterday to The Wall Street Journal Europe in response to an editorial on the ban: "The finding against CNBC Europe had nothing to do with what you call 'the ability of a commercial TV network to exercise free speech,' but everything to do with the right for viewers to have access to news and current affairs that is, and can be seen to be, free from commercial influence."
Let us see if we get this straight. The ITC thinks it is protecting viewers by refusing to let them hear the viewpoints of a roundtable of American newspaper editors? These same editors may state their views in a newspaper that bears the name of The Wall Street Journal, but if they utter them on a TV program that bears that newspaper's name, their views are somehow tainted? That sure sounds like a free-speech issue to us.
Which leads to the question of what the case is really about. The answer--and we wish we could say this with the requisite plummy accent--is the BBC. The ITC's actions against CNBC Europe and CNN amount to little more than the British government harassing private competitors of the publicly funded British Broadcasting Corp.
Unlike its commercial cousins, the Beeb doesn't have to worry about a weak economy hurting advertising. It can count on a mandatory "subscription" fee--that is, a tax--of about $177, payable by everyone in Britain who owns a television set. This yields nearly $3.9 billion a year in revenues. The BBC's programming dominates Britain's terrestrial television channels, which it uses aggressively to promote its programs on other platforms, including two new digital-cable channels for kids and all sorts of programs that compete with commercial media forced to adapt in a down market.
In short, what's really at stake here is the ability of CNBC Europe and the BBC's other commercial competitors to exercise free speech in order to develop programming viewers want. The losers are the viewers, not just in Britain, but across Europe where news channels--most of which are licensed in Britain--operate.
The Brits who turn dead trees into newspapers produce editorial products with a lively and wide range of viewpoints. It's a scandal that British media regulators aren't willing to apply the same standards of free speech to viewpoints that are aired on television.
