LO3 - Legal and Ethical Considerations

In this report I will be discussing the regulatory bodies that i will need to consider when making my radio show and the legal and ethical considerations that follow with making the show. Examples of these being, copyright, harassment, offence to an ethnic minority or fake news. 

Firstly I will be looking at the major regulatory bodies involved with the radio industry, those being Ofcom and the ASA. Ofcom is the main regulatory body for broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries within the UK, they are the main regulator for radio broadcasting companies and are known for monitoring the listenership of radio stations and shows, and they monitor what is allowed and isn't allowed to be said on a radio broadcast. They also look into the details on consumers such as their interests within relative markets for example fashion, sports or technology, and looks into what has the most competition. They also regulate the licensing for a radio channel, restricting them by only allow them to broadcast songs that they have rights to the license of.

The ASA or Advertising Standards Authority is a regulator for any form of promotional material or advertisement, in this case it is radio adverts which are commonly seen after songs or a show has played. They are to ensure that all adverts are appropriate for audience consumption as if not then we will be prosecuted and fined. It also protects users from false advertisements, environmental claims and prohibited categories such as endangered animal species. 

For our program, we will need to ensure we abide to the laws on copyright and legislation, which refers to the idea that we can only include content that we own or have the rights to use. This means that we can't use other people's work without permission or claim ownership over it. So for our program we will be working to ensure that our radio show cannot be copyright claimed or goes against legislation laws. this mostly is comprised of us considering during production that all our sound is: 

- Copyright free so we do not need a license to use it

- Follows laws on plagiarism

Following the second point, we will hopefully be making the majority of the sound ourselves as to minimise the risk of breaking the laws, however as we are operating on a lower budget and time scale, we do not have the time to prepare and record the sound, however for the royalty free sound we will have sourced, we will be adding multiple layers of audio on top so that it is not just us directly using their sound at it's fullest. There is also the discussion of the songs we will be using, as they are by large named bands such as Bon Jovi and Queen, we need to ensure that they claim all revenue generated by the listenership and we need to make sure we have permission sealed by a legal document as to ensure that there is evidence to back us using the music so that the band cannot change their mind and try and sue.

Finally we must ensure that we obtain a PSR license for our radio show, this will allow us to gain revenue from the show as we will be aiming to try and operate commercially, and a way we will be able to generate revenue is through the promotion of the Doncaster Aircraft Museum, which will legalise the promotion of it and avoid any legal battles as they may try and sue on the terms of the ownership over the content. It will also allow us to avoid all copyright claims when it comes to the music we include in our broadcast however we will need the proper legal documents to be filled out as well as a means to license us with a contract to use the music.