Ofcom says 150 VOD services must pay the fees - but, despite reviewing the sector last year, it has not published a list identifying the companies affected.

Indeed, singling out those services which fall under the joint Ofcom-ATVOD auspice is tricky. The EC directive applies to “TV-like” services, which it says “must not contain any incitement to hatred based on race, sex, religion or nationality”; “must provide appropriate protection for minors against harmful material” and “sponsored programmes and services must comply with applicable sponsorship requirements”.

But what “TV-like” means is open to interpretation, as media continue to converge and innovate. After commissioning research in to the topic, Ofcom says the scope should extent to services that “provide access to programmes that compete for the same audience as television broadcasts, and therefore, are comparable to the form and content of programmes included in broadcast television services”. Only services that have editorial responsibility over their content are covered.

Specifically, Ofcom says catch-up TV websites and set-top box services, TV archives and movie VOD services fall under regulatory scope. But “non-economic” services, non “mass-media”, games, search engines, newspaper and magazine websites are exempt, as is UGC posted to video-sharing sites, video that merely describes organisations, “video content embedded within a text-based editorial article”, corporate web video.

Ofcom has opened a consultation with three options for raising the money…
—Option A: Charging based on services’ revenue, so as not to disadvantage smaller providers.
—Option B: A mixture of revenue-based fee and a flat £1,00 fee.
—Option C: A flat £2,500 fee.

It’s Option C that Ofcom is preferring. ATVOD had been a self-regulatory VOD industry umbrella before it was appointed by Ofcom to co-regulate the sector.