Dear OURmedia friends,
(apologies for cross-posting)

Urgent question regarding independent regulation agencies.

In Japan, the government (constantly changing though the members are) is
considering finally (!) an independent broadcasting agency (so far airwaves
directly regulated by ministry of interior). A civil society group called
ComRights is feverishly gathering information on good examples (and some bad
ones) of independent regulating agencies from around the world. Does anyone
know of existing comparative studies or have on hand detailed info about the
independent regulators (independent from the government) of specific
countries? 

Japanese colleagues are already currently collecting info from US, UK,
France and Germany (and I have found some comparative data on EU country's
regulators), but hints for good examples in other countries would be welcome
and some notably bad ones too (word so far is: FCC is not so good- though
unfortunately now being considered as the main model- the planned regulatory
agency is even dubbed 'Japanese FCC', OFCOM is better, the regulator in
Germany's Northrhine-Westfahlia is pretty good. Any insights on that?).

We'd be interested also on information on how regulators relate to the
community media sector(s) in each case (I've found some information on that
in comparative community radio reports).

Please feel free to pass this question on to other people and lists who you
think may have leads, but when forwarding please cut out my e-mail address
in the header and instead include the signature below.

Gabi
ghprof(at)me.com

PS: They are for now looking at broadcasting authorities ONLY, as the
convergence law draft is on hold for the moment and industry bodies
'self-'regulate internet, game industry, etc. But obviously many countries
regulators cover multiple platforms, and this may also happen in Jp
eventually.