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.