Gabi,
You should also contact Irish regulators Broadcasting Authority of  
Ireland (BAI) we have had some success in terms of regulating  
community media and the authority has been very supportive. A contact  
person would be Ciaran Kissane.
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Good luck.

Jack Byrne.

On 14 Jun 2010, at 04:06, G wrote:

> 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.
>