They should look at the Australian model.

ACMA is the Australian communications regulatory body, overseeing all communications. It works a bit like the UK system in that the regulator is not part of the government but does advice, regulate  and implement laws.

Australia has  a particularly strong community radio sector and ACMA feel that community radio is very much part of the democratic conversation and enables groups such as the Indigenous Aboriginal  peoples of Australia and the new and older ethnic migrant  groups to have a media and voice.

I believe Giles Tanner is the head of broadcasting at ACMA and a great supporter of community media. 

Janey Gordon

Principal Lecturer

Radio LaB Project Leader

University of Bedfordshire

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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.