Vice UK wins ATVOD appeal
July 21, 2015
Vice UK has been successful in its appeal against a determination by ATVOD that the video section of its website was subject to regulation by the UK VoD regulator.
The youth-orientated news outlet claimed that as the content was hosted by its parent company Vice Media (based in the US), it did not come under UK jurisdiction, and this has been backed by Ofcom.
In a statement, Ofcom said: “…Ofcom also observed that it appeared that Vice Media Inc. was the entity with editorial responsibility over all the audiovisual material across the entire Vice.com website. Therefore […] it appears that at the relevant time the entity with editorial responsibility, Vice Media was established in the US and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the UK.
“Ofcom’s Decision is to uphold the appeal, quash ATVOD’s decision and substitute our decision for that of ATVOD. In doing so, we make some observations on ATVOD’s Determination that the Vice (Video) tab is an ODPS. We also observe that even on a broader assessment of all the audiovisual material on the Vice.com website, it appears that at the relevant time the entity with editorial responsibility, Vice Media, was established in the US and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the UK.”