Regulating for care: Reality television participation, changes to the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and protection for whom?

This article traces the evolution of the rule changes to Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code in 2021, in response to a number of high-profile crises in reality TV in 2019, to regulate for better duty of care for participants. By analysing the rhetorical framework around Ofcom complaints, conducting a discourse analysis of Ofcom’s consultation on duty of care and interviews with senior broadcasting executives, it demonstrates how the statutory framework evolves through compliance negotiations around ‘audience expectations’ and ‘freedom of expression’. Analysing the ‘silence and noise’ of the Parliamentary Inquiry and Ofcom’s consultation, shows whose voices were most prominent (broadcasters and production companies) and whose were marginalised from the debate (participants and production crew). The framing of the policy is analysed through the lens of the relationship between the broadcasters and Ofcom in a modern regulatory system that relies on governance mechanisms and models of ‘risk management’. This begins to raise questions about the regulation of care where compliance becomes about protecting the broadcaster from negligence, rather than the participant from harm, calling for a broader approach to an ethics of care which accounts for the interdependencies between all parties involved in reality television production.