Happy Birthday, Ofcom

I missed this one initially (I'm bad at remembering birthdays) but the UK's new Office of Communications - the equivalent of the FCC, and better known as Ofcom - is one year old. As Media Guardian points out,

to say it has hit the ground running would be an understatement. Broadcasters have been buried under an avalanche of paperwork as consultation after consultation has hit their desks. The contrast with the five disparate regulators it replaced - the Independent Television Commission, Oftel, the Radio Authority, the Radiocommunications Agency and the Broadcasting Standards Commission - could not be clearer. As it is not shy to point out, it is culturally a million miles from the modus operandi of the former broadcasting regulators. The cut-glass crystal and bone china have long been packed away, replaced by plastic cups and shrink-wrapped sandwiches. Opaque resolutions passed by the great and the good in smoke-filled rooms are out. The new regulator has instead worked hard to convey an image of swift, transparent decision-making.