| Mediawatch-UK | |
| Formation: | 1965 |
| Dissolved: | 2021 |
| Status: | Non-profit organisation |
| Purpose: | Pressure group |
| Region Served: | United Kingdom |
| Leader Title: | Director |
| Leader Name: | Elizabeth Evenden-Kenyon |
Mediawatch-UK, formerly known as the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (National VALA or NVLA), was an advocacy group in the United Kingdom, which campaigned against the publication and broadcast of media content that it viewed as harmful, blasphemous and offensive, such as sex, violence, and profanity.
NVLA was founded in 1965 by Mary Whitehouse to succeed the earlier Clean-Up TV Campaign, which Whitehouse co-founded with her husband Ernest and the Reverend Basil and Norah Buckland early in the previous year.[1] NVLA Vice President was Christian activist and educationalist, Charles Oxley.[2] Whitehouse remained the group's leader until 1994, when she was succeeded by John Beyer. NVLA changed its name to Mediawatch-UK in 2001.
Mediawatch-UK monitored traditional broadcast channels, as well as social and digital media, published reports about programme content, and responded to Government and other consultations on broadcasting and digital policy. It argued for greater parliamentary accountability in recognising and tackling the risks inherent in digital platforms. It also highlighted the need for both governments and individual households to be proactive, not just reactive, in monitoring risks online.
The organisation closed down and was dissolved as a company on the 7th September 2021 following an application by three directors on the 12th of June of that year to strike the company off the Register.[3]
Along with around 400 others Mediawatch-UK responded to a Home Office consultation concerning extreme pornography in December 2005. In the Mediawatch-UK response[4] it was suggested that the possession of allegedly "hard-core" pornography, as currently classified R18 by the British Board of Film Classification and, therefore, legally sold in high street sex shops (R18 classification), should be included in the range of extreme pornography that is the subject of the Home Office consultation. It is proposed that possession of extreme material would become a criminal offence punishable by up to 3 years in prison.