MEDIA PERSPECTIVE: The regulator with the lighter touch - say hello to Ofcom.

It's hard to understand the motivation of the people who run a regulator.

Like being a football referee or policeman, it seems a futile, frustrating task alleviated only by the odd moment of public power.

But this view may have to be adjusted in light of Ofcom's launch late last month. Led by the chief executive, Stephen Carter (on a hefty pounds 350,000), it has 28 employees earning more than pounds 100,000 (compared with just 19 from the five bodies that merged to create Ofcom).

Newspaper reports on the budgeted first-year costs of running Ofcom (up 27 per cent to pounds 164 million) have hardly handed Carter and the chairman, Lord Currie, an easy start. It takes people with special abilities to take five bodies (on different sites with a greater combined workforce), merge them into one and actually increase costs.

Ofcom's directors have managed this but will feel justified if their spending produces results. But the early signs for the media industry aren't good.

Although Carter has indicated that he favours a 'light touch' approach and the IPA and ISBA have been encouraged by its discussions on self-regulation of broadcast advertising, some already say it is getting stuck into pedantic broadcast ad disputes that stretch its remit to the limit (118 118's dispute with the athlete David Bedford is said to be one case in point).

There is also concern over its lack of teeth in governing ...