A documentary about a small building firm is due on air on Wednesday. On Monday the compliance manager watches the final cut and stops at minute twenty-two. The owner is accused of cutting corners, but nobody has asked for his side of the story. The production has two days to put the points to him and add his reply. The compliance manager is the person who makes sure a programme is safe to broadcast, for the audience and for the broadcaster.
What a compliance manager does
Broadcasters and many streamers have to follow rules on what they show. Some come from a regulator or the law of the country, some from the broadcaster's own editorial guidelines. Those rules cover things like fairness to the people in a programme, privacy, accuracy, product placement, offensive language and what children might see at a given hour. The compliance manager knows those rules and applies them to real programmes.
They advise production teams early, when a programme deals with something sensitive, and they view finished programmes before transmission. Many broadcasters ask the production company to fill in a compliance form, a written record of anything risky in the programme and what was done about it. The compliance manager reviews that form, asks for changes where needed and gives the final approval. They also advise the scheduler on which programmes can go out before a certain time of night.
Responsibilities
- Advise producers on sensitive subjects during production
- View programmes before transmission and request changes
- Review compliance forms from production companies
- Check fairness, privacy, accuracy and suitability for the time slot
- Agree warnings for viewers and the right time slot with scheduling
- Handle complaints from viewers or contributors after broadcast
- Work with lawyers on legal risks such as defamation
How the role touches the budget
Not directly. The compliance manager has no production budget to manage. Their decisions can still cost money. A late change may mean extra days in the edit, a second interview or a re-recorded voice-over, and the production company usually pays for that. A programme that is pulled at the last minute leaves a hole in the schedule and a cost for the broadcaster. That is why producers involve compliance early, before the edit is locked in post-production.
How people get into the role
Many compliance managers were journalists or programme producers who know how programmes are made and where they go wrong. Others have a legal background and work alongside the production lawyer on difficult cases. Good judgement and a clear way of explaining a problem to a producer under pressure are the core skills.
At a streamer
Streamers do not have a fixed schedule, so time-slot rules matter less. Their compliance teams focus on age ratings, content warnings and the different rules in each country where a title is shown. In the US the department is often called standards and practices.