Has Skyscraper Live exposed the limits of UK broadcast regulation?
Writing in The Times, Partner Juliane Althoff discusses Netflix’s Skyscraper Live and examines what it reveals about the growing regulatory divide between streaming platforms and UK broadcasters, particularly in relation to risk, audience protection and duty of care.
Skyscraper Live, which featured free-climber Alex Honnold ascending the 508 metre Taipei 101, without ropes and live on Netflix, demonstrated more than extraordinary athleticism and nerve. It illustrated how streaming platforms operate beyond the constraints that bind traditional broadcasters.
Live entertainment has long flirted with danger, but rarely has a production placed the possibility of death so squarely at its core. Had Skyscraper Live been transmitted by a UK broadcaster, the legal and regulatory position would have been entirely different. Ofcom-licensed broadcasters are subject to the Broadcasting Code, which imposes strict obligations to protect audiences from harm and requires enhanced safeguards for live programming. A broadcast of this nature would demand careful planning and strong editorial justification to withstand regulatory scrutiny.
Put simply, it likely wouldn’t have happened – certainly not live.
Streaming services, by contrast, have historically been subject to far lighter-touch regulation, creating an uneven regulatory landscape. Content that would pose a serious compliance risk for a UK broadcaster can be commissioned and distributed by a streaming platform operating under much looser, largely self-regulated rules.
That gap is narrowing, but it is not yet closed. The Media Act 2024 empowers Ofcom to introduce a new Video on Demand Standards Code for Tier 1 services. Once fully implemented, larger streaming platforms will be subject to standards closer to the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, including obligations relating to harmful content and audience protection.
High-risk live productions also raise fundamental questions of duty of care. Participant consent, health and safety planning and contractual waivers may reduce exposure, but they do not remove the obligation to assess foreseeable risks or take reasonable steps to mitigate them. A live format intensifies that responsibility, as there is no opportunity to edit out disaster unless a delay is built in, and no buffer for audiences who may experience distress in real time. These productions also carry significant insurance and liability implications, with insurers closely scrutinising risk controls and abort mechanisms.
In the case of Skyscraper Live, it should be acknowledged that Honnold is an experienced climber who is well aware of the risks, and that Netflix took precautions including on-screen warnings and a delayed transmission. Those factors matter, but they do not eliminate concerns around copycat behaviour, particularly among younger viewers encountering short-form clips stripped of context or safeguards.
There is also a broader moral question. With audiences becoming increasingly accustomed to near-death entertainment, the commercial incentive to push boundaries will intensify. UK broadcasting regulation has traditionally drawn a clear line where content exposes participants or audiences to an unacceptable risk of serious harm, particularly in a live context.
As streaming regulation continues to converge with the traditional broadcasting framework, regulators, lawyers and platforms will need to decide whether the same limits should apply.
Juliane’s article was published in The Times, 5 February 2026, and can be found here.
