The problem
UK broadcasters must retain recordings of their output and produce them to Ofcom on request — commonly 42 days for radio and 60 days for television under licence conditions, and longer while a matter is being investigated. Raw output at that scale isn't searchable, so responding to an Ofcom query or a viewer complaint is slow and manual.
How Whipscribe helps
Whipscribe converts your as-broadcast output into timestamped, speaker-labelled, fully searchable text, so an Ofcom Broadcasting Code query can be answered by searching for the words in question and jumping to the exact moment — with the audio staying on infrastructure you control.
Made for Ofcom requests
Search your output to locate the segment an Ofcom query or Broadcasting Code complaint concerns, in seconds.
Retention you control
Keep searchable transcripts across your licence retention window and beyond while a matter is open.
Radio & TV, one workflow
Whether it's 42-day radio or 60-day television retention, the same fast, private transcription across your schedule.
Private by design
Self-hosted Whisper means your output is never handed to a third-party AI service.
Questions
What are the retention rules?
UK broadcasters must retain recordings of their output and produce them to Ofcom on request — commonly 42 days for radio and 60 days for television under licence conditions, longer while a matter is investigated. Confirm your current licence terms and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code; this is general information, not legal advice.
Does this meet our obligations?
Whipscribe is a transcription tool that makes your recordings searchable; it complements — not replaces — your recording and retention systems. Your obligations remain yours to meet.
Where is the audio processed?
On private infrastructure with open-source Whisper — never sent to OpenAI, Google, or any external transcription service, and never used to train models.
Note: Whipscribe is a transcription tool that makes recordings searchable; it complements your recording and retention systems, it does not replace them, and nothing here is legal advice. Confirm your current obligations with your licence conditions and the applicable code.