Government blueprint sets 10% ceiling on media ownership

The Government’s long-awaited proposals on cross-media ownership would abolish the existing structure of complex rules and replace them with simple regulatory regime, setting a ceiling of 10 per cent on the total share of the media marked that can be controlled by any one company.

The abolition of the current restrictions, which separate television, newspapers and radio, is a recognition of the recent convergence between the print, televisual and radio industries. The proposals announced by Stephen Dorrell, the National Heritage Secretary, envisage a two-stage process.

Under the first stage, it would enact primary legislation as soon as possible, probably in the next parliamentary session, to remove the restrictions that prevent newspaper and commercial terrestrial television companies from buying more than 20 per cent of each other’s shares.

Stage two of the proposals would introduce a fresh approach to media ownership, based on the share of the total market. No company would be allowed to own more than 10 per cent of the total media market. Within that overall limit, no one owner would be permitted to control more than 20 per cent of any sector (television, press or radio) or 20 per cent of the media market in any region.

Ownership above these thresholds would not automatically be illegal, but would be subject to approval by an independent media regulator, who would decide whether it was in the public interest, which would be deemed to include promotion of diversity within the industry.

The means by which media concentration is to be measured have yet to be defined and may include weightings giving varying degrees of importance to each media type.

The concept of thresholds and a weighted system is similar in approach to that suggested to the Government by the British Media Industry Group, which has waged a vigorous campaign to allow newspaper groups greater freedom to invest in television companies. The group comprises Associated Newspapers, owner of the Daily Mail; Pearson, which owns Financial Times; The Guardian Media Group and the Telegraph plc.

The Department of National Heritage is inviting responses to the policy document by August 31. The stage two policies are unlikely to appear in a White Paper before the next Parliament and it could be the next century before they become law.

by Alexandra Frean,

The Times, 24 May, 1995

Task 13. Discuss these questions:

1) What do you think of the long-term aim of preventing any company from owning more than ten per cent of the total media market?

2) Can you foresee any difficulties with assessing a company’s market share?

3) Which do you consider the most influential medium and why?

4) Why do you think that no company would be allowed to own more than twenty per cent of the market in any region, or in any one media sector?

5) Is this a sensible regulation? Why/Why not?

6) Does who owns a particular media organization have any effect on what gets reported? Why/why not?

7) Do the issues change if the owner is the State rather than a private company? Why/why not?

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 875