Sky, BBC and ITN call on Starmer to ‘stamp out’ Big Tech’s ‘anticompetitive behaviour’
Sky News, the BBC and ITN have joined the News Media Association (NMA) in calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to back the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in its effort to “stamp out the tech platforms’ anticompetitive behaviour”.
In a letter sent to Starmer this morning to mark the NMA’s annual Journalism Matters campaign, leaders from the broadcasters warned that unregulated AI products have created escalating risks to the global information ecosystem. They asked Starmer to direct the UK Government to “take urgent steps to prevent the digital ecosystem from becoming overwhelmed by misinformation and disinformation”.
NMA CEO Owen Meredith commented that tech platforms, “the main gatekeepers to news”, are “downgrading the visibility of trusted journalism in favour of AI-generated slop, all while using journalistic content to train AI products with no transparency or oversight”.
As The Media Leader has previously reported, AI search products have had a distinct negative impact on publishers’ referral traffic by reducing the likelihood a consumer will click through a link to their websites to access information.
This has negatively impacted many publishers, but especially those whose business model relies primarily on programmatic advertising. An estimated one-third of publishers in the Independent Publishers Alliance could be out of business by the end of 2026 if no regulatory intervention is made, a board member warned in September.
Meredith continued: “This situation is unsustainable, and urgent action is required. The Prime Minister must give his full backing to trusted journalism, otherwise we risk creating an information ecosystem filled entirely with mis- and disinformation.”
The letter urges Government to give the CMA “its unequivocal backing”, using the toolkit legislated in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act.
It further asks ministers to give “full and unconditional support” to the creative sectors and the copyright regime that underpins its patronage.
Creative leaders have repeatedly accused the Government of failing to enforce existing copyright protections, most recently in an open letter in September. Sir Elton John commented at the time that “what is being waved through leaves the door wide open for an artist’s life work to be stolen, skimmed and scraped by Big Tech AI companies.
“We will not accept this and we will not let the government forget their election promises to support our creative industries.”
While executives from the BBC, ITN and Sky News respectively admitted that AI tools have created opportunities to enhance their output, they each warned that the technology requires guardrails to ensure the retention of public trust in news media.
“We’re beginning to see real benefits from combining human expertise with AI — from fact-checking President Trump’s election speeches to analysing vast datasets. But there’s also a sharp rise in misleading content,” said ITN CEO Rachel Corp.
“ITN will always uphold high standards — the challenge now is ensuring people can access and recognise reliable information.
“To achieve this, we need government support: to promote the responsible use of AI, strengthen safeguards against misinformation, and continue investing in trusted journalism.”
Creative leaders accuse UK government of failing to enforce copyright protection