Culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, has admitted that Lord Puttnam’s last minute plurality test amendment to the Communications Bill was an improvement to the recently passed legislation (see Parliament Finally Green Lights Communications Act).
The Government was forced to accept the eleventh hour proposal after a group of rebel peers threatened to vote down the Bill unless plans to allow large newspaper groups to buy terrestrial TV station, Five, were amended. The final legislation gives the new regulator Ofcom the power to investigate this kind of major cross-media merger (see
Government Ends Media Ownership Deadlock).
Writing in the Financial Times today, Jowell conceded: “Although it was added towards the end of the Parliamentary stages, I believe that a plurality test that allows ministerial intervention, on advice from Ofcom, the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission where public interest concerns are raised, only serves to strengthen the Act.”
She insisted that the basic principles of the Act – liberalisation to promote competition and powers to uphold the highest standards of content – remained intact, saying: “Ofcom now takes centre stage as the guarantor that it is possible to have your cake and eat it. You can liberalise regulation, stop unnecessary Government interference in the industry and, at the same time, safeguard standards.”
Jowell emphasised that Ofcom would not interfere in the operations of the market unless there was a clear public interest.
She defined the Communications Act as the first stage in a greater project, which will also see a comprehensive review of the BBC’s charter, saying that it would set the media industry in a state of ‘permanent revolution’.
