The draft legislation of the forthcoming Communications Bill has today been jointly published by Trade and Industry Secretary, Patricia Hewitt and Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell. Proposed changes to the rules would allow the long-anticipated consolidation of ITV and would also pave the way for large newspaper companies, such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, to buy Channel 5 or radio stations, but not ITV.
The current rules set to be scrapped in the new Bill also include: those which prevent ownership of more than one national commercial radio licence; the criminal sanctions that apply in the newspaper merger regime; those that prevent the joint ownership of TV and radio stations; and the inconsistent rules that prevent the non-European ownership of some broadcasting assets in order to boost inward investment and allow the UK to benefit rapidly from new ideas and technological developments.
The reasoning behind allowing large newspaper companies to own Channel 5 is that at present the station’s audience share is not significant enough to warrant concern.
However, the following limits on cross-media ownership would be kept: the rule that any newspaper group with over 20% of the national market will not be able to own a significant stake in ITV – the only commercial public service broadcaster with universal access to a mass audience; a parallel regional rule would prevent anyone owning all the newspapers and the regional ITV license in any region or major city; and there would be a scheme to ensure that at least three commercial local or regional media voices exist (in newspapers, TV and radio) in addition to the BBC in almost every local community.
Jowell commented: “For too long the UK’s media have been over-regulated and over-protected from competition. Despite this, the last ten years have seen a dramatic increase in the range of voices in the market place. The draft Bill we have published today will liberalise the market, so removing unnecessary regulatory burdens and cutting red tape, but at the same time retain some key safeguards that will protect the diversity and plurality of our media.”
As expected, the creation of OFCOM will see some, but not all, aspects of BBC regulation brought under the new super-regulator, although the board of governors will remain (see NewsLine).
The draft Bill will be subject to a consultation period of three months as well as pre-legislative scrutiny by a joint committee of both Houses.
DCMS: 020 7211 6200 www.culture.gov.uk DTI: 020 7215 5000 www.dti.gov.uk
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