ITC And Radio Authority Given Greater Powers

Virginia Bottomley has announced additional deregulatory media ownership controls, which give the Independent Television Commission and Radio Authority greater flexibility in determining and defining “control” of broadcast licences. The amendment to the Bill extends the regulators’ powers to take account of de facto control. Following concern that companies could still use “wharehousing” or similar mechanisms to by-pass media ownership controls, the Government is amending the definition so that such arrangements are caught.

The Government is also removing the current “secondary” shareholding limits of 20% (and 5% subsequently) in an ITV licence, to be replaced by an “audience attribution” system. This fulfills the new shareholding commitment given during the Bill’s second reading in the House of Commons. Minority shareholdings of 15% or above in ITV companies, and 20% in all other broadcasters will attract half the audience share figures attributed to that particular licence. This deregulatory measure will allow companies to expand their interests, subject to the overall 15% threshold of total television audience. The provisions are modelled on the existing secondary controls for radio licences.

The Government has also clarified that the public interest test, to be applied by the ITC and Radio Authority when newspaper groups seek to acquire a broadcast licence is a one-off test and cannot be applied retrospectively.

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Proposals for limiting participation in television licence holders

Notes: *includes local newspapers and national newspapers having less than 20% of market share