Joint Scrunity Committee Report Prompts Reaction
ISBA has criticised the Joint Scrutiny Committee for advising the Government to rethink its decision to allow non-European investors to buy UK media companies.
The Committee, chaired by Lord Puttnam, is urging the Government not to abolish the current media ownership regulations and is suggesting that the issue of foreign ownership should be dealt with by Ofcom and the competition commission (see Committee Advises Government To Rethink Media Ownership).
However, ISBA has expressed concern that a ban on foreign ownership could limit the growth of the UK media sector. Ian Twinn, ISBA’s director of public affairs, said: “We believe that foreign ownership could bring considerable investment into UK media and therefore that barriers should not be put in the way.”
ISBA has welcomed the Committee’s recommendation that the Government should encourage the self-regulation of broadcast advertising and has given its support to the Committee’s suggestion that the consolidation of ITV should be scrutinised under competition law.
Twinn added: “Advertisers have long been concerned about the dominance that single ownership of ITV would have on the UK airtime market and welcome the growing recognition of this amongst decision makers.”
The Scrutiny Committee is broadly supporting the Government’s proposal to allow the creation of a single ITV, a decision which has been warmly received by the broadcaster. Clive Jones, joint managing director of ITV, said: “ITV welcomes the Committee’s support for single ownership of ITV. This will be an important step forward if ITV is to continue to deliver to viewers high quality programmes made all over the UK in an increasingly competitive television market.”
Both ISBA and ITV have welcomed the Committee’s recommendations that Ofcom’s powers over the BBC should be extended. ISBA is particularly pleased with the Committee’s recognition that the BBC’s dominance could be abused to the detriment of the commercial sector and ITV is supporting the suggestion that regional production quotas should apply to BBC1 and BBC2.
ISBA: 020 7499 7502 www.isba.org.uk ITV: 020 7843 8222 www.itv.com
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