Lord Carter, the new minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, is expected to recommend the relaxation of rules on local media ownership in order to stop further job losses.
One of the main recommendations in Lord Carter’s interim
Digital Britain report, due to be published this month, will focus on helping newspaper groups by allowing them to acquire local radio and TV stations as well as expanding their online presence.
Current media ownership rules are set out in the 2003 Communications Act, with the aim of preventing/limiting “consolidation within a media market or between markets to decrease the likelihood that any one owner wields too much power”.
The Communications Act introduced a points system to prevent local newspapers with a market share of 50% or more and ITV regional licensees from holding local analogue radio licences in the same area.
The Act also ensured that a media owner cannot acquire a regional ITV licence if it runs one or more local newspapers with more than a 20% market share in the same area.
Newspaper groups have called for the current rules to be reformed, while last June saw members of the House of Lords communications committee propose easing ownership restrictions relating to local newspapers and radio.
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