Murdoch Expansion May Be Halted By Bill

Rupert Murdoch’s ambitions to increase his UK TV and radio interests could be prevented by the legislation contained in the forthcoming Communications Bill, according to reports in today’s Financial Times.

While the expectation is that revised legislation on media ownership would allow large-scale radio and television mergers, the FT says that under the preferred plan newspaper owners would be preventing from expanding into broadcasting. With News Corp’s ownership of the Times, the Sun and a stake in BSkyB, a large scale expansion such as the purchase of commercial terrestrial channel would therefore be likely to be prevented.

A draft of the proposed Bill is expected to be published in May this year.

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