Blue Sky Thinking And Ownership Rules

Michael Hedges September 12, 2011 - Follow on Twitter

Rethinking media ownership rules has edged up the public policy agenda in many countries. It is, in part, a byproduct of new media becoming more influential or, at least, giving that appearance and economic stress, or the fear thereof, of older, displaced media sources. Ownership rules, generally, have been in place since the last century. Timing couldn’t be worse.

Claims of impropriety, if not illegality, surrounding the phone-hacking story in the UK that began with actions that may or may not have been sanctioned by executives of News Corporation owned UK publisher News International pressured the UK government to raise questions about media influence, media plurality and media ownership as News Corporation sought to acquire 100% ownership of satellite television company BSkyB. The phone hacking scandal, yet to be thoroughly adjudicated, left a bad taste with politicians and, it seems, the UK public. Feeling public relations pressure News Corporation folded one of its leading tabloid newspapers and withdrew, for now, its bid to takeover BSkyB. News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch told a parliamentary committee he was “humbled.”

UK policy makers will now take the debate on media ownership and plurality to the next level. “We first need to better understand how we should measure plurality across platforms,” is the message UK Culture, Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt will give to the Royal Television Society this week (September 14), according to advance release of his speech. “I intend to ask (media regulator) OFCOM to examine what the options are for measuring media plurality in our digital age, and recommend the best approach.”  

It’s a hair pulling set of questions. OFCOM’s approach has been developed around “minutes of media use” and “share of reference.” These terms can be quantified through available market research techniques, sample surveys more likely. Less simple to quantify are questions of influence and impartiality.

“The issue of media concentration is back on the political agenda,” wrote European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) general secretary Aiden White in the preface to an exhaustive 2005 report on media ownership, “not least because of the rapid transformation of the global media landscape and the introduction of new information technologies that now give people the opportunity to get their journalism and information from a kaleidoscope of sources – the telephone, the computer, their iPod or Walkman, as well as their satellite television, digital radio and the traditional range of newspapers and broadcasting outlets.” In effect, media concentration and plurality have been on the political agenda for a decade during which time few national governments have had the will to tackle the knotty issues and the European Commission didn’t want to touch them.

“The first danger,” said the report’s introduction, “is the creation of significant market power of undertakings – or even monopoly – that significantly impedes competition, ultimately to the detriment of consumer welfare. This very often coincides with the second danger, namely the possibility for a limited number of media companies to curtail media plurality, diversity and freedom of information. The distinction between these two different facets of media concentration is obviously important. The first is purely economic and market-related; the second pertains to the fundamental democratic values.” The EFJ, like all media watchers, comes to the discussion with its own agenda, largely supporting journalists and their livelihoods and critical of the biggest private sector media houses.

Private sector conglomerates have long been under the media policy microscope, with emphasis on broadcasting rather than newspaper publishing. Television and radio ownership could be managed easily when the broadcast spectrum – the electronic space – was viewed as limited. Newspaper publishers, very often with editorial points of view, have been subject to circulation caps with the intent of limiting ownership concentration. Some cross-media ownership rules keep the newspaper people out of broadcasting and vice versa.

New media’s ascendancy has changed the terms as well as the questions. What, now, is a media owner? Should Google, Twitter and ISPs be included? All-inclusive quantitative measurement of “minutes of media usage” and “share of reference” would certainly show increased plurality of information and ideas by platform but not necessarily by content creation. The BBC’s online presence has wide and broad influence but so does Facebook.

Private sector media houses, the big ones in particular, have argued an absolute free market approach, with companies allowed great flexibility to expand and contract in response to commercial opportunity and change. Scale has its advantage, which even the sharpest critics will agree. Big media houses, private and public, can provide services beyond the scope of smaller ones. Digital transition is, if anything, expensive. But scant regulation in the financial sector hasn’t worked out very well.

All debate is healthy until it forms no conclusion. And this one is long from ending.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Media Laws – New and Revised

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Television in the UK

Viewers in the UK love their 'telly'. The BBC is under pressure, BSkyB expanding, ITV and Channel Five are under new management. Hardly a week goes by without a complaint, new rules or other change. 58 pages PDF (October 2010)

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The newspaper market in the UK is among the worlds most competitive. The publishers are colorful, editors daring, journalists talented and readers discerning. ftm follows the leaders, the readers, the freebies and the tabloids. 83 pages PDF (October 2010)

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