Ofcom to investigate cross-media ownership
Media regulator Ofcom is to investigate the current market share held by News Corp and the BBC at the behest of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.
It will establish a consensual measure of cross-media influence in the UK and consider whether this would warrant any limits on market share placed on the likes of Rupert Murdoch or the BBC.
Spanning TV, print, radio and other media the survey would seek to inform a “new framework for media plurality”.
At a speech to the Royal Television Society Festival Hunt will say: “We first need to better understand how we should measure plurality across platforms. I intend to ask Ofcom to examine what the options are for measuring media plurality in our digital age, and recommend the best approach."
At present there is only restriction on UK media ownership is that any newspaper owner with more than 20% of total circulation cannot own more than 20% of ITV – a fact which paved the way for Murdoch’s controversial BSkyB bid.
Ofcom has devised a “minutes of media use” currency to measure the respective weightings of media providers – allocating News Corp and BSkyB account for a 22% share for British news whilst the BBC had 37%.