International

Media ownership shake-up in U.K.

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON MAY 8. The Blair Government was today accused of doing a `deal' with the controversial media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch, after it announced plans for the most radical shake-up of Britain's media ownership rules in 20 years. Under the new proposals, unveiled on Tuesday, Britain's lucrative electronic media market will be up for grabs by foreign investors, but the man who is seen to gain the most is "our man Rupert'', as one commentator sarcastically remarked.

Mr. Murdoch, who already owns four major British newspapers, including The Times, The Sunday Times and the hugely influential The Sun, besides enjoying a virtual monopoly over the satellite TV market through Sky TV, will now able to buy radio stations and terrestrial TV channels as well tightening his grip on the country's media.

This had been his long- standing ambition but was thwarted by strict cross-media ownership rules which prevented newspaper owners who controlled more than 20 per cent of the market from bidding for radio and terrestrial TV stations.

The Government's proposal to change the rules was denounced as the "Murdoch clause'' by critics who said it was tailored to serve his interests in return for a softer line on euro by his newspapers which have been fiercely Europhobic. With the clock ticking away for a referendum on Britain's entry into a single currency regime, the Blair government desperately needs media support for its pro-euro campaign and Mr. Murdoch, with his opinion-forming tabloids and broadsheets is best placed to deliver.

``The machiavellian might immediately watch Times and Sun leaders for a softening of the line towards the euro,'' one analyst said while The Guardian warned against the `uses' to which Mr. Murdoch might put his media empire's enormous influence.'' Time and again Mr. Murdoch's media empire has promoted a rightwing agenda that cows politicians as well as coarsening political and cultural debate. And yet here is a Government that allows Mr. Murdoch control over a third of British newspaper readership, access to three-quarters of digitally connected British homes through B sky, and that now wants to offer him a fifth of the broadcasting spectrum,'' it said in an editorial.

The Government however defended its complicated proposals, contained in a draft bill on communications, and insisted that these were "proprietor-neutral''. The intention, it said, was to ease up the U.K. media industry which had been "over-regulated and over-protected from competition for too long''. "Overall we intend to remove or relax most rules concerning media ownership while keeping those necessary to protect the public interest,'' the Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell said.

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