News

The phone hacking scandal that unravelled in July led to a long and overdue debate on media concentration and the threat it poses to media pluralism. Gerry Morrissey, General Secretary of UK Media and Entertainment Union, BECTU and member of the Executive Committee of UNI MEI said that “the momentous nature of all that has happened, highlighted by Rupert and James Murdoch’s appearances before the Commons Culture Select Committee promises the kind of change BECTU has been calling for years: at last the disproportionate, unfettered influence of News Corporation on key institutions is questioned.”

The BSkyB merger is now off. That is good news after a long series of bad news that shocked the UK media landscape and that revealed the ruinous effects of News Corporation’s dominance of UK Media. BECTU had opposed the take over of BSkyB by News Corp. early on and warned in its submission in March that the sheer size and reach of the proposed merged company gives rise to clear concerns that it would be anti-competitive. BECTU had also criticised the government for having granted News Corp the privilege of a series of private discussions with regulators, without any public scrutiny in March of this year.

BECTU calls again on the UK government to institute a broader review of the statutory framework governing the public interest in media pluralism. The international reach of News Corporation underlines the need to tackle the issue of media concentration at the European level. National measures without a coordinated EU approach will not do the job to secure media pluralism in the long term. The European Commission had given its green light to the BSkyB take-over already in December 2010, a manifest sign that it lacks an adequate tool to assess the impact on media pluralism and democracy when assessing merger cases. It’s time for the EU institutions and Member States to wake up and take responsibility to safeguard the fundamental right of media pluralism enshrined in the EU charter of fundamental rights.