Tag Archives: DCMS

Select committees: Reaction to appearances by police, the Murdochs and Brooks

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The focus on Twitter seemed to be entirely on the appearance of Murdoch and son, Rebekah Brooks and two senior Metropolitan police officers at two parliament select committees yesterday (19 July).

Sir Paul Stephenson and John Yates appeared before the home affairs select committee, before Rupert and James Murdoch – and then Rebekah Brooks – came before the culture, media and sport committee.

Below is a Storify to show some of the reaction on Twitter to MPs’ questions and the responses MPs received.

News Corp’s BSkyB bid: a timeline

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Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt announced today that he will delay his decision over whether to refer News Corporation’s BSkyB bid to the competition commission. Hunt said that he is “minded” to refer the bid, but will hear undertakings from the merging parties before making his decision.

See the full Journalism.co.uk report on today’s announcement at this link, and a timeline of events related to the bid below:

BSkyB bid – a timeline on Dipity.

BECTU calls on members to take action over BSkyB takeover bid

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Media and entertainment union BECTU is calling on its members to ask their MPs to support the referral of News Corp’s BSkyB bid to the competition commission.

“Action is easy and takes a matter of minutes. Visit 38 Degrees and enter your postcode to email your MP directly. If you have yet to sign the petition please do so now,” says a release from the union.

BECTU assistant general secretary, Luke Crawley adds: “Once the referral is secured, BECTU will continue its support for the campaign against the takeover which threatens to narrow the range of voices and opinion expressed in the UK’s media.”

The union has also called on culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is responsible for making a decision over the bid, to publish Ofcom’s report into the proposals, which was delivered to his department on the 31 December.

Speaking at London School of Economics last week, Hunt refused to comment on process or when a decision would be arrived at. He also declined to reveal when the Ofcom report would be published. His appearance at the university was interrupted by a demonstration over the bid.

Representatives from BECTU attended a meeting about the bid and media ownership at the House of Commons last week. Speaking at the meeting, Lord Razzall said that “all hell will break loose” if Hunt were to ignore a recommendation from Ofcom to refer the bid to the competition commission.

First local TV stations planned by Hunt to be licensed by 2012

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The government outlined its plans for structural reform this week, including a timetable for media reform from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMA).

Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for DCMS, writes in the report that he hopes to “roll back media regulation” in order to “encourage investment and create the conditions for sustainable growth”.

Plans for local media include a relaxation of the rules governing cross-media ownership by November this year and for the first of Hunt’s local TV stations to be licensed by summer 2012, with a target of creating 10 to 20 new stations by the end of parliament.

Actions laid out in the plans include changes to the media regulatory regime by reforming Ofcom and deregulating the broadcasting sector. Measures to scale back Ofcom’s duties are planned as part of a Public Bodies Reform Bill and Communications Bill, with the legislative process set to begin by November 2012.

Hunt also plans to agree the terms of a new licence fee settlement between July 2011 and April 2012.

He said these plans aim to give the public an idea of the programme to follow, but that much “broader ambitions” will be set out in the autumn in a spending review.

See the plans here…

Jeremy Hunt: No local TV is one of biggest gaps in British broadcasting

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In his inaugural speech on the media and digital economy yesterday, new Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt tied his colours firmly to the local TV mast:

New York has six local TV stations – compared to London which has not one.

Birmingham Alabama, an example some of you may have heard me use before, has eight local TV stations – despite being a quarter the size of our Birmingham that, again, doesn’t even have one.

Paris, Lyon and Marseilles have local TV. Why not Glasgow, Sheffield and Bristol?

Unfortunately even as politicians have paid lip service to localism, our broadcasting ecology has pursued the polar opposite model – with a large proportion of news beamed shamelessly from the centre.

In his speech, Hunt said he would:

He also outlined plans for the roll out of superfast broadband in the UK. His speech is available in full at this link, but a Wordle of the top 50 words used gives an overview of his priorities for media: