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:
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.
BBC business editor Robert Peston has insisted that claims he made earlier today about a recommendation from Ofcom to put News Corp’s BSkyB bid to the Competition Commission is not just speculation.
Update 12:59: I slightly regret the way I wrote this post, because some of you seem to think this is speculation.
It isn’t speculation.
What I am saying is very simple: Ofcom has recommended that there should be a full Competition Commission enquiry into News Corporation’s plan to buy all of British Sky Broadcasting.
That is a fact.
The report by Ofcom has not yet been made public, with the regulator and Department for Culture Media and Sport telling Journalism.co.uk recently that they could not comment on the contents of the report until culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has responsibility for the decision, has made an announcement.
Jeremy Hunt discussed the bid in an debate at the LSE with Raymond Snoddy last night but refused to comment in any detail on the decision making process.
In a separate meeting last night, journalists held a campaign meeting at the Houses of Parliament where Lord Razzall said “all hell would break loose” if Hunt were to ignore a recommendation by Ofcom to refer the bid to the Competition Commission.
In an article for the Independent this morning, Stephen Glover critiques the Murdoch backlash championed, he claims, by the Guardian and suggests that those opposing the BSkyB bid should consider how Google affects privacy.
there is a more powerful organisation that may pose a far greater threat than Rupert Murdoch, and yet it is barely criticised by right-thinking people. Its name is Google.
Glover looks at the role Google plays in daily life through features such as Google Maps and Google Mail as well as comparing the company’s Conservative political sway with that of Rupert Murdoch.
I know which organisation worries me more. I should say in his defence that my old friend Henry Porter has attacked Google in the past, describing it as “an amoral menace”. I am sure he would agree with me that, for all his sins, Mr Murdoch publishes some very good newspapers and produces some good programming. Google may provide an invaluable service but it actually produces nothing much of value while taking billions of pounds of advertising from newspapers and television.
Dan Sabbagh added a new angle to the News of The World phone-hacking scandal this morning, connecting the scandal to News Corp’s takeover bid for BSkyB. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is due to make a decision over the controversial bid this month.
Hunt, whose verdict is due this month, would have to argue that there is no danger of about the media power of an enlarged News Corp/Sky at a time when the tactics of its senior reporters are in the spotlight again.
He may yet do so, but the political risks of him letting the Murdoch deal go through at the first time of asking just multiplied – when he has the easier alternative of asking for the Competition Commission to look at the implications of the deal in more detail.
Sabbagh’s full comment piece can be found here.
Related content:
News of the World executive suspended over ‘serious allegation’ of phone-hacking
Following Ofcom’s publication of an invitation earlier this month for submissions in relation to News Corporation’s bid for the remaining share of BSkyB that it doesn’t already own, the Church of England has reportedly made its concerns known this week.
According to the Guardian, the Bishop of Manchester, the Right Rev Nigel McCulloch, who is also the lead media spokesman for the church, said in a submission to Ofcom that if the bid were accepted it would place News Corp in a position of dominance across two media platforms.
“A News Corporation in full control of BSkyB would combine one of the three significant suppliers of TV news (BBC, ITN and BSkyB), one of the two suppliers of radio news (BBC, BSkyB) and the group with the biggest market share of national press in the UK. It would dominate both the television and newspaper landscape.”
McCulloch said that at the very least there should be an assurance that the independence of Sky News will be preserved in any circumstance, whatever the outcome of the bid and inquiry.
In a submission from Sky itself to Ofcom, the broadcaster claimed that even if Sky News ceased to be an independent ‘voice’ from News International, its small share of viewing figures would mean those who relied on this independence would be “extremely low”.
In the light of these findings, it is relevant that Sky News’ share of national television news viewing remains small at around 7 per cent (potentially lower if viewing of smaller specialist news channels is taken into account) and alternative sources of news, in particular via the internet, have risen considerably in prominence since the CC BSkyB/ITV Report. Further, with regard to the Competition Commission’s third finding referred to in paragraph 4.14 above, even were Sky News to cease to be an independent “voice” from News International following the Transaction, the percentage of the UK population who could be said to have relied upon Sky News as such an independent “voice” (and who therefore would in practice suffer from a loss of plurality) would be extremely low.
In a report on Sky’s submission paidContent said the broadcaster is “effectively trying to limbo under a threshold for plurality, which takeover opponents would be reduced, by framing the bid in the wider context of the last decade’s ongoing internet content explosion”.
In doing so, it is also trying to get the regulator to focus on just one of the content areas in which it operates, saying: “The appropriate focus of Ofcom’s investigation is on national news, rather than the broader content genres (such as entertainment, fiction or drama) referred to in Ofcom’s Invitation to Comment.”
Rupert Murdoch’s son James, who heads News Corporation’s Europe and Asia operations, warned that it could relocate some of its most innovative projects to more “welcoming” countries if its bid for Sky is blocked by the UK, according to a report by the Telegraph.
Earlier this month, business secretary Vince Cable issued an intervention notice ordering Ofcom to investigate the impact on media plurality of News Corporation’s proposal to acquire the remaining shares of BSkyB.
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley conference in Barcelona yesterday, James Murdoch said the Government must decide whether it wants to risk “jeopardising an £8 billion investment in the UK”, the Telegraph reported today.