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:
Jeremy Hunt outlined the government’s plans for local television at the Oxford Media Convention today, announcing a new national television channel which will be devoted to providing local news and information via regional services.
See Journalism.co.uk’s full news story at this link.
The Department for Culture Media and Sport has published a copy of Hunt’s speech in full, which can be seen here.
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.
The department for culture, media and sport has said it is now considering a report by Ofcom on ways in which the current system of public service broadcasting (PSB) might be changed to help deliver local TV services, and will announce its plans in the new year on the “next steps for local TV in the UK”.
The report was published on Friday for the department after culture secretary Jeremy Hunt asked Ofcom to produce the report in his speech at the RTS International Conference in September.
It sets out options relating to commercial PSB providers ITV1, Channel 4/S4C and Five as well as ways that new providers of local services might be assisted.
Some of the main recommendations/considerations taken from the report:
The former managing director of Trinity Mirror Television, Richard Horwood, is to put forward a formal proposal to the government review on local television in relation to a single TV channel which would favour local programming, according to the Telegraph.
It is reported that Horwood has already spoken to head of UK investment banking at Lazard Nicholas Shott, who is responsible for carrying out the review on the commercial viability of local television in the UK for culture, media and sport secretary Jeremy Hunt.
This week Mr Horwood will put a formal proposal to the review involving a single TV channel available on multi-platforms and combining local and national programming and adverts.
The idea is to create a national framework of programming with the ability to “opt out” of the national schedule in certain towns in favour of local programmes and adverts.
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will say today that he intends to make the provision of local content a condition of the licences given to commercial broadcasters like ITV, Channel 4 and Five.
In a speech today to the Royal Television Society, Hunt will also tell those channels with a public service broadcasting remit (PSBs) that retaining a prime position in the Electronic Programme Guide or future equivalent would depend on their commitment to “content with a social or cultural benefit”.
I will begin the process of redefining public service broadcasting for the digital age by asking Ofcom to look at how we can ensure that enough emphasis is given to the delivery of local content.
Of course not all PSBs will want, or be able, to be local broadcasters. But I’m determined that we should recognise the public value in those that do.
Echoing the sentiments of his party’s ‘big society’ idea, Hunt will warn broadcasters about not investing in local news:
If we remain centralised, top-down and London-centric – in our media provision as in the rest of government – we will fail to reflect the real demand for stronger local identity that has always existed and that new technologies are now allowing us to meet.
Hunt will add that he has been “strongly encouraged by the serious thought that the BBC has been giving to how it might partner with new local media providers”.
He is expected to say that, despite the UK “fast becoming one of the most atomised societies in the world”, those looking back in the future will see its media as “deeply, desperately centralised.”
They will be astonished to find that three out of five programmes made by our public service broadcasters are produced in London.
They will note that there is nothing but national news on most of the main channels, beamed shamelessly from the centre.
And they will discover token regional news broadcasts that have increasingly been stretched across vast geographical areas – with viewers in Weymouth watching the same so-called “local” story as viewers in Oxford. Viewers in Watford watching the same story as viewers in Chelmsford.
Hunt will also set out his vision for local TV provision:
My vision is of a landscape of local TV services broadcasting for as little as one hour a day;
Free to affiliate to one another – formally or informally – in a way that brings down costs;
Free to offer nationwide deals to national advertisers;
Able to piggyback existing national networks – attracting new audiences and benefitting from inherited ones at the same time;
And able to exploit the potential of new platform technologies such as YouView and mobile TV to grow their service and improve their cost-effectiveness.
In June, Hunt scrapped plans for new local news networks set up by the previous government. Hunt called the plans for Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNC) in Tyne Tees and Borders, Scotland, and Wales “misguided” and claimed they “risked turning a whole generation of media companies into subsidy junkies, focusing all their efforts not on attracting viewers but on persuading ministers and regulators to give them more cash”.
A report on ways to establish new local TV services is due to be delivered to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt by the end of the month, paidContent reports today.
An advisory panel tasked with examining broadcast models has reportedly been sifting through the many submissions on the issue and has also been consulting with local newspaper groups and other organisations.
Quoted in the paidContent report, panel member Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, warned that the group’s proposals will not be “earth-shattering” due to geographical issues.
We are making patient progress, but there are long, intractable issues. We are doing our best to go through all the business models. We are leaving no stone unturned. We are aware of how keen the minister is.
But one of the obvious things about the UK is that our conurbations are not appropriate for local television, they are not big enough. We will get somewhere, which advances the minister’s agenda, but it will not be earth-shattering stuff.
In a speech earlier this year Hunt said the lack of quality local television is “one of the biggest gaps in British broadcasting”.
Ofcom is considering a government proposal for further relaxation of regional media ownership rules, which could see the one remaining restriction removed.
According to a report by the Press Association, the regulator is considering a request by the Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Secretary Jeremy Hunt to look at the effect of removing the last restriction, which prohibits any one body from owning all of the following: local newspapers with more than a 50 per cent market share, a local radio station and the ITV licence for the area.
In its response, Ofcom said local media was facing “significant economic pressure” and removing the remaining restriction “could allow local media greater options to consolidate to respond to these pressures”.
But it added that a “serious consideration” remained that combined ownership could give too much control over the local news agenda to one person or company.
The regulator admitted “it is also worth noting that there is probably a reasonably low risk of the kind of consolidation that the remaining rule protects against actually occurring even if the rule was removed.”
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has said the BBC must remain editorially independent to continue producing “world class news”.
Speaking in an interview with Andrew Marr yesterday, Hunt also indicated some change was needed to the licence fee:
We’ll be having discussions over the future of the licence fee, the next licence fee settlement next year, in which I’ll be talking to Mark and the BBC management in a lot of detail. And I do want the BBC to demonstrate that when it comes to their management pay, they’re on the same planet as everyone else because of the economic inheritance that we’re facing. Government ministers are having to be careful with every single penny of taxpayers’ money and the BBC does need to show that it’s careful with every penny of licence fee payers’ money as well.
But he added that the government support the idea of a similar stream of revenue continuing:
Well what we’ve said very clearly is that we accept the principle of the licence fee, which is the idea if you like of a household tax to fund public service broadcasting that is ring-fenced, and we think that one of the reasons we have some of the best TV and broadcasting in the world in this country is because we have these different streams of income including the licence fee, including subscription income and including advertising. Now the way we collect it may have to be rethought because technology is changing, a lot of people are watching TV on their PCs. We’re not going to introduce a PC licence fee and that is something that I do need to have discussions with the BBC to see what their ideas are.
Marr also asked Hunt for a response to the news that Express Newspapers owner Richard Desmond had purchased Channel Five. Hunt said the news was “encouraging”:
Well what people need to remember about that is that the regulations over what broadcasters can do are much stricter than over people who run newspapers and magazines. And it was a Conservative government that founded Channel Five in 1997. Indeed Conservative governments have actually been responsible for most of the big changes in broadcasting. We founded ITV and Four and did the Sky and satellite and cable revolution as well. But what I think is encouraging is that one of the first things that Richard Desmond said was that he was committed to Five’s future as a public service broadcaster.