UK MPs Up In Arms Over Media Law Liberalisation Plans

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

19 February 2003

Speaking to legal publisher Butterworths this week, Howard Cartlidge of TMT specialist law firm, Olswang dismissed calls from backbenchers for the government to re-examine its plans to relax media ownership in the UK which would allow Australian media mogul, Richard Murdoch to take control of the terrestrial Channel 5.

According to Butterworths:

'In the original draft of the [liberalisation] bill, Sky was obliged to carry the public service channels while BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 were required to provide them to the broadcaster. But by the time the bill was published, and after heavy lobbying from Sky, this was changed so that the onus lay on the broadcasters to provide the channels.'

Following the news that a group of Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs have urged the government to rethink its communications bill, and that there are plans for a rebellion on the issue in the Lords, Mr Cartlidge, head of Olswang's Competition Group explained to Butterworths that:

'I think there is still a backlash against the liberalizing policy and this is part of it. They are using the M word, Murdoch, which is always guaranteed to get people alarmed.'

Citing the findings of the Puttnam joint scrutiny committee, which opposed the relaxation of ownership laws, and expressed particular concern over the relaxation of ownerhip by non-European organisations or entities of the UK's main television and radio broadcasters, Mr Cartlidge observed that:

'The main non-European that people are worried about is, of course, Rupert Murdoch. They're probably not so worried about Viacom or Disney or other entities like that. There doesn't seem to me to be any particular logic in saying 'well, we'll allow French and German companies to own our broadcasters but it's unthinkable to let American or Australian companies own them. That doesn't make any sense at all to me.'

Recommended