Media: Ownership

I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Puttnam on securing this timely and important debate. I declare a past interest, as I was a journalist for the Daily Telegraph and chairman of the Guardian for nearly 10 years. I have eight points, which I shall make briefly. First, I commend Dr Cable’s swift action today in initiating an intervention notice. This is one case in which Liberal members of the coalition have been able to moderate the views of the other party by the expression of a separate viewpoint. I should like to have listened in to some of the phone calls to Mr Coulson over the past 24 hours, but of course that would have been illegal. Secondly, I have had some business dealings with Mr Murdoch and members of his family and have always found him a very impressive businessman. He is very focused and driven, and he has been very successful, because he has delivered what the customer wanted. I do not think, however, that we should form our judgment on the issues in hand today on the basis of Mr Rupert Murdoch alone because, as my noble friend Lord Gavron said, ownership can change. We need to recognise that we are not coming to a conclusion in our debate that relates not to one person or one point in time but rather to a broader set of principles that should shape the cartography of media ownership in the United Kingdom. As Dr Cable said at the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool, there is a natural tendency for business folk to seek to dominate markets and to extract some monopolistic rent as a consequence. We have Parliament to ensure that we do not have a situation in which there is abusive economic dominance—of customers or suppliers—in any particular sector. It is therefore an important role for Ministers and Parliament to be vigilant in connection with any area where there is a risk of excessive concentration. However, particular issues are raised by media ownership, because the media are the source of information and they inspire and inform intelligent debate that should shape our behaviours and the society in which we live. Clearly, the intention behind pluralism and diversity of ownership is to encourage the blossoming of many flowers rather than the presence of dominant voices that could outshout others in the market. My noble friend Lord Borrie talked about pluralism being associated with a profusion of participants in the market. It is clear that it is difficult to argue that that is the case in major and identifiable parts of the media at the moment, in television, radio and newspapers. At the same time, we must be mindful of the fact that the media landscape is changing rapidly, with new forms of communication based around digital formats. If we are concerned about dominance, I would not want to limit my comments to News International and Mr Rupert Murdoch. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, said that it was time to stop bashing the BBC, and in the areas to which he referred I would be sympathetic with his view. However, the BBC is a very dominant institution, and we must ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with that. In particular, we must ask ourselves whether we can be comfortable with a BBC that seems to have a remarkably inept BBC Trust, a management that has no clarity about what the BBC should be doing and that allowed itself to be bullied 10 days ago by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport over issues relating to the licence. Frankly, if the chairman of the trust had more principle and backbone, he would simply have said to Mr Jeremy Hunt, ““This is not acceptable, we will not agree to this—and if you insist on it, you will have to appoint a new trust””. As it was, the trust acquiesced like sheep, which reflects very badly on the BBC. Given its dominance, the failure of strong and principled leadership should be a matter of considerable concern to us at the moment. I hope that when the BBC licence is next reviewed we start from a presumption that the BBC should not be doing certain things. The BBC should have to prove why it should continue to operate Radio 1 or Radio 2, for instance. It is extraordinarily difficult to explain to a foreign visitor why Radio 1, a popular music station, is a nationalised industry, and why it is necessary for it to be provided by a public service as opposed to a competitive one. I have certainly witnessed the BBC inhibit, intimidate and effectively snuff out competition in regional news and broadcasting. There are some core questions that we need to ask about the BBC. In closing, I come back to News International. The tests of plurality must be a matter for the experts in Ofcom, and that will clearly be a difficult judgment. There is also a parallel issue for the Competition Commission around the issues of economic concentration —that is to say, even if this was not a media industry, would the concentration proposed as a result of the acquisition of the outstanding shares in BSkyB represent an unacceptable degree of concentration? From the perspective of the media, I would ask what the advantages are of News International buying BSkyB. Clearly the primary advantages are economic—in profit and access to cash flow. However, I find it much more difficult to see the social advantages of such concentration. In fact, it would clearly lead to a further elimination of choice. I suggest to Ofcom that it start from the premise that, if it cannot find convincing arguments to agree to the acquisition, it should disagree. The risks here are not symmetrical. The consequences of making the wrong decision could be deeply harmful and we would have to live with them for several decades.