The minefield of media ownership

Forging Ahead is the apt title of the White Paper on competitiveness published this week by Michael Heseltine. Apt certainly for the advertising industry, which found a harmonious chord in its tone. The important thing, according to Andrew Brown, director-general of the Advertising Association, is Heseltine’s explicit recognition of advertising as a forceful element in national and international competition. Evidently some discreet lobbying has paid off.

If only the same could be said of another important initiative emanating from a different government department this week. The reaction to Stephen Dorrell’s discussion document on cross-media ownership has been vocal and not always pleasant. On the one hand the proposals have caused surprise, since they are firmer than expected, on the other confusion, because they obscure rather than clarify.

After so much shilly-shallying, the Department of Heritage is determined to introduce a system based upon overall media market share. There is a strong recommendation that share should be capped at 15 per cent, decreasing to ten per cent after 18 months. So much the better, you might say. Here at least is the foundation of a fairer, more rational system.

Sadly only up to a point, Lord Copper. There is, for example, no agreed definition of ‘market share’. Should it be measured commercially – by revenue – or editorially, by audience and readership? Or, hellish complication, by both? Once arrived at, this ‘media exchange rate’ would have to be applied to a situation riddled with new anomalies. Digital technology and new media ownership are to be excluded from the proposals, so is the single biggest media force, the BBC. Then there are regional susceptibilities to be considered. You can hold ten per cent of the UK media market, as long as you don’t exceed 20 per cent share in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the English TV regions, or 20 per cent of TV, press, or radio. And, crowning irrelevance, the ban on owning more than two ITV licences is to be maintained.

Another interesting line of inquiry is regulation. Who will police this system? The ITC, the MMC or yet another regulatory body? And how will it address ‘control’ before determining whether there has been an infraction of market-share ceilings? One of the few certain features of today’s media owners is that they have extremely complicated cross-holdings, which obscure their true influence.