2015 General Election: Media Policy

Rather than post a stack of posts reacting to policy announcements and eventual manifesto pledges, I'll gather links and points in this post.

Key (probable) issues:

• Future of BBC, funding, downsizing?; form of BBC regulation (scrap Trust?)
• Wider future of PSB requirements
• Future/role of OfCom
• Watershed in digital era
• Extending ratings system to music video and other media content
• Press regulation, Leveson response, IPSO
• Privacy laws, protection of journalists' right to privacy
• Film industry state funding
• Pluralism, (concentration of) ownership, cross-media ownership limits

UPDATE, 21ST APRIL: GUARDIAN GUIDE TO MEDIA POLICY PLEDGES
I've been saving a variety of links, but the Media Guardian has come to my rescue on this one!
Here's their helpfully pithy overview (written by Jasper Jackson):

Plans for the media industry may not be seen as a big vote winner this election, but the manifestos published over the past few days suggest that each party has a very different take on the industry.

DIGITISATION OWNERSHIP Preston on online polls opposing non-dom owners

In short, [there] is no single, ideal model of press ownership anywhere in the world, particularly in an era of profound flux. Any prospective government policy is going to be out of date before it’s sealed: see the way Leveson couldn’t cope with online.

Preston raises an opinion poll that shows overwhelming support for tougher media regulation, specifically restricting the right of non-doms to own British media. Whilst acknowledging the principle behind this, he questions whether this sentiment has any meaning given the globalisation that digitisation has brought about.

He starts:

DIGITISATION: Comparing print circulation with online users

We've been raising and discussing this point frequently recently, so lets pin it down with some precise figures.
The total combined circulation of UK daily national papers in Jan 2015 was just over 7m; for Sunday nationals it was 6.4m (Greenslade report). NB: these are ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation) figures; an independent body whose figures govern what advertisers pay. Most of their content is locked behind a paywall; the Guardian maintains a microsite for ABC-related articles.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK) or ABC was founded on 14 October 1931 by the ISBA (Society of British Advertisers) to provide an independent verification of circulation/data figures to facilitate the buying and selling of advertising space within UK national newspapers. [Wiki]

Table from Press Gazette. 'Bulks' means copies given away free/heavily discounted (hotels etc)

Secret Terror Trial = end of Fourth Estate?

There are various terms used below: fourth estate, public sphere, superinjunction, statutory regulation, concentration of ownership, liberal pluralism, Marxist critique: (Chomsky's) propaganda model, hegemonic, free market, web 2.0.

The media are regulated because (a) they are seen as having profound influence on social psychology, values and attitudes and (b) because they are seen as a basic, fundamental part of a functioning democracy. Of course, the democratic function leads some to argue that we shouldn't regulate the media - or, more specifically, that the government shouldn't have a role in this; this is a key argument used against tougher, statutory regulation of the press.

June 2014 sees news emerging of a criminal trial which the media were originally banned from reporting on, including on its very existence. The very concept of a fourth estate (or free press, where press doesn't just mean newspapers) is based on the idea that the media will hold governments and big business to account, and expose any corruption, improper or antidemocratic practices.

Alan Rusbridger: Case for Plurality

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/24/overwhelming-case-media-plurality

PLURALISM: cap News Corp?

V useful article here which examines the concept of pluralism - the concept of having diverse opinions present and represented through our media, not a narrow range or limited number. This is a 'wider social issue', and also tied to the very dea of regulation: without some regulation the 'free market' would inevitably lead to concentration of ownership even worse than we currently have, and the ever-larger scale of these few global conglomerates would likely narrow even further the diversity of views and opinions represented. Such corporate behemoths as News Corp are unlikely to favourably report moves to increase Corporation Tax, the top end of Income Tax, to boost wages or strengthen trade union power, because none of this is in the self-interest of a large corporation.
Enders & Goodall specifically suggest a 15% market share (of all media, not just a single sector whether TV or press) should the maximum permitted; any company which rises above this should be forced to sell off media assets until they fall below 15% again. As we'll see, OfCom have in the past forced News Corp to sell shares in ITV companies as this went against the fundamental principle of pluralism.

Article link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/30/cap-media-ownership-lessons-leveson

News Corp case shows a cap on media ownership is the way forward

The lessons from the Leveson inquiry are clear: the hold on our media of proprietors like Murdoch must be restricted

• Claire Enders and  Chris Goodall
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 April 2012

The Dow Jones news ticker in New York's Times Square displays part of the headline on News Corp's bid to buy the Down Jones Company in May 2007. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/REUTERS

In the past few days an impressive political unanimity has been developing behind the view that Britain needs to reintroduce clear limits on media ownership and define what plurality means. The UK dismantled most of the specific rules governing who can own media companies in 2003, and in all but a few cases the competition authorities were left with complete autonomy.
Indeed, only a last-minute amendment to the Communications Act allowed governments to intervene to protect plurality. Without that protection, the full takeover of BSkyB would have proceeded with no check whatsoever, even though it enlarged the scale and scope of News Corporation, already the largest media company in the UK and, indeed, the world.
The concept of plurality remains entirely undefined in law. To date Ofcom and other bodies have largely assumed that plurality is entirely about the media providing a wide range of news and opinion to citizens. In the UK, News Corp controls over 35% of newspaper circulation and most news on commercial radio and BSkyB, and has significant financial muscle. An increase in this scale and scope could have detrimental effects on all News Corp's competitors, and thereby on British democracy.