As reported by the Newspaper Society: The Media Plurality report published this week was critical of the competition authorities’ handling of the attempted acquisition in 2011 – which led to the closure of several newspapers - saying that the huge potential costs for the KM Group associated with a Competition Commission referral had not been given “relevant consideration.”
Along with other media organisations, the NS submitted written evidence to the inquiry and the committee heard evidence from NS president Adrian Jeakings of Archant, Ashley Highfield of Johnston Press and Geraldine Allinson of Kent Messenger Group. One of the report's key recommendations was that Ofcom, not the Culture Secretary, should take a lead role in deciding whether media transactions should go ahead.
The report said: “From a public policy perspective, the issue that arose in the case of the Kent Messenger Group’s proposed acquisition of the Northcliffe titles in Kent in 2011 boiled down to what appears to be the underweighting of the local media plurality concerns and the advise given in Ofcom’s LMA, especially on the relevant counterfactual, in the decisions about whether to refer the case onto a full Phase 2 investigation by the Competition Commission.
“Further it did not seem to be a relevant consideration that the costs which this sort of investigation imposes on local media enterprises may have to be drawn from resources, the lack of which provided the impetus for consolidation in the first place.
“Ofcom’s Local Media Assessment (LMA) should be given greater weight than at present in the competition authorities’ decision about whether to refer a specific local media transaction onto a full Phase 2 investigation.”
Chairman of the Committee Lord Inglewood said: “Our proposal is for a framework of two key elements. The first, which is new, is the undertaking of a plurality review on a predictable periodic basis, which should set the context for the second: a modification of the existing arrangements for a review of specific transactions which occur in the interval between one periodic review and the next. We would expect the latter to happen infrequently.”
Other recommendations in the report include that:
* the BBC should be included in any assessment of media plurality, but it should not be subject to any control measures imposed from outwith its own regulatory framework as a result of that assessment;
* media plurality assessments should not be limited by the media channel through which content is primarily delivered: print, broadcast and content delivered over the internet may all be relevant as could be the influence of digital intermediaries on the consumption of this content;
* media plurality policy should be flexible enough to take into account both the wholesale (third party) and retail (in-house) provision of news and current affairs content;
* the Government and the BBC, in negotiating Charter Renewal, should consider whether the BBC might be given a more explicit responsibility – with respect to its online offer for news and current affairs content – to stimulate consumption of diverse viewpoints from different external sources; and that
* the BBC Charter Review process should make clear what licence fee funding is for.
