Memorandum by the Newspaper Society (NS)
SECOND CALL FOR EVIDENCE
(The Newspaper Society's second submission deals
with the questions on the media ownership regime relevant to regional
media companies. It should be read in conjunction with its earlier
submission.)
1. The regional newspaper industry has an
unswerving commitment to local journalism—investigation
and reporting—and to the delivery of local news and information,
the stimulation of opinion, discussion, action and campaigns,
and the provision of entertainment and advertising services for
their local communities. Companies have now developed multi-media
portfolios, enabling hyper-local news services and instant interaction
with individual users, but they adhere to the same local objectives
and maintain their unique investment in local journalism.
2. The regional press is of course not only
free of specific state press control over its content, but is
also usually independent of state subsidy and public funding.
The existence of an independent press is therefore reliant upon
its continued commercial success, and in particular advertising
revenues. These in turn depend upon its ability to attract, engage
and retain audience for its websites, online services, broadcasting
outlets, paid for newspapers and free newspapers.
3. The regional press faces fierce competition
for audience and for advertising from an ever growing host of
other media and advertising mediums, new and traditional. Barriers
to entry, whether for publishing newspapers or establishing websites,
have never been lower, whilst competition for advertising, particularly
with the growth of the internet, intensifies.
4. Industry consolidation has enabled economies
and efficiencies in production and administrative processes which
has enabled the regional press not just to survive competitive
challenges, but to innovate and evolve, whilst maintaining its
heavy investment in local journalism. The industry has had no
objection to overseas newspaper owners, past or present, who have
contributed to the UK's tradition of an independent local press.
5. Convergence and change in the communications
sector necessitates reform of the media ownership regime. The
media ownership rules governing local and regional newspapers'
ownership and cross-media ownership impose an unnecessarily heavy
regulatory burden upon the industry, permitting intervention into
the most local of transfers.
6. Such powers of intervention are unjustified.
Historically, Ministerial and statutory authorities' intervention
on editorial public interest grounds in respect of regional and
local newspaper transfers have been extremely rare and there are
no recent examples.
7. The current regime also allows wide scope
for the authorities' intervention on competition grounds. However,
this too requires updating in content and application to accommodate
the changed communications world. Companies are concerned that
the authorities are operating with reference to outdated and inconsistent
definitions of the product and market, resulting in far too narrow
definitions of the relevant markets, with adverse regulatory consequences.
They fail to acknowledge the commercial realities faced by regional
media operations. The local newspaper does not only compete with
other local newspapers, paid for or free, daily or weekly, but
has to contend with a hugh range of other media for audience and
advertising: the Internet, ever expanding variety of online advertising
and marketing services, directories, direct mail, advertising
only publications, magazines, national newspapers, national, regional
and local radio and television and their associated activities,
particularly their ever developing online publications and variety
of online services (BBC and commercial broadcasters). Publishers
are also worried by the way in which the geographic market is
defined can vary.
8. The industry supports further liberalisation
of media ownership controls and in particular the rule governing
transfers and mergers of local and regional newspapers and cross-media
ownership of local and regional newspapers and broadcasting outlets.
The justification for special controls over such media transactions
cannot be sustained. They should be treated in the same way as
any other industry and subject only to general competition law.
6 February 2008
|
