Diversity delusion - Village Magazine

52 December-January 2014

MEDIA OWNERSHIP

HE Bell Telephone Company was

born out of the great communi-

cations revolution at the end of

the 19th century, and dominated the

American business landscape for a cen-

tury, until it was broken up by the US

Justice Department in 1984. In its place,

the ‘Baby Bells’ were left to compete both

with each other and with new upstarts

entering the no longer monopolistic

marketplace.

The resulting competition has been

credited with multiple innovations in

communications technology including

mobile wireless service, ﬁbre optics,

microprocessors, internet protocol,

Wi-Fi, landline broadband, and wireless

broadband.

It’s diﬃcult to imagine the same

break-up happening today. Ronald

Reagan may be venerated by US neo-con-

servatives, but they show little inclination

to prevent monopolies forming, still less

to break them up.

The prospect of any White House

administration (either Democratic or

Republican) trust-busting a modern

communications giants such as Google

or Apple is slight. Any justice department

plan to do so would quickly be vetoed by

the West Wing.

The same reluctance may be behind the

slow-motion roll-out of proposed guide-

lines on media mergers in Ireland, with

the political will blunted even more by the

target, the media outlets which can make

or break political careers by the tone of

their coverage. An advisory panel was

ﬁrst set up to look at media mergers in

March 2008.

The Competition and Consumer

Protection Act puts the recommenda-

tions of the group into law, and moves

responsibility for media mergers away

from Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

to Communications and Natural

Resources.

Submissions on the draft guidelines

under the act are invited before 22

January 2015, but in truth, the entire

eﬀort is a soaking squib.

In a speech in early 2012, the then

minister Pat Rabbitte spoke about

media diversity at a conference organ-

ised by Nessa Childers MEP. But unlike

recently retired Press Ombudsman Prof

John Horgan, who last May identiﬁed

the elephant in the room in any discus-

sion on media in Ireland as ownership

concentration, Rabbitte identiﬁed a dif-

ferent species of elephant: the internet,

one conveniently for him whose regula-

tion he could do little about.

Rabbitte’s speech, which was long on

the business diﬃculties facing media

owners both from recessionary mar-

kets and new online competitors, said

little beyond broad statements of prin-

ciples about how media diversity might

be ensured, save that it required both

diversity of ownership and diversity of

content.

The draft guidelines, prepared by a

new minister, follow much the same

tone. “Signiﬁcant interest” in a media

company is deﬁned (“generally” as more

than 20% of voting strength, although it

“may” be signiﬁcantly less, at 10-20%).

The Minister can turn down a proposed

merger if it is “contrary to the public

interest in protecting plurality of the

media”. However, importantly, there

are no iron-clad deﬁnitions of what con-

stitutes “signiﬁcant interest” across

multiple media organisations. And

of course – conveniently for Denis O’

Brien – the Fine Gael-led government

didn’t even consider making the legisla-

tion retrospective so ensuring diversity

under the status quo would be assessed.

It’s very deﬁnitely about ‘mergers’ not

‘ownership’.

History suggests this will lead to

a benign regime of non-regulation.

Ownership regulations laid down when

local radio was legalised and licensed

were progressively stripped away over

the years as media groups accumulated

properties.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland

decided in 2012 that there was no rea-

son to investigate whether Denis O’Brien,

owner of several radio stations and major

shareholder in Independent News and

Media, had excessive inﬂuence. There

is little evidence of any political will to

stop the same process continuing in and

across Irish media today. When the ﬁnal

decision is made by a minister, whether

Alex White or his successors and not by a

politically independent statutory regula-

tor (though the Broadcasting Authority of

Ireland advises), the chances of upheaval

are even less likely.

At the heart of this non-regulation is a

singular failure of will.

Rabbitte noted in 2012 that with diver-

sity of content essential to ensuring that

the full spectrum of views, interests and

concerns prevalent in Irish society is rep-

resented fully in media. “This plurality is

the key metric – and the one that should

concern us most”, Rabbitte intoned. But

by not deﬁning the “key metric” in the

legislation, the government has ensured

that any concerns over future merger

proposal can be fudged.

In this respect, the internet is a handy

scapegoat. Don’t be surprised to hear

mergers defended with arguments to

the eﬀect that a newspaper/broadcast-

ing consolidation cannot pose a threat to

diversity of content, because anyone with

a smartphone can set up a blog. •

Submissions on

draft guidelines on

media mergers now

invited. By Gerard

Cunningham

Diversity

delusion

There are

no iron-clad

deﬁnitions

of what

constitutes

“signiﬁcant

interest”

across

multiple media

organisations.

And of course

– conveniently

for Denis

O’Brien – the

Fine Gael led

government

didn’t even

consider

making the

legislation

retrospective

“

the unacceptable face of

concentrated ownership