Cable Seeks Less Control of U.K. Media by Murdoch, Moguls
U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable said he wants companies such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWSA) to control a smaller share of the country’s media as the government and regulators overhaul practices following the phone-hacking scandal.
“Having media moguls dominating is deeply unhelpful,” Cable said today on BBC Television. “What I want to see is a set of clear unambiguous rules about market shares so that we don’t have a dominant player.”
Cable said he wants statutory limits on how many media outlets a single organization can own and a “presumption against cross-ownership in press and television.”
The shape of future rules will depend on an inquiry led by Lord Justice Brian Leveson into possible illegal activities at U.K. newspapers and police investigations into them, Cable said. The minister lost his power to rule on News Corp.’s now- abandoned bid for British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc (BSY) last year when undercover reporters recorded him saying that he had “declared war” on Murdoch.
Cable said today that lawmakers from his Liberal Democrat party had been subject to “heavy lobbying” from News Corp. executives when he was in charge of reviewing the BSkyB bid. Executives from Murdoch’s company threatened to use their newspapers to undermine the Liberal Democrats if the party didn’t give its backing to the bid, The Observer newspaper reported, citing a senior party official.
James Murdoch
Police officials, politicians, journalists and newspaper publishers will be called to give evidence under oath in the Leveson inquiry, announced earlier this month by Prime Minister David Cameron.
Cameron said July 22 that News Corp. Deputy Chief Operating Officer James Murdoch still has questions to answer over the hacking of phones by reporters at the News of the World newspaper.
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-- Editors: Jerrold Colten, Ana Monteiro
To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
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