Capitalism tends to create monopolies. Over time, we’ve all come to appreciate that monopolies are generally a bad thing (perhaps with the exception of a few areas such as utilities and railways) and should be curbed.
They accumulate too much power in one organisation’s hands, and, because of lack of competition, tend to be able to raise prices to any level they like as well as reducing product choice.
And the media is an industry where that’s particularly egregious because it tends to undermine the democratic process. Here’s a case in point.
According to Ofcom, the UK’s media and telecoms regulator, Rupert Murdoch’s satellite TV operation BSkyB has now reached a point where the regulator has published “a further consultation as part of its pay TV market investigation” as a result of its “concerns about the restricted distribution of premium sports and movies channels operated by BSkyB”.
Specifically, Ofcom is concerned about the “limited distribution of football and movies”, which has seen national games such as cricket and football disappearing from terrestrial TV, and instead commanding premium prices on top of already-expensive pay TV bundles. The regulator said that it “considers that Sky has market power in the wholesale supply of channels containing this attractive content, and that it is acting on an incentive to limit the distribution of these channels to rival TV platforms”. It won’t let its rivals have access to that content for a reasonable price.
Ofcom issued that statement on 26 June 2009. On 6 July, in a little-reported speech – note that Murdoch-owned newspapers dominate the UK market – the UK’s opposition leader David Cameron, who looks set to become UK Prime Minister in 2010, has promised that Ofcom “as we know it will cease to exist….Its remit will be restricted to its narrow technical and enforcement roles. It will no longer play a role in making policy.
“And the policy-making functions it has today will be transferred back fully to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.”
Only one organisation will benefit from Cameron’s new policy: BSkyB.
In other words, the opposition leader, who is now being politically backed by Murdoch in his many media outlets, is already paying back the political capital that Murdoch has invested in him. That’s despite the Tories’ much-trumpeted belief in competition – which clearly does not apply when there’s Murdoch brown-nosing to be done.
The result will be even greater concentration of media power in the hands of one organisation, fewer outlets for not just movies and sport but news too, and – doubt it not – further politically motivated attacks on the UK media’s one big success story, the BBC.
And, incidentally, if you doubt that the BBC, despite its faults, is a success story, just ask any informed observer outside the UK if they would like to see a BBC-style setup replicated in their own country: none will demur.
If the product in question were rivets, perhaps this would be of little moment. But the product is information that’s required by the electorate.
I leave the logical conclusion to your conscience.
There’s more on this in the Guardian here.
IMHO, sadly, Mr Murdoch’s empire is the single greatest threat to democracy in the UK.
Fortunately, with the imminent death of newspapers maybe his power-base is lessening; maybe that’s why so many people in his organisation are so keen to tap peoples’ phones… 3,000+ people – how many secrets people wouldn’t want the world to know is a world of power.
On the subject of the phone taps – have you noticed how careful they are to say ‘messages’ – not voice mail or text – I suspect Newscorp had both but don’t want to ‘fess up to it.
Equally, the firewall of PI’s should be breached – is it believable that thousands of phones were tapped manually and without the mobile operators knowledge?
This was the smallest surprise in history. Anyone remotely alive during the Miners Strike knew the depths NI would sink to, in collusion with the police and Thatcher to pervert the course of history.
http://littlerichardjohn.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/gotcha/