David Cameron slams Ofcom's power

David Cameron has said Ofcom has an unreasonable amount of power to dictate policy in the media industries.

Speaking in an interview with BBC Breakfast, the political leader said that quango organisations such as Ofcom have now become out of control.

"There are some quangos that have a technical function, inspecting nuclear installations, or they have a transparency function, like the Office for National Statistics," he said.

"But, in too many cases, these organisations have got bigger and bigger - they spend about £64bn a year, they start having their own communications departments, their own press officers; they start making policy rather than just delivering policy - and their bosses are paid vast amounts of money.

"There's a lot of money to be saved but, more to the point, we need to make these more democratically accountable so people don't feel the rage and anger against the machine they have no control over."

Cameron has therefore proposed that Ofcom should either be streamlined a "huge amount" - most notably in its power for setting policy - or replaced entirely.

"Give Ofcom, or give a new body, the technical function of handing out the licences and regulating lightly the content that is on the screens," he said.

"But it shouldn't be making policy, it shouldn't have its own communications department."

The Tory leader is expected to outline his ideas for Ofcom and other quangos in a speech to be delivered this lunchtime at think tank Reform.

Meanwhile, the media regulator has recently outlined plans to disrupt the "market power" of Sky by actively regulating wholesale access to premium content.