News Corp opposes UK media plurality rules shift

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has opposed calls for more stringent rules around media ownership in the UK and called for the BBC's control over broadcasting and online to be reviewed, it has emerged.

In its submission to media regulator Ofcom's review of media plurality, the firm said that it would be wrong to "set absolute limits on news market share".

"Markets are working and the trend continues to be towards greater plurality rather than less plurality," said News Corp, which owns The Sun and The Times, and is the largest shareholder in Sky, with a 39.1% stake.

The Murdoch-led media giant told Ofcom that the licence-fee funded BBC is "the largest provider, by any measure, of news on TV, over the radio and over the internet".

It said the regulator could not avoid that fact when considering potential new rules over how much of UK media consumption could be controlled by a single operator.

"It is therefore difficult to imagine that any cross-media market share test that would be adopted would not already be triggered by the BBC's news provision," News Corp added.

Ofcom has received 45,000 submissions to its media plurality review, which was launched following News Corp's botched bid to acquire the 60.9% of Sky that it does not already own.

Various newspapers and groups opposed the takeover bid, mostly in regards to concerns that it would give Murdoch too much control over media sources in the UK.

News Corp ultimately withdrew the bid this summer following cross-party political pressure in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at its News of the World tabloid.

But Ofcom has said that the current framework around media plurality should be reformed, as it only allows an investigation to be launched in response to a merger situation, such as the Sky bid.

This means there is no way to tackle companies that have become dominant through organic growth, and Ofcom is therefore considering measures for setting limits on media ownership while still maintaining the quality of media sources.

However, News Corp said that it was not fair to introduce regulation "as if the BBC did not exist". It also highlighted the growing number of alternative news channels, such as Al-Jazeera, as well as online services like Yahoo and MSN.

Murdoch's firm said that readers typically consume an average of 3.5 "individual sources" online, providing vibrant competition for TV networks and newspapers.

In a separate submission to Ofcom's plurality review, Sky also urged the regulator to include the BBC in any assessment of media ownership in the UK.

"There is no logical basis for not including the BBC in any assessment of media plurality on the same basis as any other news and current affairs provider," said the pay-TV giant.

According to research conducted by Ofcom, if News Corp had completed its takeover of Sky, the enlarged group would have had a 22% "share of reference" for UK news consumption across newspapers and television. But that would still lag far behind the BBC's 37%.

BBC News output is consumed by 81% of Britons every week, said Ofcom last year, whereas a merged Sky and News Corp operation would have reached only 51% of the population.