European Media Ownership: Threats on the landscape

Every year the process of media concentration gathers pace and with it comes increasing concern for the impact on media quality, pluralism and diversity. Public concern about corporate and political dominance over media and information services is greater than ever. Confidence among readers, viewers, listeners and users of information is low and there is an increasing perception that journalism is failing to carry out its watchdog role in society because of the vested interests that drive the media business. Not surprisingly, politicians are worried, too. A group of European Parliament members expressed their exasperation to the European Commission in an oral question on 29 August 2002 noting that: ‘In 1997, 5 years after the Green Paper on pluralism and media concentration in the Internal Market, the Commission decided to postpone indefinitely any proposal for a directive to harmonise national laws on media ownership. This, despite a series of European Parliament resolutions calling for such a directive.’ The Parliament has noted significant developments in the media field since the Commission, bowing to ferocious lobbying by European media organisations, decided to drop plans to regulate ownership. Not least have been developments in Italy where Prime Minister and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi has a stranglehold on both the private and public broadcasting media, creating a conflict of interest and a level of undue influence on media unheard of in any modern democracy. The enclosed survey on European Media Ownership, which has been supported by the European Commission as part of the EFJ project on ‘Globalisation and the Media: The European Agenda’, is an overdue but timely study that underlines the urgent need to respond to public concern about media concentration. The media concentration crisis has paralysed policy makers but as this paper indicates, it is time to stimulate fresh debate and prepare concrete actions to confront the challenge of corporate power in mass media. We hope this report will help to motivate people to work through their media unions, political parties and campaign groups to build support for policies to make the media more democratic and accountable. Above all, there is a pressing need to challenge the present political complacency over commercial and corporate exploitation of journalism that is eroding standards and undermining the importance of free media press to democratic society. All around Europe governments seem to be in retreat from long-held commitments to ensure that strong regulation plays its role in protecting and developing media. For years both the European Commission and the Council of Europe argued strongly that media products are not like other economic products - they have a social, cultural and democratic value that makes them special within market conditions. The market itself cannot protect pluralism and diversity. The public need to be properly informed which means that information services must be regulated outside the market imperatives of ratings, profits and commercial objectives. However, the political will to protect quality and pluralism in media services through effective regulation is weaker than ever. This study provides compelling evidence that this must change. If Europe’s media is to have a future even remotely connected to its traditional role as a watchdog over the exercise of political and corporate power and as a provider of quality information in the public interest, then consumers, citizens and people who work in the industry will have to work and campaign together. The EFJ will be a willing partner in the creation of a new and effective coalition for change. In publishing this report we thank, in particular, Granville Williams,, the author, from the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom in the United Kingdom for his diligent research and excellent analysis