THE GOVERNMENT is preparing legislation giving the Department of Communications the power to decide on all mergers and acquisitions covering broadcast, print and online media.
Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte announced the move in Sligo on Saturday at an event to mark the 175th anniversary of the Sligo Champion newspaper. He said the changes were needed to reflect the changing media landscape and he focused on the increased convergence between the various forms of media.
Media mergers are dealt with under the Competition Act 2002 and must be notified to the Competition Authority. The Minister does have the power to overrule the authority’s rulings if he believes they fall outside set criteria. Some media mergers also require clearance from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland as well as from the Competition Authority and the Minister for Communications.
Mr Rabbitte said the convergence of print, broadcast and online media both in terms of content and ownership had made “a very strong argument for a single arm of Government to be responsible for supervision” across all platforms.
Citing work carried out by the Media Mergers Advisory Group, which was established to assist with a 2008 review of media legislation, Mr Rabbitte said the Government had now approved proposals for legislative change being finalised by the Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Enterprise, Richard Bruton.
The review in 2008 was aimed at examining the criteria and arrangements for assessing how a proposed merger might affect the diversity of views and the concentration of ownership within and across media businesses.
As recommended by that review, the new legislation will put in place a statutory definition of media plurality, referring both to ownership and content, and will provide for an ongoing collection and the periodic publication of information, and the use of concrete indicators in relation to how media plurality is shaped in the Republic.
“Because cross-media mergers are being dealt with for the first time, and because broadcasting mergers are already dealt with by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland under my department, I and my department will become responsible for media mergers as a whole,” the Minister said.
Mr Rabbitte said the ownership of media organisations, and the control of media mergers and acquisitions, had always been regarded as raising issues above and beyond normal competitive concerns. “This is because plurality in the media encompasses the interlinked concepts of diversity of ownership and control, on the one hand, and diversity of content, on the other,” he said.
He gave an initial reaction to calls from the National Newspapers of Ireland for a full-blown “minister for the media”, to act as an “interlocutor in government”, so that the concerns of the newspaper industry could be factored into policymaking and into any legislation affecting the media.
Although the question had not received any serious consideration by Government, he would be cautious about any such moves.