Legal Protection of Media Pluralism at National Level. An Examination of the United Kingdom and Ireland

• Date: 01 January 2010

Legal Protection of Media Pluralism at

National Level. An Examination of the

United Kingdom and Ireland

EWA KOM OREK *

Introduction

The current political line in the European Union is that the combination of

national legislation, EU competition law and EU legislative instruments

provides a perfect and balanced solution for the protection of both structural

and internal media pluralism in Europe.1As a result, the Audiovisual Media

Services (“AVMS”) Directive2contains very few specific provisions aimed

at counteracting growing media concentration in Europe. Vital concerns of

pluralism and diversity are primarily left to the Member States.

Meanwhile, media laws and, consequently, the levels of protection for

media pluralism vary hugely within the 27 EU Member States. A staggering

21 Member States do not have any special rules for media mergers.3Six4

have no specific media concentration rules whatsoever, and three5have very

limited media concentration rules. Ten Member States6have no cross-media

ownership rules,7ie rules prohibiting, for instance, owners of national

television stations from holding interests in national newspapers. Crucially,

in many Member States the rules, even if they are in place, are not being

observed (Italy is a prime example).

* LLB (Warsaw), LLM (A msterdam), PhD (Trinity College Dublin). I would like to

thank Dr Eoin O’Dell for his valuable comments. Any error remains my own.

1European Comm ission, ”Media Pluralism – what should be t he European Union’s

role?”, (I ssues Paper for the Liverpool Audio visual Conference) July 2005, http://

ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/ docs/reg/modernisation/issue_papers/ispa_mediaplur_ en.pdf,

accessed 14 October 2009; European Commission, European Commission, “Services

of general interest (White Paper)”, COM(2004) 374 final.

2Directive 2007/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December

2007 amending Council Dir ective 89/552/EEC on the coordination of certain

provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States

concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities (OJ L332/2007).

3Media specific compe tition law applies only in the United Kingdom, Irel and,

Germany and Austria.

4Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal.

5Sweden, Latvia, Luxembourg.

6Spain, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland,

Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg.

7Kevin, “Media ownership and pluralis m: regulatory trends and challenges in the

European Union Member States”, presentation at the 20th EPRA meeting, Istanbul

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Hallin and Mancini, in their seminal book Comparing Media Systems,

identify three basic models of media regulation in Europe: (i) the

Mediterranean or “Polarized Pluralist” model present in countries like France,

Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain; (ii) the Northern/Central European or

“Democratic Corporatist” model in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland,

Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden; and (iii) the North Atlantic or

“Liberal” model in the United Kingdom and Ireland.8Hallin and Mancini’s

book left post-Communist countries out of consideration, but there have

been voices suggesting that these countries’ media systems are closest to the

polarized-pluralist (“Mediterranean”) model.9

This article concentrates on media concentration laws in two EU

Member States belonging to the North Atlantic “Liberal” model: the United

Kingdom as one of the biggest, most influential, but also one of the most

liberal media markets in Europe; and Ireland as an example of a smaller

Member State heavily influenced by its bigger neighbour. Examples of the

application of the rules in practice are also provided with some comments

and conclusions regarding sufficiency of national legislation to prevent

growing cross-border media concentration.

Structure of the television markets

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has one of the largest media markets in Europe and

its television sector has undergone a significant change over the last 15 years.

However, what remained unchanged and unique about British television

broadcasting is that all terrestrial broadcasters have some form of public

service obligations.10 Initially there were only three terrestrial channels:

BBC1 and BBC2 provided by the BBC and Channel 3 provided by the

companies that comprised the ITV network. The BBC, with an audience

share of almost 38%, now has 2 national channels and a range of free

digital channels (a youth channel BBC3, BBC 4, BBC News 24, BBC

2004, http://www.epra.org/content/english/press/pa pers/Media%20ownership%20

and%20pluralism%20Kevin%20Istanbul%20final.ppt, accessed 14 October 2008.

8Hallin and Mancini, Comparing Media Systems, (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

9See for instance Conference on Comparing Media Systems. West meets East, 23–25

April 2007, Wroclaw, Poland, http://www.zksid.politologia.uni.wro c.pl/index.php?

lang=en, accessed 14 October 2009; Jakubowicz, “PSB in Post-communist Countries:

Finding the Rig ht Place on the Map”, the 2007 Spry Memorial Lecture, Montr eal,

27 November 2007, available at: http://www.com.umontreal.ca/Spry/spry-kj-lec.htm,

accessed 14 October 2009.

10 Open Society Institute, “Television across Europe: regulation, policy and i nde -

pendence”, (Monitoring Report) 11 October 2005, http://www.soros.org/initiatives/

media/articles_ publications/publications/Eu rotv_20051011, accessed 14 October

2009, p 1605.

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