Abolition of Local Cross Media Ownership Rules

Peers agreed the abolition of local cross-media ownership rules with approval of the Media Ownership (Radio and Cross-media) Order 2011 last week.

The debate in the House of Lords commenced with tributes paid to the trust enjoyed by the local  press, due to its ability to scrutinise and hold local institutions and officials to account, acting as an essential part of a healthy democracy.

The Media Ownership (Radio and Cross-media) Order 2011 had received the House of Commons’ approval in March. CMS Minister Ed Vaizey introduced it into Committee by speaking of the Newspaper Society’s submissions for abolition of the rules which restricted cross-media ownership, beyond the partial relaxation initially suggested by Ofcom’s review, resulting in the Government’s action and Order. The public interest test remains. Local mergers will still be subject to competition law and public interest interventions.

The draft Order is still available here.   

In the Second Reading debate of the Localism Bill, Lord Black of Brentwood had also emphasised the importance of local newspapers' scrutiny role to the localism agenda. He highlighted the opportunity given by the Bill to ensure that the actual local government meetings where decisions are discussed were open to  press and public.

"As this House has discussed many times, local newspapers have a vital role in scrutinising local authorities and the way in which local taxpayers' money is spent. If localism is to mean anything, and this legislation is to work in practice, it must mean that local people have access to information about how decisions are taken. How else can they take advantage of the exciting new powers this Bill offers them….?

"In recent years this has become more difficult with the move to cabinet-run councils taking secret decisions behind closed doors. The provisions in the Bill on the establishment of oversight and scrutiny committees to hold the local authority executive to account can help roll back that tide and allow such committees to become a valuable addition to public access rights. However, this is not a substitute for a free and vigorous local press, which must be allowed rights to attend the actual local government meetings at which decisions are discussed.

"That is why I am concerned that the Bill does not more clearly limit the fairly widespread ability of local authorities to exclude the local media from access to meetings. This can be remedied if the Secretary of State is prepared to issue robust regulations under paragraph 11 of Schedule 2 to the Bill and the new Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000, which are predicated upon openness. I am sure that this is the instinct of the Secretary of State-it certainly fits in with the spirit of this Bill-and I hope that at some point during the passage of the legislation the Minister will be able to reassure us on those points."

The NS has raised this issue with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and has meetings coming up with him in the next few weeks.