UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Wednesday unveiled plans to broaden the scope of UK media merger laws, updating them “to reflect the digital age of modern news consumption habits and better protect media freedom and diversity.” The current regulation covers only TV, radio and printed publications.
The changes would allow for “greater public interest scrutiny” of deals that include the purchase of UK online news publications and newspapers “which may adversely affect accurate reporting, freedom of expression and media pluralism.”
Currently, the media merger regime set out in the Enterprise Act 2002 allows the Culture Secretary to “intervene in mergers and acquisitions of broadcasters (defined as services requiring a license under the Broadcasting Act 1996), as well as UK daily and Sunday print newspapers. , and local periodicals, which circulate mainly in Great Britain Labor Party government marked.
Launching a consultation to seek views on expanding the scope of the regulation, Nandy said: “Since the media fusion regime came into force more than 20 years ago, our laws have not kept pace with technology and evolving news consumption habits. As people increasingly get their news online, we need a regime that is future-proof. That’s why I’m proposing further reforms to protect access to accurate, high-quality news from a variety of sources, to ensure media freedom continues.”
She said the update would also cover deals involving companies that own online news publications that are “linked to the UK, such as online news providers, as HuffPost or The Independentor the online arms of print publications.”
The proposed changes would not apply retroactively to historical transactions.
