Ofcom has come out in favour of ‘plurality checks’ of the UK news media every four or five years. And it believes the reviews should include the BBC and online news. So far, so interesting. But Ofcom doesn’t regulate the BBC – it would like to as this policy suggestion indicates – and certainly someone […]
The rise of international markets and the global reach of the Internet and broadband connectivity are forcing US content creators and distributors to confront several difficult challenges. The BBC World Service radio broadcasts have a knack for making almost any issue appear to take on great gravitas, no matter how arcane. I recently caught […]
Is it a Mad World? It seems so. Four examples from the last couple of weeks: One. BT has joined in the mad house of Premier League rights. Fair enough, this means BSkyB has to pay more than otherwise and it satisfies the politician’s need for Sky not to have a monopoly. I don’t want […]
Jeremy Hunt, the beleaguered Culture Secretary, is hanging on after his day-long appearance before Leveson. There have been many descriptions of Hunt, none flattering, as he seeks to dig himself out of the many holes he so thoughtlessly jumped into. The most accurate one is that he is PM David Cameron’s human shield; given Cameron […]
I can truthfully testify that trying to listen to the Leveson Inquiry while doing anything else is a recipe for doing both things poorly. The testimony and, more disappointingly, the questioning is soporific in the extreme. Mr Jay QC, counsel for the Inquiry, has mostly been given the benefit of the doubt – surely he’s […]
Facebook has named the range for its impending IPO with a share price of $28-35. That’s an unusually wide range and targets a value between $85-95 billion; in other words a little caution has set in since talk of $100 billion+ and the chill is partly down to the surprise drop in profit YonY for […]
While the Leveson Inquiry singularly failed to hold Rupert Murdoch to account – why are these government inquiries so useless at cutting to the truth? – its fall out continues to poison the water in many wells. The latest individual to be dragged into the stinky stuff is Jeremy Hunt, the DCMS Secretary of State […]
When you don’t want the limelight, it seems like you just can’t shake it off. As more UK executives are arrested for bribing law enforcement and military officials, News Corps in America has had to suddenly, and arbitrarily, suspend the voting power of its foreign shareholders – holders that account for 36% of the stock. […]