BROADCASTING: With the deregulation of British broadcasting, will responsible and entertaining television programming go down the tube? asks Hugh Linehan
On the face of it, the future of Channel 5 may not appear particularly important to Irish TV viewers. At the moment, the UK's youngest and smallest terrestrial channel is only available to a small minority of homes here, while its mix of cheap TV movies, soap and sport doesn't add much to what's already on offer from Network 2, TV3 and Sky One.
But this week's British white paper on communications will deeply affect the sort of television we receive on this side of the Irish Sea, not least because it finally allows Rupert Murdoch the toehold in terrestrial TV broadcasting which he has craved for years. Up until now, Murdoch's dominant position in the UK newspaper market precluded him from purchasing a terrestrial broadcaster, but the rules have been relaxed to permit him to take over Channel 5, if he so wishes (he will probably face stiff resistance from the channel's owners, RTL). The larger prize of ITV is still denied to him, but anyone familiar with the recent history of British broadcasting will know that Murdoch is more than capable of leveraging his control of sports rights and newspaper ownership, along with his access to US-produced drama and movies through his Fox companies, to establish Channel 5 as a powerful force in the British, and by extension Irish, media landscape.
Some commentators have wondered what the quid pro quo might have been for this unexpected generosity from Tony Blair's government, and noted that Murdoch was in London last week. The more conspiratorially- minded speculate that News International titles such as the Sun and the Times may soften their opposition to Britain joining the euro. More likely, though, is that a deal has been struck on easier access for rival broadcasters, including the BBC, to Sky's digital satellite platform. The British government's plans for digital broadcasting are in disarray, with last week's collapse of ITV Digital, and the crisis at cable giant NTL, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the US this week.
Those problems have close parallels in Ireland. NTL's extravagant promises of a rapid roll-out of Internet, phone and digital TV services here have been drastically scaled back, while plans for an Irish terrestrial digital TV transmission system are stalled and show no signs of progressing. Meanwhile, Sky Digital continues to gain market share, making it the most significant digital player by far in the Irish market. With RTÉ and TV3 now available on the Sky package, we are moving rapidly towards a situation in which Sky achieves the same unassailable position in digital transmission as it did 10 years ago in the satellite market.
Murdoch isn't the only one who stands to benefit from the proposed deregulation, which also has ramifications for radio and telecoms. "Every investment banker is on the phone now, trying to sell British media companies," one executive was quoted as saying this week. The two main ITV companies, Carlton and Granada, will be permitted to merge, and global media giants will for the first time be allowed to bid for ITV.
It's quite likely, therefore, that Granada's stake in TV3 will be owned within a couple of years by Microsoft, Disney or AOL Time Warner. Scottish Radio Holdings, the owner of Today FM, is also likely to be up for grabs, leaving this country's independent national radio and television stations both in the hands of vertically integrated media conglomerates. Going by past experience, it's unlikely that Irish regulatory authorities will have very much of consequence to say about any of this.
It's unfortunate that many media organs have their own vested interests in this field, and it doesn't help that most coverage of these issues is restricted to the business sections of newspapers, where deregulation is often seen by definition as a good thing. In the case of broadcasting, though, the empirical evidence shows otherwise. The mix of public and private ownership, regulatory protection of public service values and safeguards against media monopolies has served UK broadcasting well over the years. A relatively strict regulatory environment has actually delivered more diversity and more real choice.
The depressing vista now unfolding is of a digital transmission network controlled by Murdoch, with content provided by Sony, Vivendi/Universal, et al, and a resource-starved public service slowly withering on the vine. Many Irish viewers have benefited from the high quality of British television, and many of the better features of Irish broadcasting have been based on British models. In the UK, at least, the BBC has been adequately resourced, with licence fee increases keeping pace with inflation. But organisational inertia at RTÉ, combined with governmental hostility, mean that in Ireland, it's hard to see how our demoralised and diminished national broadcaster can hope to redefine itself in a meaningful way in this new environment.