And he\’s quite right too:
He says 20% of the market is fine; more than 30% is worrying.
Given that the BBC has, by some measures, 45% of the TV and radio news market then obviously, we all agree, that the BBC should be broken up.
I, for one, look forward to two interesting future events:
1) The inclusion of this policy in the Labour Party Manifesto and
2) The BBC\’s reaction to it….
I have seen figures for the Beeb’s dominance of broadcast news as high at 70%. Clearly this market abuse needs to be stopped
Ah, Timmy, you misinterpreted what Ed said. An excusable mistake. When he says that News Corp’s domination of 34% of the newspaper market is too much, he means specifically News Corp, his class enemy. ‘20% of the market is fine, 30% is worrying, for a company which have criticised us on many occasions’
for someone who has done a fair bit of work in anti-trust cases it has to be said that
a) the market definition used is completely arbitrary
b) the market share limit used is completely arbitrary
Only applies to evil capitalists, sorry, not saintly socialist state organs.
I think Miliband might say that whereas the BBC is obliged by regulation to “do all it can to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all relevant output”, News Corp is constrained only by the law of libel.
One small point PaulB…
The regulation that binds the BBC does no such thing – they are a total bunch of money grabbing statist scumbags…
If you believe in the powers of regulation why is the Levenson enquiry happening… Shurely the PCC could deal with it? Ah thought not…
The PCC is a self-regulatory body. I don’t believe in the powers of self regulation.
No doubt there’s a case to be made against the BBC. But stop exaggerating. The BBC does not, in any way, have the same relationship to the government of the UK that, say, CCTV has to the government of China.
Emil – “for someone who has done a fair bit of work in anti-trust cases it has to be said that?a) the market definition used is completely arbitrary?b) the market share limit used is completely arbitrary”
I don’t understand your point. Declaring people fit to drive at 17 is just as arbitrary. Some people could probably be relied upon to drive safely from age 14, while others probably can’t even when they’re 40. But we have to draw a line somewhere.
georgesdelatour
The point is that there is a whole bunch of precedents / case law as well as econmic studies / theories out there about how to define markets and market dominance (which includes defining when that is a negative thing). You can of course try to argue against that (I do at times) but pretending that it doesn’t exist and setting your own rules from case to case is nonsense.
Those of you complaining about the socialist and statist BBC may like to know of the view of a well-respected social commentator that the BBC is a right wing organisation:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2012/06/13/for-all-its-faults-thank-goodness-for-the-bbc/
“the BBC has, by some measures, 45% of the TV and radio news market”
Which measures would those be? Could you provide the evidence for this assertion?