Shadow culture minister Jeremy Hunt has promised a revolution in local media by sweeping away competition rules to give publishers like Trinity Mirror cross-media monopolies in the territories they cover.
In an interview for The Independent media section he says: “What we are proposing is a revolution in local media that would get rid of the cross media ownership rules at a local level and that would mean that if you are [Trinity Mirror chief executive] Sly Bailey you can say that I own the Liverpool Echo, I have got Liverpool.com, I’ve got Liverpool FM and I’ve got Liverpool TV, so if you want to reach people in Liverpool there’s no better way. I think that would be a very compelling offer for advertisers.”
The Labour Government has said it proposes spending the £130m of BBC licence fee currently allocated towards digital switch-over on subsidising independent broadcast news consortia.
But the Tories have said they favour a market-led solution and would scrap the consortia plan (the first three pilot broadcast news consortian licences are due to be awarded in May).
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They have said they would rather use the BBC’s £130m to subsidise more “super-fast broadband”.
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