media ownership in the UK

Please note that you should treat all this information with caution as the media market is changing very rapidly.
Circulation figures shown on this page are Dec 1999 figures (source ABC). Readership figures for any given newspaper are generally around three times higher than the circulation figures.
Although circulation and readership figures are naturally of importance, it is important to the newspapers to know the demographic composition of their readership. In the information below, newspapers' readerships are characterized as

as a very rough guide. Much more precise information is required by newspapers; for a useful discussion, see

Express Newspapers' research section, which provides a useful overview of the newspaper market and considers some of the essential questions media studies students need to answer. For a full listing of all press, TV etc. try

media uk For up-to-date circulation figures, try the

ABC Databank (where you'll have to register but the information is free).

For ownership details of virtually every media organ in the UK, as well as links to websites, journalists' e-mail addresses and more, check out MediaUK's Internet Directory, as well as the

National Union of Journalists' excellent site. A very useful source of the latest information is the UK Business Park's 'company search' pages, whose media page summarizes the latest deals and rumoured deals and provides links to further details of individual media groups. See also Media Guardian. Produced by the Guardian newspaper, UK. A round-up of the latest developments in the media world - takeovers, mergers, IPOs, new TV projects, new magazine launches etc. - gossip from the media world, condensed stories and major headlines from the specialist trade press etc. An invaluable insight into current developments in the media (especially in the UK).

For a discussion of why media ownership matters (and much more), see

MediaChannel

For up-to-date news on developments in the media industry worldwide, discussion of journalism issues and a host of links to press and broadcasting institutions world-wide try the American Journalism Review at

http://www.newslink.org/

Another excellent source of news on the latest acquisitions and mergers worldwide, as well as their legal implications is the

Communications Law Center at the New York Law School

For media ownership in the European Union, see the highly detailed and up-to-date information at the Italy-based

Media Law Site (take the link to The Media Market in Europe (seems to have disappeared; please e-mail me if you find it. October 8 2000: Alan Buchan has kindly mailed me that the link seems to be active again and (March 2001) Thomas Wachtler has kindly mailed me this link:- http://www.luiss.it/medialaw/uk/mediaeu/index.htm))

You may also find something of interest at the US site Theyrule.net, an attempt to 'make some of the relationships of the US ruling class visible'.

For an extraordinarily comprehensive list of links to media organizations around the world, check out the

Webovision site (sorry, this one seems to have gone missing; please mail me if you find it.)

For discussion of some of the implications of media ownership, besides what is discussed in this section, see under fourth estate.

For a broad overview of the regulation of media ownership in the UK, with links to the detail of Acts of Parliament, see the Department of Culture's Guide

Introduction - the argument for diversity

ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE PRESS

Although the era of the press barons is long over, concern about the concentration of newspaper ownership and their possible political power continues.

In its 1949 report the Royal Commission on the Press took the view that the press is more than just another business. It has a public task and a corresponding public responsibility, being the 'chief instrument for instructing the public on the main issues of the day':

The Royal Commission was concerned to see that the press should show truthfulness and diversity and avoid sensationalism. This view was repeated by successive Royal Commissions.

In essence those are the two sides of the argument which we are still debating today. The Royal Commission recognised the value to democracy of a free press. At the same time they recognised the dangers for democracy of an unashamedly commercial press. Can these two different sides to the nature of the press both be accommodated?

Concentration of ownership

The British Industry Media Group (Associated Newspapers, Daily Telegraph, Pearson, Guardian Media Group) is constantly lobbying for an end to cross-media ownership restrictions.

Carlton and Granada are making it quite clear that they wish to take over more TV franchises. In the Broadcasting Bill of December 1995, the government announced its intention of removing the two-licence limit on ITV companies. Companies would be allowed to hold as many licences as they want, subject to a limit of a 15% share of the total viewing public.

Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) already owns two of Scotland's strongest titles (Daily Record & Sunday Mail) recently acquired a 19.9% stake in Scottish Television and runs L!ve TV, a 24-hour cable service (now, thankfully, defunct).

Concern over this rapid concentration is expressed by liberal reformers, such as the

Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF), as well as by advertisers (for example, if MGN had a majority holding in Scottish Television, they could force advertisers to buy space in MGN newspapers as a condition for buying airtime). The 1995 Broadcastiing Bill allowed regional newspapers with a share of between 20% and 50% of the area's circulation to own larger stakes in local radio.

The Conservative government's 1995 Green Paper on cross-media ownership raised papers' circulation levels from 25,000 to 50,000 before referral to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is automatic. In December 1995, Virginia Bottomley, the then National Heritage Secretary, launched the government's Broadcasting Bill. The bill would allow newspaper groups to control ITV companies. However, Mirror Group Newspapers and Murdoch's News International would not be permitted to do so, because each exceeds the threshold of 20% of total national circulation. Nevertheless, they would be able to expand their cable and satellite interests and run digital TV services.

Gerald Kaufmann MP, chair of the influential Commons National Heritage Select Committee, although a Labour MP, dismissed Labour's concerns about the increased concentration of ownership, arguing that the notion of monopolistic control of the media is meaningless with the 'multiplicity of entertainment channels, and a growing range of interactive services'. Similarly, Tony Blair, speaking at a conference in Australia to which he was invited by Rupert Murdoch, owner of NewsCorp, said that it was time to look again at the rules on cross-media ownership, which had, he said, been rendered largely outdated by technological developments. [This was before Blair became Prime Minister in May 1997]

But it's not only media organizations which can wield this kind of power. So can the distributors, as, for example, Wal-Mart, which refused to carry Nirvana's In Utero album on the grounds that the artwork offended against the 'family values' it claimed to foster through its stores. The loss of the sales of a single album would make hardly a dent on Wal-Mart's sales, but it did represent a potential loss of 10% of the sales for Warner, who duly backed down (Klein (2000 : 167)). Klein points out that this type of censorship has become so common that many major studios have stopped producing NC-17 movies because they won't be carried by Blockbuster, otherwise they forfeit 25% of their earnings from video before the film is even released. Similarly, major magazines show advance copies to the big distributors before they ship them. Presumably it has occurred to the media moguls that it would be so much more convenient if they owned both the production and the distribution - so Murdoch owns BSkyB and Fox Studios, Sumner owns Paramount Films and Blockbuster Video, Vivendi owns Canal+ and Universal Films and Universal Music, Disney owns ABC and Miramax, AOL-Time-Warner-EMI - well, I guess it's obvious what they own.

Major groups

News International

For detailed information on the group's current holdings, visit News Corporation's

'Corporate Information' page, which includes links to ownership of television, film, newspapers etc., as well as full company reports. The News Corporation

front page has links to their media outlets which have web pages.

	Newspapers	Circulation
	Sun	3,437,716 down-market
	Times (website)	665,393 up-market
	Today	614,459 (closed 17/11/95)
	News of the World	3,846,697 down-market
	Sunday Times (website)	1,306,199 up-market
	(=37% share of daily & 39% share of Sunday newspaper sales - since this share exceeds the 20% share of circulation set by the government, NI will not be permitted to expand into ownership of ITV companies.)
	Book Publishing
	Harper Collins ( 'Fire and Water - the booklover's website)
	Magazines
	Shoppers Friend Times Educational Supplement (website) Times Higher Education Supplement (website) Times Educational Supplement Scotland Times Literary Supplement (website) TV Hits (UK) (45%) Inside Soap (45%)
	Satellite TV
	British Sky Broadcasting (40%) (website)	(Sky claims 3,000,000+ dish homes)
	Sky multi-channels
	Granada Sky Broadcasting (49.5%)
	Fox Kids
	Sky Box Office
	Star	News Corp's Asian TV channel was launched in the UK in January 2001. It brings to Britain Star News and Star Plus, aimed at British Asians. There is no additional production cost since both programmes are already being produced for the Indian market. Sky Global Networks will also be using BSkyB's existing distribution platform and expertise, so this should be a very cheap new venture for a large audience, likley to generate a profit of around �10 million per year.
		Currently (February 2001) Murdoch is in talks with DirecTV. If the planned $70 billion merger goes ahead, it will be Murdoch's first major acquisition since Star TV in 1993.
	New media
	supergoals.com	Murdoch was initially skeptical of the Internet and NewsCorp's involvement came late in the game, so late that many pundits began to claim he'd lost his touch, as other news organizations scrambled to get on-line. In the meantime, after the shake-out of the dotcoms, it begins to look as if Murdoch might have been right again.
	page3.com
	firedup

Rupert Murdoch (owner of NI, subsidiary of Murdoch's global operation, News Corporation) took over The Times and The Sunday Times in 1981. It is said that this was not referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission because of Mrs Thatcher's determination to reward him for his support in the election. It could be for the same reason that in the 1990 Broadcasting Act Sky TV was excluded from the restrictions which prevent newspapers from owning more than a 20% stake in terrestrial TV stations.

Murdoch's company mounted a media assault on the BBC during the 80s and on Labour in every General Election from Thatcher's victory in 1979 to Major's in 1992, but switched to Labour in the 97 election. The Sun in particular was Murdoch's most spectacular success story in Britain and it is not a little ironic that it started life as a relaunch in 1964 of the Daily Herald, which had been a mass market broadsheet owned by the trade union movement. The relaunch was undertaken by the Daily Mirror, which targeted the new working class of Harold Wilson's Labour Britain, polytechnic-educated and working in the 'white heat of the technological revolution'. Within some five years it was virtually bankrupt. Murdoch bought it for a snip, relaunched it again, targeting the bottom end of the baby-boomer generation and completely turned it around to become the biggest selling tabloid in the UK, especially under the editorship of the brilliant Kelvin MacKenzie, who gave the newspaper a hard-right, Thatcherite and highly xenophobic feel and built circulation by adding bingo to the sex, sensationalism and entertainment which already characterized the Sun's content. Currently, the Sun has to face the problem of any well-established brand with ageing customers - how do you hang on to your old customers while appealing to their children? This is particularly difficult for the Sun whose target readership is the antithesis of the highly educated female readership many advertisers now wish to reach.

Hugo Young, former political editor of The Sunday Times writes of the Murdoch version of that newspaper: 'Very little space is any longer available for the discussion of poverty, inequality, injustice or anything which might be recognisable as a moral issue. If there is an ethic at work, it is an unvarnished version of the business ethic.' Consider here, for example, the recent Michael Foot/KGB smear (the claim that a former leader of the Labour Party was in the pay of the KGB), the Kinnock/Kremlin smear in the 1992 election campaign and the savaging of Thames TV's Death on the Rock.

The Sun can usually be relied upon to adopt a stridently xenophobic position on most issues relating to the non-British, ranging from the coverage of football (especially if England are playing Germany) to asylum seekers. In particular, the Sun will adopt an overtly jingoistic tone in any international conflict in which the UK is involved, perhaps the most notorious example being its headline 'Gotcha!' when the Argentinian warship General Belgrano was sunk by a British submarine during the Falklands conflict. One of its most extraordinary outbursts came in November 2001 during the 'war on terrorism' in Afghanistan, when the newspaper accused those newspapers which failed to voice wholehearted support of being traitors. The Sun took the view that in times of war it is the duty of all press organs to support the government line, a view certainly in tune with the government's chief spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, who predictably criticized the 'corrosive negativism' of those newspapers which voiced any dissent. One wonders what Sun editor David Yelland thinks newspapers are for - presumably not to foster the 'diversity' which we have discussed above.

Ralph Negrine points out (1994) that in recent years some newspapers have clearly abandoned any notion of social responsibility, throwing their weight wholeheartedly behind a political point of view, allowing no room for discussion and argument. He takes the 1984-5 miners' strike as an example. Editors of newspapers which supported the National Coal Board against the National Union of Mineworkers were favoured by ministers and given regular briefings Even the BBC's radio correspondent, Nicholas Jones, admitted that 'stories that gave prominence to the position of the NUM could simply be omitted, shortened or submerged into another report' (p.66))

According to Negrine, specialist correspondents were kept well removed from the power centres and even an experienced and senior journalist like the Sunday Times' labour correspondent found his copy altered without consultation. The Sunday Times editor had a clearly political mission in this coverage, writing that

Referring to the decision by the Sun to swing its weight behind the Labour Party prior to the 1997 General Election, the Guardian's Peter Preston commented that there was no need to wonder at the curiously sudden conversion of the newspaper's editor:

Since that General Election, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, has continued to write regular articles for The Sun and Murdoch is reputed to be very influential with the Labour Party. Certainly, since their defeat in the 1992 election, Labour appears to believe that it is vital to have Murdoch on board. A March 1998 example of the allegedly close relationship between Murdoch and Blair was the former's 'phone call to the Prime Minister enquiring about his prospects for further developing his interests in Italy. When the call became public knowledge, Blair dismissed it as being no more nor less than he would do for any British businessman to further the country's fortunes. In this age of globalization, of course, 'British' is perhaps a rather fluid concept, but to refer to an Australian-born, naturalized American, whose companies succeed in avoiding huge amounts of British taxes as 'British' seems to be stretching the concept rather far. Labour's constant attempts at media-friendly news management became a major concern during their first year of government, especially the activities of Alastair Campbell, the PM's press secretary, who has frequently been criticized by MPs from other parties. The comment by Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, Norman Baker is typical of such criticism:

Against the background of Labour's cosying up to Murdoch, the decision in April 1999 to accept the full recommendations of the Monoploies and Mergers Commission's enquiry into BSkyB's bid for control of Manchester United Football Club was a surprise. Media commentators had confidently predicted some kind of murky compromise, whereby the government would approve the bid, but impose some strict conditions to satisfy the public mood. Media coverage of the proposed merger had on the one hand pandered to populist pictures of outraged supporters determined to keep their club local, preserve its traditions and keep it out of the clutches of Mark Booth, BSkyB's CEO, who could not name Man U's left back - this of a club owned in part by Marathon Asset Management and in part by Abu Dhabi Asset Management! On the other hand, media coverages, especially in the broadsheets had paid much attention to the close relationship between Blair and Murdoch. The decision is potentially a serious blow to Murdoch, who, if he had succeeded, would have had a seat at the same table in Europe as Italy's Silvio Berlusconi (media mogul and owner of AC Milan) and France's Pierre Lescure (CEO of Canal+ and owner of Paris St Germain) and thus a bidding position for the European SuperLeague.

Murdoch's interests also suffered a blow a month later when the Office of Fair Trading accused The Times of deliberately making a loss on the cover price (10p) of each copy of the Monday edition in an attempt to price its rivals out of the market. The OFT required that The Times should not again cut its cover price without providing a detailed explanation ten days in advance

Whether Murdoch is pursuing what might be termed a 'political' agenda or simply seeking to further the interests of his media empire is an open question. Clearly, the pursuit of the latter must have political consequences, so political and financial motivation are in effect indistinguishable. Thus, a stance is bound to be adopted against public service broadcasting in Britain and against further integration with the European Union, which is perceived as interventionist and thus a threat to 'free' trade.

Speaking at an international conference a few years ago, Murdoch praised the new communication technologies for their ability to 'pose an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere'. In 1994, however, when the government of mainland China had been upset by the BBC World Service's coverage of the brutal repression of student protest in Tiananmen Square and by an unflattering documentary on Mao Tse Tung, Murdoch removed the BBC from his Hong-Kong based

Star TV programmes.

Former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil has hinted that he was removed by Murdoch because of the newspaper's treading on the toes of the government of Singapore where Murdoch had financial interests.

In February 1998 a storm erupted over the decision by Random House publishers not to publish a book by Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong, despite having paid him �125,000 for the book. Patten declared his intention to sue, the commissioning editor of Random-House resigned, issuing a full statement through his solicitors and declaring his intention to take his employers to an industrial tribunal on the grounds of constructive dismissal. Interestingly, during the week when the story featured frequently in non-Murdoch newspapers, it was not even mentioned in The Times, Murdoch's supposed 'quality' daily. Johnathan Mirsky, former East Asia editor for The Times, claimed that the newspaper 'has simply decided, because of Murdoch's interests, not to cover Chain in a serious way'. (Klein (2000 : 172))

In the same week, The Sun which had consistently attacked Labour's plans for the Millenium Dome suddenly changed tack and threw its weight wholeheartedly behind the project. Could this have been connected with the recent investment in the Dome by Murdoch's BSkyB? There has been speculation too that the dropping of 'page 3 girls' from The Sun may have been Murdoch's, influenced by his new wife, Wendy Deng, 'which is absolute proof,' Julie Burchill drily commented in The Observer, 'that when a man is having good sex, he doesn't need porny pictures any more', though it's hard to imagine that Murdoch's decision was not more motivated by financial than ethical or sexual considerations.

Much of the above is necessarily speculative, except for the Random House affair, which seems to be quite well documented. However, what seems to be a crystal-clear example of interference in editorial decisions in order to protect business interests was provided in a recent Observer article by Nick Cohen. Cohen's article concerns the case of reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson who, until recently, worked for Murdoch-owned WTVT in Florida. Wilson and Akre investigated charges that the US biotechnology conglomerate was not properly reporting the effects on animals of one of its drugs, using its legal and political muscle to oppose labelling efforts which would allow consumers to make an informed choice when buying dairy products. WTVT promoted the impending programme heavily. However, Monsanto's lawyers contacted the executives of Murdoch's Fox TV, which owns WTVT. WTVT were required to double-check the case to be made in the programme. They could find no fault in the two journalists' work. Fox disagreed, pulled the programme and ordered the journalists to re-write it - a process the unfortunate pair went through seventy times. Wilson and Akre complained to David Boylan, a Murdoch manager who was sent down to the TV company. Cohen reports that:

According to Cohen, Akre and Wilson were repeatedly ordered to insert Monsanto's own claims into their report. They repeatedly refused and were eventually fired in December 1997. They have now filed a suit against Fox. Although Murdoch owns the PR company, Actmedia, one of whose clients is Monsanto, Wilson and Akre do not believe they were required to rewrite the story just to avoid upsetting a customer; rather

It is rare to find clear evidence of journalists' stories being suppressed by owners, but that may in part be due to the fact that the owners don't need to suppress stories, since the journalists practise self-censorship in advance. In an Observer article of June 11 2000, Peter Preston quoted the results of a survey of 300 leading US media professionals across the US, conducted by The Columbia Journalism Review, which revealed that the third most regular reason why stories don't appear is that they are 'damaging to the interests of the news organization they're working for'.

As newspapers increasingly become just another part of global conglomerates which own everything from cartoon characters to news magazines, as well as a range of interests beyond the media, this kind of pressure on journalists is bound to be an increasing cause for concern. There is, of course, nothing new in this financial pressure; newspapers are, after all, capitalist concerns. Mark Crispin Miller of the Project on Media Ownership at New York University claims that there is clear evidence of news being suppressed as long ago as 1935 when medical evidence of the dangers of smoking emerged, but was not reported, according to Miller, for fear of losing the vast advertising revenue from tobacco companies. The Daily Herald is reported to have withered away because there were insufficient advertisers willing to pay to address its working class readership and the left-oriented News on Sunday, launched during the eighties faced the same problem. Just as it is rare to find clear evidence of newspaper owners interfering directly in editorial decisions, so it is rare to find direct evidence of advertisers' pressure. However, startlingly clear evidence of one such attempt is provided by a letter from Ted Graham, the head of external communications at BT, to the deputy city editor of The Sunday Telegraph. BT had been irritated by reports in the newspaper which suggested tensions between members of senior management at BT. Graham wrote:

BT, of course, doesn't own The Telegraph (yet), so the editors are quite at liberty to tell BT's management where to stick their anger. But what if they did? What is worrying now, especially since the mega-merger in January 2000 of Time-Warner and AOL, is the sheer scale of the corporations and the vast range of their financial interests, not to mention the fact that the bigger they are, the more likely they are to be influential in the political arena.

Blake Fleetwood, writing in the

Washington Monthly (reprinted in the Guardian, 17/09/99), recounts how he had an idea for a story about Tiffany, the jewellery store, while he was working for the New York Times:

Fleetwood also reports how, in recent years, editorial staff have increasingly been given marketing responsibilities in the US press, penetrating the 'wall' between advertising and editorial.

For examples of a variety of significant stories that failed to make the news, see Project Censored

Daily Mail and General Trust plc (DMGT)

website

Owned until his death in September 1998 by Vere Harmsworth, third Viscount Rothermere since 1978, one of the 50 richest people in the UK. Wanted cross-media ownership restrictions lifted despite showing a 43% increase in group profits in 1994 (from �64.4m to �92.1m). 1998 operating profit was �89.8 million. DMGT at his death estimated to be worth �1.2 billion. Harmsworth's son Jonathan, Fourth Viscount Rothermere inherited the contolling share in DMGT.

In London, the Evening Standard provides monopoly control of the London daily evening newspaper market. There is also a ten-year contract to supply a consortium of six London cable TV companies (the London Interconnect Group (LIG)) with 12 hours of TV daily. There is cross-promotion between the Evening Standard and the LIG.

Sir David English, then editor of the Daily Mail , knighted by Thatcher in 1982 for services to journalism, was the authentic voice of Thatcherism throughout the 80s. The Observer commented on English's r�le in the 1992 election: "In the dishing of Neil Kinnock, English excelled himself by merging fact with comment in a seamless robe of bias. For example, a straight(ish) report on Labour leader John Smith's tax plans 'to help the poor' was swiftly air-brushed for the second edition to read 'to savage high earners'."

English was instrumental in realizing Harmsworth's ambition in turning the Daily Mail into a newspaper for women. Whilst I cannot disguise my distaste for its staunchly (sometimes loopily) right-wing political stance, it has succeeded in becoming a high-selling women's newspaper (overtaking the Express's sales and by 1998 challenging the Mirror in circulation figures) not merely by publishing a Princess Di supplement every weekend and giving space to diets and horoscopes, but by taking seriously matters which are important to women such as rape, workplace discrimination and domestic violence. This has led to criticism that the Mail portrays women either as victims or as babes. Whilst there is some substance in that criticism, the Mail at least has made some progress towards integrating 'women's issues' into the main body of the news rather than relegating them to a features section.

English was criticized for poor judgment after the 1997 General Election, during which the Daily Mail maintained its Conservative support, even though it was evident that the Labour Party was likely to be victorious. Critics asked if he had lost touch with 'middle England'. Nonetheless, Rothermere was to be content to allow him to continue with his editorial line, even though Rothermere himself has since changed his allegiance to Labour. English died in 1998 to the usual chorus of praise from all sides of mainstream politics and was replaced by Paul Dacre.

DMGT's take-over of the Nottingham Evening Post Group was stopped by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC). The MMC feared the take-over would reduce 'diversity of opinion' with the risk that 'editors in the Northcliffe Group will adopt similar positions on some issues as a result of close contact with each other and the uniform standards set by the group'. The then Industry Minister Tim Eggar rejected the report and allowed the take-over to proceed, with the result that DMGT now owns the largest contiguous grouping of newspapers anywhere in the UK. The government's recent Green Paper on cross-media ownership has raised papers' circulation levels from 25,000 to 50,000 before referral to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is automatic.

Independent News and Media plc

Trinity Mirror

United MAI

Update 2001: After months of speculation, Express Newspapers were finally sold by Hollick. Rosie Boycott and her deputy editor at The Daily Express, Chris Blackhurst, had been charged by Hollick with the task of turning round the newspaper's fortunes, keeping it upmarket, but appealing to a younger, more progressive audience, and were promised access to the vast resources of United News and Media. According to Blackhurst (in The Guardian, Jan 29 2001), Hollick was an enthusiastic and regular particpant in management meetings. Suddenly, however, in May 1999, the tap was turned off, the first sign, in retrospect, of the papers' sale, a change of direction which apparently resulted from an investigation by management consultancy firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which concluded that further investment could be difficult to justify in a publicly listed company. Hollick's responsibility was to his shareholders and PwC appeared to be suggesting that the paper needed an owner-proprietor. For months speculation over buyers was rife - the Barclay Brothers, the Hinduja Borthers, Associated Newspapers, the Daily Mail and General Trust, Conrad Black, owner of The Telegraph and Hollinger Group. When the sale eventually took place (for �125 million), the new owner was a complete surprise: Richard Desmond, proprietor of the Northern & Shell magazine group, not least surprising because Desmond's stable includes Asian Babes, Nude Readers' Wives, the celebrity magazine OK! and Television X and The Fantasy Channel - which hardly seems to augur well for the maintenance of the 'upmarket' status of the Express stable. The Guardian revelaed 'that a company wholly owned by Mr Desmond has registered a website which promises live heterosexual sex, live lesbian sex as well as other images portraying women as old as 78, pregnant, and one who calls herself Anal Annie'. I gather Desmond sues anyone who refers to him as a 'porn king' - so I'll refrain. Some of the potential bidders have protested against the sale on the grounds that they might well have bid more, but Hollick has argued that if he had entered into negotiations with any of the other press groups, that would have triggered a competition commission enquiry, no doubt lasting several months, during which the value of the Express could well have declined. So this rather strange sale is essentially due to the capitalist imperative to maximize value for shareholders, a fine example of the possible conflict between private and public interest.

Despite an expectation that the resources of Desmond's porn mags would be used to bolster the Express, he fairly soon started on a pretty savage cost-cutting exercise, which included selling off the Express websites (Express Digital Media) for �1. Technically, they were put into liquidation, which the staff claim was a cynical ploy by Desmond to avoid paying them redundancy compensation. The four-strong investigations team, originally brought in by then editor Rosie Boycott to help transform the newspaper into a credible organ of the left, were removed from the Express, though continuing to be employed within the group, on the grounds that the paper could no longer afford to pay for investigative journalism. Stephen Pollard, a leader writer who was one of the first big names to leave the Express wrote his final leader on the problems of the farming industry, arranged in such a way that the first letters of successive paragraphs spelled the message 'fuck you Desmond'. The offer of a job at The Times was withdrawn. Unsurprisingly, the Express's editor, Rosie Boycott, many years ago founder editor of feminist magazine Spare Rib, to whose principles she remains loyal, has left, to be replaced by Chris Williams, until then Associate Editor.

In the first ten weeks of Desmond's ownership, sales of the Express fell by 6%, the main beneficiary apparently being the Daily Mail, whose sales increased by 5%.

United MAI has now, apparently, become

United Business Media, which owns a range of British magazines, as well as a number of websites and newswires. United appears now to have abandoned its planned expansion into TV, it is selling off LineOne, its internet portal and ISP joint venture with BT and intends to sell off its remaining business-to-consumer internet operations, apparently preferring to stick with a business-to-business model.

The Daily Express's website is closed. What follows below is what I wrote before Desmond's takeover. As soon as I have more details, I'll update this section.

Further details can be obtained from the group's excellent

website (which even has a 3-D version!)

Note: In February 1996, United News and Media merged with MAI. The New Group is now known as United MAI. The chairman of United was Lord Stevens, the managing director of MAI was Lord Hollick. What was surprising about the merger is that Lord Hollick is a Labour peer, while the Daily Express is a staunch supporter of the Conservative Party. During the May 1997 General Election, the Daily Express maintained its Conservative support. It's perhaps worth mentioning that most media speculation centred on the fate of Express Newspapers, whereas, from the point of view of the owners, perhaps, the Express is pretty small beer, representing as it does only 7% of the group's turnover.

Hollick's hands-off approach changed quite unexpectedly in April 1998, when he appointed as editor Rosie Boycott, formerly co-editor of The Independent and originally employed with feminist magazine Spare Rib. Prior to Boycott's appointment, under the editorship of Richard Addis, the Express had started to move slightly leftwards, in the direction of New Labour, but, under Rosie Boycott, this leftward move looks set to accelerate, if her comments to The Observer are anything to go by: 'I certainly wouldn't back [Conservative leader] William Hague under any circumstances. It is a shame [New Labour Prime Minister] Blair is having this romance with new money. Labour have to get back to the basics of reducing hospital waiting lists. But then the Labour Government have done some terrific things, with Northern Ireland at the top of the list.' (The Observer April 26 1998). Quite extraordinary comments from the editor of one of the Conservative party's most loyal supporters. Quite what the readership will make of their newspaper being edited by a leftish feminist supporter of the legalization of cannabis remains to be seen.

The Telegraph Group Ltd.

Up-to-date information about the group's activities and holdings can be found at its

website

The owner of the Telegraph, Chair of Hollinger, Conrad Black is the thrid biggest press magnate in the world. In the UK, the group also owns the Spectator and also has major titles in Canada, Australia and Israel.

Pearson

Up-to-date information about the group's activities and holdings can be found at its

website

Guardian Media Group plc

Although the Guardian and the Observer, both politically left of centre, are traditionally rather sniffy about right-wing newspapers, especially those owned by Murdoch, the Observer, when it was owned by Tiny Rowland, certainly seemed to be subject from the proprietor, whose long running battle with the Fayed brothers for control of the House of Fraser (to which the famous London store, Harrods, belongs) was regularly featured in the newspaper throughout the 80s.

On the other hand, however, in 1984, when the then editor, Donald Trelford, was told by Rowlands not to run story critical of the regime in Zimbabwe, where Lonrho had significant investments, Trelford refused and insisted on running the story, with the unanimous support of his staff. He also offered to resign, thus putting Rowlands in the no-win position of either accepting the resignation and thus generating storm of protest against Lonrho, or refusing the resignation and strengthening Trelford's position.

This latter incident lends support to the view of those who see the media as performing an essential 'fourth estate' function. In this case, they would argue, journalists are seen to be asserting their professional independence and Rowlands, who would have been tried before the 'court of public opinion'

emap

Free Newspapers

I've tucked this bit in here at the end of the section on newspapers because the current struggle over free newspapers' market share is quite fascinating to watch. At first sight, it looks a bit like the economics of the madhouse as newspaper companies fall over one another to give their products away free, at a time when most newspapers' circulation figures have fallen year on year for the last decade. Quite how you get rich from giving stuff away is a bit of a mystery to me and looks rather like commercial suicide, but, if Internet companies seem to see their shares more highly valued the greater the operating loss they make, maybe it makes some kind of sense. (I never have understood money.)

In this case, the idea arose not in the US, but in Sweden, where a small publishing company, Modern Times, run by a group of young people dreamt up the idea of giving away a free newspaper called Metro, which they distributed in the major cities to the morning commuters, achieving a circulation of 240,000 a day. The idea turned out to be such a money spinner that it soon spread to other major European cities, even becoming the major morning newspaper in Prague and Budapest. As far as I am aware, Rothermere was the first in Britain to launch a Metro clone, presumably because he must have seen such an idea as a threat to his own London-based Evening Standard. Meanwhile the battle has been joined by more the major newspaper houses, which have recently (Jan 2000) been throwing injunctions at one another with a total disregard for yet more expense in an effort to prevent rivals from using the word Metro in the titles of their freebies. DMGT lost four court cases in Manchester, where it was up against the Guardian Media Group, which distributes its own Metro. The Swedes entered the battle too, distributing their own free newspaper in Tyneside, but retired hurt under the assault from DMGT and its partners, Trinity-Mirror. Metro is distributed in regionalized versions in London, Birmingham, central Scotland, Newcastle and Manchester with total distribution around 800,000. In January 2000, the Yorkshire Metro was released with circulation around 55,000, intended to rise to 75,000 by March.

Though it may seem madness to give away a newspaper which is often in competition with your own paid-for publications, it seems that the free ones are able to reach a new generation of wealthy urban consumers, which must make them the advertisers' Holy Grail.

This will be interesting to watch, I think, though there is a possibility that the Competition Commission will feel obliged to intervene at some point soon.

International stations - ownership

Internationally, the two major players are Rupert Murdoch, who owns BSkyB in Europe and a range of other satellite broadcasting facilities around the world and Ted Turner, who owns CNN. Amongst news services, the BBC's World News Service is worthy of mention, as it has a reputation for impartiality and reliability.

CNN

UK Gold

Britain's most successful satellite channel outside BSkyB. Stakes held by BBC and Telecommunications Inc (TCI). TCI is a US corporation whose subsidiary in Britain is Flextech, which owns The Family Channel, Playboy, Bravo, Discovery and The Sega Channel and has a 20% holding in Scottish TV; TCI, through its UK subsidiary Tinta, also is part-owner of TeleWest, the UK's largest cable operator. (An interesting recent development (early 1999), which highlights the extraordinary complexity of the global media, is Murdoch's move to full ownership of Fox/Liberty, buying out John Maolne's US-based Liberty Media. Liberty Media own a controlling share in Flextech, which probably means that we will see a close co-operation between BSkyB and Flextech's UK-based pay-TV operation in the near future.) In addition, TCI owns the largest cable operation in the US (but is nevertheless also behind two US satellite systems), has a presence in eighteen countries (including France's Canal+) and interests in more than a hundred programme outlets, including Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting Sytems and many Japanese outlets. TCI is also a major investor in Bill Gates's Microsoft Network. Not unlike Murdoch's UK-based News International, TCI (run by John Malone) has never shown a profit (and therefore not paid taxes). As an example of the complexity of media ownership, consider the Federal Trade Commission's permission for the merger of Turner Broadcasting Systems and Time-Warner: the FTC had concerns about the monopoly implications of the deal as TCI owns 7.5% of Time-Warner and 22% of Turner. As Time-Warner and Turner account for around 50% of US cable subscribers, the FTC required TCI to transfer its shares in Time-Warner to another company spun off from TCI's control and also to require some cable systems to carry another news service in addition to CNN.

BSkyB

By far the dominant satellite broadcaster in Europe, as shown in the ITC's figures:

Channel	Audience share (%)
Sky One	1.24
Sky Sports	1.04
Sky Movies	0.87
The Movie Channel	0.79
Cartoon Network	0.70
UK Gold	0.56
Nickelodeon	0.42
Disney	0.30
Eurosport	0.29
UK Living	0.26
12 months to Sept. 30 1996 Source: ITC, Graphic News As a point of comparison, BBC1's share of the TV audience was 32.5%

Transmitted on the Astra satellite. 40% owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Other stakeholders are: Pathé (17%); British terrestrial broadcaster, Granada, part of the ITV network (11%); Pearson (3%). In 1995, Sky One was the most popular satellite channel, with a 4.8% share of the British TV audience. Its growth-rate is expected to outstrip ITV's by the year 2000, overtaking ITV's current annual advertising revenue of �1.4bn. BSkyB's introduction of pay-per-view for major sports events led to calls from Parliament to ensure that the 'national heritage' in sports should not be sold to the highest bidder, but such calls seem in fact to have had little effect. BSkyB took over �5m for the broadcast of the Bruno v Tyson boxing match; BSkyB has exclusive rights to coverage of Premier League football matches until 2001; the report of the Office of Fair Trading's eqnuiry into pay TV in the UK merely asked BSkyB for informal undertakings that it would allow fair access to its subscription system. In May 1996, Murdoch's News Corp and TCI's Liberty Media and Tinta (see above under UK Gold) signed a global agreement to work together on the acquisition and distribution of world sports rights. In the US in February 1997, Murdoch's American Sky Broadcasting paid $1bn for half the equity of EchoStar, the US's fastest growing DBS (direct broadcasting by satellite) provider. Murdoch stated at the time that his real targets were the cable providers, rather than rival satellite providers, an interesting remark in the light of the global agreement with TCI on sports.

Finninvest

Owned by Berlusconi of Italy. Dominates Italian TV and has interests in other countries, including France's TF1, Germany's Tele 5, Spain's TeleCinco and stations in the former Yugoslavia.

Euronews

Transmitted via the Eutelsat-II F1 satellite. It aims within Europe to rival CNN and is financially assisted by the EU.

Vivendi

Not a station, but a company, mentioned here because it has been France's great success story in communications corporations, since 1994 under the leadership of Jean-Marie Messier, who transformed it from a state-owned, over-bureaucratic and soporific water company into an international player in both environmental concerns such as water supply and communications, where the company owns 49% of Canal+, 39% of the UGC cinema chain and 20% of Path�, which gives it a 17% stake in BSkyB.

Vivendi owns SFR which controls 40% of France's mobile phone market and forms an important part of C�g�tel, a telecomms group with both fixed and mobile capacity and in which Vivendi has a 40% stake. It is in an Internet alliance with AoL and Germany's

Bertelsmann, plus the French publisher Larousse and Robert Laffont and the weekly news magazines L'Express and L'Expansion. Watch this space. (source: Scaring the Pants off Rupert Murdoch by Jon Henley, The Guardian 26/06/99).

In December 2000 Vivendi merged with Canal+ and Seagram, a Canadian producer of alcoholic drinks, which also own Universal Films and Universal Music, the biggest music producer in the world. Vivendi Universal promised its customers 'every access to the Internet by all existing means, at any time, anywhere'. The number of customers for Canal+ is projected to reach 24 million by 2005.

Viacom

Viacom is also mentioned here because many may not have heard of its owner, Sumner Redstone, though he is possibly as influential as the Rupert Murdochs and Ted Turners of the media world, running, as he does, Simon and Schuster books, MTV, Nickelodeon, Blockbuster video shops, Paramount film studios and, possibly, by the time of writing, the CBS network, from which, ironically, Viacom was spun off by the regulators in the first place, fearing that CBS was acquiring too much influence. In the meantime, the Federal Communications Commisssion has ended its prohibition on a single group owning two TV stations in the same market.

Miscellaneous

Here are some fairly random bits and bobs relating to media ownership in the UK. I invite you to treat them with some circumspection, as the pattern of media ownership changes so fast that it's almost impossible for me to keep up with.

Microsoft

Microsoft boss Gates is clearly determined to extend his reach beyond PC software to the new media. In the UK, his company holds stakes in telecommunications companies Telewest and NTL. He may be linking up with Murdoch in the proposed merger between Sky Global and DirecTV.

AOL

At the beginning of 2000, AOL boss Steve Case steered his company through the takeover of Time-Warner, then the biggest merger ever. In the UK he took over IPC in July 2001 for �1.15 billion.

Telewest

Under the leadership of Chief Executive, Adam Singer, cable company Telewest has merged with content provider Flextech andhas developed 12 satellite and cable subscription channels.

GWR

The largest group of independent radio stations, including Classic FM and Digital One. Currently prevented by law from making further acquisitions.

SMG

IPC Media

The UK's biggest magazine publisher, around 100 publications reaching over 50% of the population. Titles include Marie-Claire, Loaded, NME, What's On TV and Country Life. Taken over by AOL Time Warner in July 2001. Interesting that Warner HBO, which produces some of the biggest money-spinners on TV now owns What's On TV; interesting that Warner Music now owns NME.

RTL

Europe's biggest TV and radio broadcasting and production company. Based in Luxembourg it controls 23 TV channels and 17 radio stations in Europe. In the UK it controls Channel 5 and Pearson TV. It is 89% controlled by Bertelsmann.

Press Holdings

Owned by the reclusive Barclay brothers and run by Andrew Neil, former Sunday Times editor. Publisher of The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, Sunday Business.

Gannett

Gannett of Arlington, Virginia, owns Newsquest, operator of over 300 regional newspapers in the UK.

For up-to-date information on the press in France, check out Geoff Hare's page of links at the University of Newcastle

	National Newspapers/ Associated Newspapers	Circulation
	Daily Mail	2,338,592 middle-market
	Mail on Sunday	2,316,638 middle-market
	London Evening Standard (website)	385,480
	Metro (see below)
	(share of newspaper circulation: 13%, excluding Metro)

	Regional Newspapers/Northcliffe Newspapers
	List of links to Northcliffe Newspapers on-line Bristol Evening Post (24%) Cornish Guardian (website) Derby Evening Telegraph Exeter Express and Echo Gloucestershire Citizen Gloucestershire Echo Grimsby Evening Telegraph Hull Daily Mail (website) Leicester Mercury (website) Lincolnshire Echo Nottingham Evening Telegraph Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph South Wales Evening Post Stoke Evening Sentinel Torquay Herald Express (website) Western Evening News Western Morning Herald Northcliffe Free Newspapers 27 regionals
	Television
	Harmsworth TV (Channel One TV and the Performance Channel) Westcountry TV (20%) ITN (20%) British Path� Performance Channel New Era Television Teletext (40%)
	Radio
	Chiltern Radio (18.5%) Classic FM (5%) East Anglian Radio (19.2%) Essex Radio (13.3%) GWR Group (26.9%) Radio Trust plc (39.8%) Swansea Sound (18%) Varying stakes in 13 ILR stations (19.3%) Vibe FM (50.01%)
	Others
	Reuters (31.1%) Bristol United Press (40%) Whittle Communications Ltd (24.6%) Pulmans Weekly News (100%) Euromoney Institutional Investor
	New Media
	UK Plus
	This Is London
	This Is Money
	Charlotte Street.com
	Under One Roof

	The Independent	192,599 up-market
	The Independent on Sunday	196,671 up-market
	Various regional newspapers and recruitment magazines; a range of paid-for and free weekly papers in the London area.

	Press	Circulation
	Daily Mirror	2,075,725 down-market
	Sunday Mirror	1,752,257 down-market
	Sunday People	1,413,681 down-market
	Racing Post
	News Letter (Northern Ireland)
	Sunday Business Post (Republic of Ireland)
	Daily Record (Scotland)
	Sunday Mail (Scotland)
	Share of national newspaper circulation: 23%. Since this figure exceeds the government's 20% limit, Mirror Group will not be permitted to own ITV companies.
	Regionals
	North East = 25 titles
	North West = 48 titles
	Midlands = 45 titles
	South = 6 titles
	Wales = 32 titles
	Cable Television
	L!ve TV - famous for its topless darts and 'news bunny' (a newsreader dressed as a rabbit - don't ask me!), L!ve TV closed in the last quarter of 1999
	New media
	www.ic24.net
	www.mirror.co.uk
	www.people.co.uk
	www.sundaymirror.co.uk
	and 22 more related sites

	Press	Circulation
	Daily Express (website, which includes an excellent example of a demographic profile)	943,898 middle-market
	Daily Star (same web url as above)	637,826 down-market
	Sunday Express	841,873 middle-market
	Share of national newspaper circulation: 14%

	Minority stake (29%) in the new Channel 5 tv channel

	Press
	Daily Telegraph (website) Sunday Telegraph	968,630 773,360
	Share of national newspaper circulation: 7.5%

	Press	Circulation
	Financial Times (100%) (website)	465,737 up-market (which represents an astonishing 13% gain in circulation share during a period when all other papers except The Independent saw their share fall)
	Westminster Press (100%)
	Share of national newspaper circulation: 2%
	Also owns South African newspapers

	Books
	Addison Wesley (100%) Federal and Capital (100%) Longman (100%) Penguin (100%) US publishing house, Putnam

	TV and Satellite

	BSkyB (3%) Thames TV (100%) Yorkshire/Tyne Tees TV (14%)
	On October 27 1995, the Channel 5 Broadcasting consortium, led by Greg Dyke of Pearson TV (20% share), was awarded the Channel 5 franchise. Dyke is now Director General of the BBC
	Also owns US gameshow originator Grundy and a stake in satellite operator SES

	Also owns Madame Tussaud's

	Press	Circulation
	The Guardian (website)	381,013 up-market
	The Observer	398,124 up-market
	Share of national newspaper circulation: 3%

	Press
	Elle
	The Face
	Arena
	+ around 80 other consumer titles + 100 business titles
	Television
	The Box
	Radio
	Kiss FM
	Magic
	Piccadilly Radio
	+ 15 others
	New media
	bargainholidays.com
	aloud.com
	board-it.com
	thebox.co.uk