Commission trio united over media ownership

Date: 27/02/1997

By Chris Johnstone

FRESH proposals for EU-wide media ownership rules are to be considered by the full European Commission next month in the wake of agreement between the key players on a new approach.

Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti has won support from the two other Commissioners most directly concerned with the dossier after toning down his original plan.

Following meetings between the trio, Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann and Audio-Visual Commissioner Marcelino Oreja have endorsed the new plans.

The revised approach is seen within the industry as marking a distinct shift away from attacking national media empires and towards a more cautious clearance of obstacles to cross-border ownership.

Bangemann and Oreja were both critical when Monti put forward his first, more ambitious proposal last September, with the Industry Commissioner leading a group of colleagues who told Monti to go back and think again about the potential pitfalls of his approach. Oreja cautioned that a directive was not the best way to deal with the issue.

Monti's proposals then included putting a 30&percent; limit on the television or radio audience a single individual or company could have in any EU country and a 10&percent; ceiling on overall audience share across all media. Companies which exceeded the limit would have had their licences revoked until the audience share fell.

This proposal would have threatened the Italian magnate Silvio Berlusconi and curbed the ambitions of other European media empire-builders. Commercial television companies attacked the plan, complaining they were the sole target of a measure which would leave public service broadcasters free to expand.

Officials close to Monti claim the proposal has been made more flexible to deal with specific problems. Industry observers say the 10&percent; total media share limit has been increased after it was pointed out that too many existing firms would be caught in the net.

Under the new plan, governments would also be given the freedom to seek derogations, allowing some companies to go above the percentage restrictions if they could provide good reasons for doing so.

This is seen as a move to appease governments in smaller countries where, for example, a television channel could easily exceed the proposed audience thresholds.

“The proposal seems to be going in the right direction but the devil is in the detail,” said Angela Mills, director of the European Publishers' Council.

The European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA) says the original scheme, which would have applied the 30&percent; rule to local newspapers, radio and television stations within regions, “would have been totally unworkable as it stood”.