Who really owns British media? A handful of billionaires and foreign owners.
Three companies control around 90% of Britain’s national newspaper circulation. That is too much power in too few hands.
- Rothermere controls the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, Metro and the i paper.
- Murdoch controls The Sun, The Sun on Sunday, The Times, The Sunday Times, Times Radio and Talk TV.
- Reach controls the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Sunday People, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Star on Sunday.
Here is the plan to change that. Five measures, in plain English.
1. End foreign ownership of our national media
Only UK-domiciled individuals and UK-owned entities would be able to own shares in our national media organisations. We do not let people who neither live here, vote here nor pay their taxes here fund our political parties. We should not let them own the most powerful political force in the country either.
2. End the concentration of ownership
No single organisation could own more than one national newspaper. No individual or family could control more than 20% of a major national newspaper or media organisation. No billionaire should dominate the news.
3. Fund independent and local media with a social media levy
Big tech drains the funding for British journalism. Around £31 billion of UK advertising revenue now flows to a handful of US tech corporations. The Act creates a levy on their UK turnover, distributed per head of population through trusts in each UK nation, to fund independent, local and co-operatively owned journalism — with a specific remit to make sure lower-income and minority communities have a voice.
4. Independent regulation
All national media would be required to fall under a regulator independent of government and of the media owners. Not a regulator run by the proprietors, and not a regulator run by ministers. The victims of press abuse currently have neither.
5. End dark-money think-tanks
Hidden money should not shape public debate. Think-tanks whose reports and spokespeople are covered by national media would have to declare their donors, in real time, on a public register. Transparency matters.
That is the whole of it
Democracy depends on independent media. These five measures are not radical. Most of them exist in one form or another in other democracies. What is radical is the situation we have now.
Our YouGov polling found that every one of these measures is wanted by more people than oppose it — in every party, on both sides of the Brexit divide, in every nation and at every income level. Seven in ten of us want newspapers answerable to a regulator independent of their owners. Almost eight in ten want think-tanks to publish who pays them.
Our petition closes at the end of today, Friday 18 September. Please sign it, and send it to four people before the day is out.
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Please sign and share our petition to ban foreign media ownership: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/760061
And help us cover Campaign costs by donating to our Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/crowdfunder-for-polling-the-publics-view-on-billi