In the past both Labour and the Tories have rather blatantly helped out their one-time buddy Rupert Murdoch by refusing to measure and place limits on cross-media ownership, something which even the ligh-touch regulation of the USA does. This has helped him to build up both the dominant TV network and share of the national press.
Read the following article carefully though and what comes out is a disappointing ideological attack on the BBC more than News Corp - the Tory Party has long been ideologically opposed to the BBC, seeing anything state-owned as problematic and privatised/privately owned companies as superior.
Media regulation could well be a big issue at the next general election.

SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/11/jeremy-hunt-ofcom-media-ownership

Jeremy Hunt to ask Ofcom to measure cross-media ownership in UK

Culture secretary plans to use results to set limits for market share held by Rupert Murdoch and the BBC

Dan Sabbagh 11.9.11

• 

  Huw Edwards on the BBC News set. The corporation's news coverage reaches 81% of the UK population each week

   

  
  

  Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, will this week ask the media regulator Ofcom to establish an agreed means of measuring cross-media power in the UK and consider whether to set a limit for the market share of Rupert Murdoch or the BBC to cap their influence over British media.
  In the wake of the row surrounding Murdoch's abortive bid for BSkyB, the minister wants Ofcom to create a common currency for measuring media ownership that would stretch across TV, newspapers, radio and other media. His ambition is to use this to introduce a new set of cross-media ownership rules.
  At present, the only restriction prevents any newspaper owner who accounts for more than 20% of total circulation – such as Murdoch's News Corporation – from owning more than 20% of ITV.
  Significantly, Hunt wants Ofcom to examine whether it would be "practical or advisable to set absolute limits on news market share" – a restriction that is as likely to affect the BBC as News Corp.
  Hunt, who will speak on Wednesday evening to broadcast executives at the Royal Television Society festival in Cambridge, is expected to say that Britain needs to agree "a new framework for media plurality in a cross-media world".
  He is expected to add: "We first need to better understand how we should measure plurality across platforms. I intend to ask Ofcom to examine what the options are for measuring media plurality in our digital age, and recommend the best approach."
  Ofcom was asked to review News Corp's proposed takeover of BSkyB under "media plurality" grounds last autumn, the first time any UK media merger had been examined in such a fashion, amid complaints from rivals that the enlarged company would dominate British media.
  News Corp's newspapers had a 37% market share at the time, which would have been combined with the largest broadcaster in BSkyB if the merger had gone through.
  With no agreed methodology to fall back on, Ofcom devised various ways of measuring cross-media power and concluded that a combined News Corp and BSkyB would have too great an influence over news. Ofcom decided to measure "minutes of media use" to devise a common currency embracing newspapers and broadcasters.
  It concluded that the privately owned News Corp, when combined with Sky, would account for a 22% "share of reference" for British news and that the combined company would reach 51% of all Britons with its news each week.
  That would have made News Corp easily the largest commercial news provider in the UK.
  However, Ofcom's data revealed the BBC was easily the largest supplier of news. Its share of reference was measured at 37%, with 81% of the population consuming BBC news each week.
  But, unlike Murdoch's newspapers – which backed the Conservatives at the last election – the publicly funded BBC is politically impartial.
  Ofcom is expected to take several months to complete the exercise.
  Its results will be shared with Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry into the regulation of the media.