Media Plurality: Communications Committee Report

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of Tradeston (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare a past interest. I was chairman of Scottish Television when we bought the Herald and the Glasgow Evening Times newspapers in 1996 and created the Scottish Media Group. To complement our ITV franchise for central Scotland, we then merged with Grampian Television, covering the north of Scotland. Our combined ownership of newspapers and broadcasters caused understandable public concern. Both transactions were cleared by the competition authorities, but I was left in no doubt about the sensitivities of the media market in Scotland, which is quite distinctive.

Watching the independence referendum from south of the border—as, indeed, I did—your Lordships may have been perplexed to see banner-waving crowds outside BBC Scotland alleging pro-union bias. Inevitably, the channel 3 broadcaster, STV, was also accused of bias by yes and no campaigners. Both broadcasters will, I trust, keep their nerve and their impartiality. That balance may be difficult to maintain longer term.

Unlike public service broadcasters, newspapers are, of course, more partisan. Despite almost half of their readers voting yes, most Scottish editions of the UK papers opposed independence, as did the locally owned newspapers the Scotsman, the Dundee Courier and the Aberdeen Press and Journal, which resulted in a pro-union press consensus denounced as undemocratic by nationalists. Given such tensions in the relatively small Scottish media market, I welcome the committee’s recommendations that plurality policy for the UK should also encompass the devolved nations. The Government are tasking Ofcom to develop indicators and frameworks to guide market assessments of future media transactions and concentrations of ownerships. Ofcom’s assessment of the Scottish media market will be awaited with keen interest.