Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Wednesday expanded the scope of the UK’s Media Mergers Act, updating it to “reflect modern news consumption habits for the digital age and better protect media freedom and plurality”. announced plans to do so. The current regulatory system only covers television, radio and print publications.
The changes will result in “more stringent public interest measures” for transactions involving the purchase of UK online news publications and news magazines that “may have a negative impact on accurate reporting, freedom of expression and media plurality”. monitoring becomes possible.
Currently, the media merger regime set out in the Enterprise Act 2002 allows the Culture Secretary to: ” and local periodical newspapers published primarily in the UK,” the Labor government stressed.
Mr Nandy launched a consultation seeking views on expanding the scope of the regulation, saying: “Since the Media Merger Regime came into force more than 20 years ago, our laws have not kept up with technology and evolving news consumption habits. That’s why I’m proposing further reforms to protect access to accurate, high-quality news from a variety of sources and ensure media freedom continues. There is.”
He said the update would also cover transactions involving “companies that own online news publications with links to the UK, such as online-only news providers such as HuffPost and the Independent, as well as the online arms of print publications.” Ta.
The proposed changes will not apply retrospectively to past transactions.
