Communications Bill in 2002 – and in
the European Union, with some refer-
Media Ownership
written by Gillian Doyle
reviewed by Richard Collins
Gillian Doyle’s timely book on media
ownership regulation addresses a con-
temporary policy issue of high sa-
lience. Ownership regulation is under
review in several jurisdictions: for ex-
ample in Australia, Canada, the UK
and, as Doyle reminds us, the European
Union dossier remains open. Why be
concerned about ownership and why
the contemporary salience of the issue?
Doyle provides clear answers to these
questions. First, media ownership mat-
ters because of the importance of the
media in political and public life –
ownership of media enterprises con-
fers power denied to owners of other
types of enterprise. Citing a character-
istically pithy comment from the “Fi-
nancial Times” Doyle goes to the heart
of the issue “without his newspaper
he’s just another millionaire, With it,
he can knock on the door of 10 Down-
ing Street” [the UK Prime Minister’s
residence] (p. 7). And the more concen-
trated the media the greater the power.
Second, media ownership is under re-
view because new media and new me-
dia technologies have seemed to re-
shape markets and, perhaps, have
dispersed and diffused the power me-
dia ownership confers. In many mar-
kets, more television channels are
available than ever before, entry barri-
ers have fallen (not just because of tech-
www.mediajournal.org
nological change but also because of
liberalisation) and the Internet both
disintermediates, enabling consumers
to access primary sources across the
world, and also integrates markets that
hitherto were clearly separated – eg ra-
dio on the web.
However, Doyle seeks to persuade us
that ownership still requires regula-
tion. Although, curiously, she gives
little attention to one important and
widely generalised form of ownership
regulation – national ownership regu-
lation. For her it’s concentration of
ownership that’s important: the intrin-
sic economic characteristics of the me-
dia mean that “Curbs on ownership ....
Are indispensable safeguards for plu-
ralism and democracy” (p. 179). The
core of her argument is that the inher-
ent high returns to economies of scale,
(high first copy, low second and subse-
quent copy costs in print and the very
low marginal costs of additional units
of consumption – an extra viewer/lis-
tener or extra minute of viewing/listen-
ing – in broadcasting), means that
there is an inherent tendency towards
concentration in media markets. This
tendency is reinforced by other charac-
teristics of the media and communica-
tions sectors. Notably by potential
economies of scope (particularly in text
based media); the importance of cross
platform promotion (eg plugs for list-
ings journals on broadcast television);
and the power to lever power in one
market into neighbouring markets (eg,
control of gateway facilities into con-
tent distribution) which f lows from
vertical integration.
“Media Ownership” is organised
around two themes. Narratives of the
evolution of media ownership regula-
tion in two jurisdictions (the UK dur-
ing the 1990s – ie ending before publi-
cation of the Government’s Draft
© 2002 – JMM – The International Journal on Media Management – Vol. 4 – No. 4
ences to Council of Europe initiatives)
and analysis of the goals of media own-
ership regulation – pluralism and di-
versity (though not of national owner-
ship) – and of the economics of the
media. Doyle argues (echoing themes
in the author’s “Understanding Media
Economics” 2002) that the economic
characteristics of the media engender
concentrated ownership. And, because
concentrated ownership is likely to be
hostile to achievement of public policy
goals, ownership regulation is re-
quired. Doyle usefully teases out many
of the key economic relationships that
must be understood to assess whether
regulation is required and, if so, what
sort of regulation promises to be effec-
tive.
The author considers three types of
media concentration – horizontal
(common ownership of several firms/
products in the same market), vertical
(along the supply chain for a single
product) and diagonal (cross media
ownership). All may arise out of own-
ers’ desire to maximise market power
(whether for economic or political rea-
sons or both) and each has, for Doyle,
differing levels of potential economic
efficiency. Horizontal concentration
clearly fits Doyle’s argument from
economies of scale and poses particu-
lar regulatory problems, because regu-
lating against concentrated ownership
may be regulating against economic ef-
ficiency. Vertical concentration is an
internalisation of functions within the
firm that could, potentially, be
outsourced. This, for Doyle, poses a dif-
ferent type of problem though I think
she does not consider sufficiently the
potential for this different type of prob-
lem (potential for anti-competitive
behaviour, levering power in one mar-
ket area of the supply chain into an-
other) to be addressed by a different
kind of regulation – behavioural com-
petition regulation rather than ex ante
structural regulation. Generally, the
289
author prefers strong ex ante controls
to ex post competition regulation but,
particularly in the case of vertical own-
ership concentration, it’s not clear
why. Diagonal concentration poten-
tially realises economies of scope but
Doyle is sceptical of whether such
economies are real. She offers alterna-
tive explanations, notably management
hubris and risk spreading, of diagonal
concentration and her reasoning con-
vinces in the main case, UK newspaper/
broadcasting cross ownership, she con-
siders. But she does not explain why
risk spreading should be confined to
the media sector nor the extent to
which diagonal concentration (eg in
the UK) has been attractive because of
market structures created by regula-
tion.
In considering remedies, Doyle rec-
ognises that market size matters a lot.
There is an obvious difficulty to devis-
ing effective and appropriate EU regu-
lation when the disparity in size of
Member States’ national markets is so
large (p. 161). But she’s almost silent on
the intractable problems of defining
markets and deciding which media
should be included (and whether they
all count equally) when ownership
regulation is to be considered. How-
ever, the author makes clear that mar-
ket structure, as well as market size,
counts and acknowledges that large,
concentrated, firms may make for
product diversity (maximising returns
by supplying several markets through
differentiated products) whereas a
market supplied by firms of diverse
ownership may display less product
diversity (the Hotelling effect). Though,
because the author is clear that her
preferences lie with diversified owner-
ship, this trade off is not as fully con-
sidered as some readers would like. It
is, of course, a notorious failing of re-
viewers to point to aspects of a subject
they would have considered but which
the author has not. But it’s perhaps
worth observing that Doyle constructs
her discussion rather conventionally
290 © 2002 – JMM – The International Journal on Media Management – Vol. 4 – No. 4
and follows the definition of the field Rating
of earlier legislators and commenta-
tors. Her discussion, glancing refer- Rating Criteria Rating
ences aside, focuses on ex ante regula-
Theoretical Approach / Methodology +++
tion of private firms. This leaves out
the possible problems posed by public Structure ++++
sector firms (the BBC, to name one case
Depth of the Analysis +++
in point, has 53% of the UK radio and
38% of the UK TV market) and of copy- Contribution of new Knowledge +++
right (monopoly rights in content – an
Applicability ++ +
area of growing importance in the
media value chain). Likewise, Doyle Clarity and Style of Writing ++++
does not fully develop, in her discus-
Rating Points: excellent: +++++ poor: +
sion of solutions, the role of competi-
tion law, (which not all will agree is
“less likely to achieve consistency and
equality than clearly drawn media and Sage, London, 2002
cross media ownership limits” p. 113)
of subsidies and professional/editorial ISBN 0-07619-6680-3/0-07619-6681-1 (pbk)
codes.
However, as Doyle rightly observes,
ownership regulation is a research lite Review Author
zone. There are too few empirical stud-
ies and the author tellingly observes Richard Collins
that UK policy is “characterised from Open University, U.K.
beginning to end by lack of proper in- r.e.collins@open.ac.uk
formation gathering or analysis” (p.
107). Doyle’s “Media Ownership” cer-
tainly cannot be so accused and the
author provides some illuminating
quotes from her, unidentified, UK
sources. This contribution to research
and the clarity of Gillian Doyle’s writ-
ing make “Media Ownership” a good
introduction to some central aspects of
media regulation which will suit well
MBA and good undergraduate stu-
dents.
www.mediajournal.org