Over on The Friday Show:
Here’s a thought. What happens to the media business if the Conservatives don’t win the election. A hung parliament (the most likely alternative) would be great for newspaper sales, but BBC reform would go on the back burner (the Corporation would in effect govern itself, not necessarily a bad thing).
Nobody would have a clue what to do about ITV regional news (no cross party agreement here), there would be plenty of confused points scoring over internet disconnection, and people would have to pay serious attention to what the Liberal Democrats think. And that’s a party which wants a ‘judicial enquiry’ into reporting methods adopted at the News of the World.
Ofcom would probably get stronger, because, like the BBC, it would nobody obvious to rein it in. But who knows if there would be more money for fast broadband rollout. More policy drift perhaps, or maybe more time for the market to try and come up with an answer to this vexed question.
One other side effect would be the weary stream of I told you so articles discussing how the political influence of The Sun has faded. As if it was quite that influential in determining how people vote in the first place.
But that would be a small price to pay for what could be quite a confusing, but also exciting time in which media policy was genuinely up for grabs.
– Dan 26/02
