1. LSE Media Policy Project
Expert workshop on policies to
promote media plurality
EU and National Approaches to
Monitoring Media Pluralism
Prof. Dr. Peggy VALCKE
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Ofcom’s approach
in the light of the
EU Media Pluralism Monitor
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2. EU & Media Pluralism
From (failed) harmonisation…
•“The directive that never was”
- Green Paper on pluralism and media concentration 1992
- Studies, Consultation, Follow up 1994
- Draft directive on media ownership 1996 (never published)
- Essence of the approach:
• Legal base: MS ownership rules as impediment to single market
• Criterion: Audience Measurement
• Threshold: 30% (TV or radio), 10% (crossmedia)
• Target: Media controller
• Intervention moment: new licence / renewal of licence / takeover
- Dropped in early 1997 - Sensitive issue!
• European Parliament and ESC continue to push EC for
action (various resolutions, e.g. EP Res. on the risks of violation, in the EU and
especially in Italy, of freedom of expression and information; 2007/2237(INI))
EU & Media Pluralism
…to monitoring! (Liverpool 2005)
• Background: technological and economic developments =>
opportunities and threats for media pluralism
 Urge for: new understanding of / approach to media pluralism
• 2007: EC “3-step approach” on media pluralism:
– Commission Staff Working Document (Jan. 2007)
– Study on concrete and objective indicators (2008-2009)
– Commission Communication (still under consideration)
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/media_taskforce/pluralism/index_en.htm
“Ensuring media pluralism implies all measures that ensure citizens’ access
to a variety of information sources, opinion, voices, etc. in order to form their
opinion without the undue influence of one dominant opinion forming power.”
“Monitoring should ensure a much more substantive, evidence-driven
debate compared with the past, able to pinpoint real concerns and lay to rest
misplaced fears.”
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3. EU & Media Pluralism
MEDIA PLURALISM MONITOR
Practicable monitoring tool to detect threats to pluralism
with differentiated sets of indicators covering pertinent
legal, economic and socio-cultural considerations
• Transparency - Evidence (NO harmonisation of
policies, concepts, regulation...)
Diagnosis, no therapy
• Holistic (no individual case assessment!)
• Unifying different disciplines
• EU standardised
• Risk-based
• User-friendly
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4. Structure MPM
• 6 risk domains (cf. traditional descriptions media pluralism, e.g. CoE)
6 Risk Domains
geographical
pluralism in the basic domain
media
cultural
pluralism in the pluralism of
media media ownership
and control
political
pluralism in the pluralism of
media media types and
genres
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Structure MPM
• Basic domain
– Unjustified restrictions to freedom of expression, no independent
supervision, lack of/insufficient media literacy
• Pluralism of media ownership/control
– High (ownership and audience) concentration in terrestrial TV /
radio / newspapers / Cable/Sat/DSL-TV / magazines / internet
content provision / book publishing; high concentration of cross-
media ownership; vertical integration (bottlenecks in distribution);
transparency of ownership structures
• Pluralism of media types
– Lack of/under-representation of/dominance of media types or
genres: financial parity, audience parity, distribution of public
interest channels (must carry), public’s access to certain content
(e.g. events list, short news reporting)
– Lack of sufficient market resources to support range of media; lack
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of sufficient resources to support PSM
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5. Structure MPM
o Cultural pluralism domain:
• Insufficient representation of European/national/world cultures, insufficient
proportion of independent and in-house production in audiovisual
• Absence or insufficient representation of various cultural and social
groups in the media (content & HR)
• Insufficient system of minority and community media…
o Political pluralism domain:
• Political bias in media (during election campaigns); Politicisation of media
ownership / control; Editorial independence; (In)dependence of PSM and
news services; Pluralism of distribution systems; Citizen activity in online
media
o Geographical pluralism domain:
• High centralisation of national media systems; Insufficient system of local
and regional media (including different types of ownership, investment,
access to networks and platforms)
• Representation of local and regional communities (content & HR)
• Dominance of limited number of information sources for local issues
• Insufficient access to media and distribution systems due to geographic
obstacles (PSM, broadband, newspaper distribution)
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Structure MPM
• Risks measured through 3 types of indicators (166 in total)
– ECONOMIC: assess economic factors having impact on / posing
threats to media pluralism
• e.g. ownership/control of media, industry structure, consolidation and concentration
trends, geographic distribution, revenue distribution, financing, state aid, audience
and advertising shares
 METHOD: C4/8, HHI, ratios of proportionality, financial or audience parity…
– SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC: assess socio-cultural, demographic,
geographic factors having impact on / posing threats to pluralism
• e.g. employment, audience preferences, access of public to data about political
affiliation of media owners, availability of certain media content…
 METHOD: (quantitative) content analysis, standardised sampling method, expert
panel evaluation based on score list/checkpoint list…
– LEGAL: assess existence and effective implementation of legal /
regulatory safeguards against certain threats to media pluralism
 METHOD: analysis of laws, regulations (incl. co/self), case law, press reports…
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6. Structure MPM
• Covering 3 risk areas (> traditional value chain)
– Supply
– Distribution
– Use
• Scored on basis of 3 border values (> risk-based approach)
Red: high risk – need for action
Orange: medium risk – attention point
Green: low risk – no need for action
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Ofcom’s approach
in the light of other
Member States’
monitoring systems
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7. Examples
• Permanent monitoring systems:
 With possibility of taking action, for example:
– Germany: “Vorherrschende Meinungsmacht” (http://www.kek-
online.de)
– Belgium (FR): “significant position” (http://www.csa.be/pluralisme)
 Merely mapping excercise (no sanctions), for example:
– Belgium (NL): annual report on media concentration
(http://www.vlaamseregulatormedia.be/)
– Netherlands: media (concentration) monitor
(http://www.mediamonitor.nl/)
• Permanent news monitoring systems, e.g.:
– Netherlands: “DNN” (the Dutch News Monitor:
http://www.nieuwsmonitor.net/)
– Belgium (NL): “ENA” (electronic news archive;
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http://www.nieuwsarchief.be/)
Germany:
“Vorherrschende Meinungsmacht”
• Unlimited number of TV services as long as no
controlling influence on public opinion (§ 26 Interstate
Broadcasting Agreement)
– Main criterion: audience share (annual average)
– Threshold for presumption: 30% of TV viewers
– Cross-media: 25% share of viewers and a dominant
market position in media relevant related markets or
overall assessment of activities in TV and related
markets suggests influence equivalent to 30% viewer
audience share
– Bonus rules: regional window programs on two largest
nationwide general-interest channels (- 2%); allocation
of transmission time to independent third parties (- 3%)
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8. Germany:
“Vorherrschende Meinungsmacht”
• Sanctions (cases of external and internal growth):
– No new licences / no acquisition
– Relinquish attributable holdings in broadcasters
– Reduce its market position on related, media relevant
markets
– Adopt measures to restore and secure media pluralism:
• allocation of transmission time to independent third parties
• programme council
– In practice, KEK and the dominant broadcaster
negotiate an agreement
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Germany:
interpretation problems
• Deficiencies in data, ‘Durchschnittsfiktion’
• Calculating cross-media influence on public opinion:
‘Suggestivkraft’ (evocative power), ‘Breitenwirkung’
(broad effect), ‘Aktualität’ (topicality of news)
 Discussion about appropriate weighting coefficient (Axel
Springer/ProSiebenSAT.1: press = 2/3 of TV)
• Influence of Internet and its relevance for public
opinion formation; interplay between media
• See: Third KEK Report 2007 (“Cross-Media Relations: A
Challenge for Media Concentration Control”), Fourth KEK
Report 2010 (“On the Way towards Securing Plurality
across Different Media”)
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9. Belgium: significant position
• Art. 6 Broadcasting Act French Community:
TRANSPARENCY
– Towards the public: All editors of broadcasting services have to make
available ‘basic information’ to the public in order to allow it to form its
opinion about the value of information and ideas distributed in the
programmes
– Towards the regulator: “in order to ensure transparency of ownership
and control structures, as well as their level of independence, editors,
distributors and network operators are obliged to send the regulator
(CSA) the following information:
• identification of shareholders (and % of shareholding)
• interest of these shareholders in other broadcasting or media
companies
• identification of natural or legal persons active in program
supporting businesses, contributing to a substantial level to the 17
production of programmes.
Belgium: Significant Position
• Art. 7 Broadcasting Act French Community:
monitoring of pluralism
– Who: CSA
– Whom: editors or distributors (single undertaking
or several controlled by common shareholder)
– Principle: exercise of a “SIGNIFICANT
POSITION” in the audiovisual sector shall not
impair freedom of public to access a
“PLURALISTIC OFFER OF BROADCASTING
SERVICES”
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10. Belgium: Significant Position
• Step 1: “SIGNIFICANT POSITION”?
– Presumption of Significant Position :
• 1. natural or legal person holds more than 24% of
the capital of 2 editors of TV services (directly or
indirectly)
• 2. idem for radio
• 3. several editors of TV services, directly or
indirectly controlled by the same natural or legal
person, have an audience share of 20%
• 4. idem for radio
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Belgium: Significant Position
• Step 2: evaluation of pluralism of offer of the
editor or distributor -> threat to public’s
freedom to access a “PLURALISTIC
OFFER”?
= media offer produced by plurality of independent
and autonomous media companies and
representing the largest possible diversity of
opinions and ideas (based on definition of CoE)
= assessment regarding possible repercussions of
significant position for the diversity of broadcasting
services being offered in the relevant market
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11. Belgium: Significant Position
• Methodology
1) plurality of independent and 2) representing the largest
autonomous media companies possible diversity of opinions
= STRUCTURAL PLURALISM and ideas
= CONTENT DIVERSITY
i) A plurality of media (number of
media available in French
Community) iii) Plurality of opinion (analysis
ii) Independence and autonomy of of the news offer in -radio-
media (ownership structure of sector)
private -radio- broadcaster and iv) Plurality of ideas (analysis of
HHI for television, radio and other programmes in -radio-
press sectors sector)
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Belgium: Significant Position
• Step 3: CONSULTATION between CSA and
undertaking(s) concerned
to reach an agreement (‘protocol’) with a view to
restoring pluralism in the market
CSA can consult competition authorities
if agreement cannot be reached or is not
effectively implemented within period of 6
months: sanctions by CSA
• warning and/or publication of decision of CSA
• suspension of license
• revocation of one or more of the operator’s licenses
• fine 22
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12. Concluding Remarks
• Trend towards / need for more sophisticated systems of
measuring / monitoring media pluralism / plurality
(consumer versus citizen)
• Ownership matters, but pluralism entails much more
comprehensive assessment, looking also at internal
pluralism, content diversity, regulatory safeguards (e.g.
for editorial independence), relationship between media
and political actors
• Growing importance of measuring actual USE
• Cross-media assessment increasingly important in light
of convergence (recycling of content)
 Weighting coefficient for different media? Yes, if based on
empirical data (no generalisation)
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 Impact of Internet?
Thank you for your attention!
Prof. Dr. Peggy Valcke
Director Interdisciplinary Centre for Law & ICT (ICRI-IBBT)
Professor of Law K.U.Leuven & H.U.Brussels,
Guest Professor University of Tilburg
peggy.valcke@law.kuleuven.be
NEW
@ K.U.Leuven
http://www.law.kuleuven.be/icri/psiml/
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