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August 24, 2015

Corbyn signals intention to tackle Murdoch’s concentration of media ownership

By Dominic Ponsford

Rupert Murdoch’s concentration of media ownership looks set to remain a concern of the Labour party if leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn in successful.

He told the FT in an interview: "I think there is far too much concentration in the hands of too few and so I would look at that again. Diversity in media is something that is intrinsic to a democratic society. We do not want the whole media owned by one person."

The Labour general election manifesto earlier this year included a vague promise to “take steps to protect the principle of media plurality, so that no media outlet can get too big”.

The Media Reform Coalition would like to see media ownership capped at 20 or 30 per cent in any market.

A 30 per cent bar would hit Rupert Murdoch’s News UK which publises 32 per cent of national daily newspaper circulation audited by ABC in the UK and 34.5 per cent of the Sunday market.

However, when online readership is taken into account Daily Mail and General Trust is the dominant UK newspaper publisher.

Plurality campaigners exclude the BBC because they believe it has sufficient governance safeguards in place to stop it abusing its position.

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