Government policies are placing broadcasting pluralism in peril, argues Ann Clwyd

Is there anyone in the Tory Party prepared to speak up for the Broadcasting Act? David Mellor says it has lowered standards. Lord Whitelaw wants to amend it. Ian Lang pleads for the Prime Minister to change it. Even Lady Thatcher may be harbouring second thoughts if her touching adieu to Bruce Gyngell of TV AM, an early casualty of its arbitrary allocation by auction, is anything to go by.

First, the good news. There is only one card-carrying member of the fan club left. Unfortunately it is the Heritage secretary, Peter Brooke.

Mr Brooke is under intense pressure to relax ownership rules to allow independent television companies to amalgamate with each other. There are probably only two ways of making the Act any more damaging than it is at the moment and the Minister is contemplating both.

Currently any alteration to the shape of the industry requires the approval of the Independent Television Commission. This so-called moratorium runs out in less than four months. Unless the Government supports Labour’s call for a simple one clause Bill to extend the moratorium, we shall see the disappearance of some, if not all, of the smaller companies, in much the same way as Tyne Tees has been stripped of any meaningful identity since its take over by Yorkshire TV. This means less local news and fewer programmes of quality produced in the regions.

Why is regional broadcasting important to us? Simply because, for the Labour Party, citizenship is as much a cultural as a political or social issue.

The debate about the regional television companies is about the central place which pluralism has in a democratic society. We wish to defend and extent the wide diversity of regional and cultural identities presently reflected by the media. The move towards more monopolistic control threatens to destroy this diversity at the same time it denies access and democratic control by the public.

Let there be no doubt about the consequences of more concentrated ownership. In June 1992 the ITC approved the Tyne Tees merger. Six months later, 292 employees lost their jobs. Three members of the board also went. In March 1993, Ian Ritchie, Tyne Tees director of programmes and deputy chief executive, resigned after what were said to be heated differences with Clive Leach, the company’s chief executive, over the drive to centralise the merged company. In July this year a further 188 jobs were threatened.

And what about the ITC? The industry’s watchdog watches but waits, appearing distinctly orthodontically challenged, with hardly a bark and never a bite.

If the moratorium is not extended, regional broadcasting will be dealt its death blow. By common consent, the smaller companies over-bid, in some cases massively, to safeguard their franchises.

Commercial realities already have the predators lining up with their chequebooks and their jaws wide open. That could see the end of Anglia, HTV, Border and Grampian.

Workforces will be cut as savings and economies of scale take effect. Broadcast magazine predicts that the ITV companies will lose 1,000 jobs. But the larger companies want to go even further and the signs are that Peter Brooke is about to feed their voracious appetite.

Giants such as Granada and Carlton want him to change the law to allow the large companies to take each other over. Granada’s chief executive, Gerry Robinson, is reported to believe that, within a fairly short time of that happening, instead of the existing 15, there would be just three or four companies left.

I have written to Peter Brooke offering Opposition support for a short Bill to save regional broadcasting. After more than a month I am still waiting to hear whether he is prepared to put principle in front of profit.

* Ann Clwyd is Labour MP for Cynon Valley and front bench spokeswoman on national heritage

Written for Ann Clwyd MP shadow heritage secretary

and first published in Tribune under her name

on Thursday, 16 September 1993