Convergence reviews - or how monopolists extend their analogue empires

Abstract

In this article I argue that monopolists have used the ‘threat’ of an upsetting of the media apple-cart to persuade politicians to grant them extended privileges in their analogue empires, both extending their reach into new markets in which they have (so far unsuccessfully) attempted to extend their dominance, and delaying the onset of real digital convergence. I do so via a review of the convergence reviews of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, focussing on the US and UK. It may provide some lessons for policymakers in the next policy cycle in convergence, intended as simply a warning from legislative and regulatory history. The UK will have a new Communications Bill published in 2012, and the US a general election later in the same year. Australia has concluded its review. I focus on the media mergers that took place in response to decline in the traditional media, focussing on Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, its newspaper monopoly in the UK and Australia and its growth as an analogue entrant into television in the UK and US. This is not simply in response to sensationalist recent coverage, but to the wealth of evidence of the undermining of media regulation uncovered by the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press (Leveson 2012; Evans 2012; Murdoch 2012). I therefore examine convergence reviews from the realpolitik of the merger reviews which have created our media landscape, not the phoney wars of policy reviews (Collins 2010).