I certainly hope the Tories do not use thatcherite policy with regards to the media…in other words plattering it up to the highest bidder.

However, I would sy the greatest threat to the independence and freedom of media to the public is still the PCC, and to a certain extent ofcom. Until these regulators are improved, Murdoch will have his way whether it be New Labour, Conservative or the Monster Raving Loony Party in power.

At least if Mandelson won the next election for Labour he would see through the Murdoch masterplan, and limit it at least.

What I would do if I were the Tories would be to turn the Beeb into a co-op whose members were the licence-payers.

The governors would then be elected by the members, just as the directors of any co-op are. They might or might not be elected on a platform of selling the whole or any part to Murdoch or anyone else, just as they might or might not be elected on a platform of preserving the Beeb’s political independence.

I am beggared if I can see a downside to the Tories in this wheeze, but hopefully someone here will produce a coherent argument against it. Or maybe not.

(Pedantically speaking, I think James Murdoch is the beneficiary of nepotism rather than patronage…?)

@3 – is that what they are proposing? Sounds very sensible.
Ooops – just re-read your comment.
Of course they’re not – far too sensible for them.

Needless to say the BBC shoots itself in the foot yet again when the head of “vision” claims that we “wouldn’t understand” the amounts they pay the “stars” and that it might result in their having to pay more…well I will bet a pound to a penny that it will reveal that the BBC overpays relative to the commercial sector.

SKY dominates the press pay TV media and the BBC increasingly dominates free media in web and other TV. Murdoch however achieves his dominance on the back of viewer demand and paying his own way whereas the BBC relies on a hand-out paid for by the public. Not necessarily anything too wrong with that when the BBC stuck to public-service broadcasting and high quality content that would rarely be delivered elsewhere. That situation has changed rapidly and it now tries to compete with the mass market spending less and less on quality and more and more on bizarre ventures such as buying lonely planet.
It would also have more sympathy it was less overtly left-wing (if not labour) biased.

[5] Would you have even bothered to post that if the BBC followed the political line of the Murdoch press? In fact, you work for Murdoch, don’t you, AJ?

I’m proud to say that I don’t work in media or politics. Never have and doubt I would ever want to.

The solution is radio spectrum anarchy. Allow anyone to use the airwaves for anything they want short of comissioning crimes, and spamming in order to block out competitiors/alternatives. There is plenty of digital spectrum to go around for everyone and the only monopoly/oligopolgy possible is a state licensed one.

I agree with Nick and Mike K.

But I can’t help but feel that this country needs to enter cultural destruction before it even begins to use its brain.

I can’t see who wins with ‘free marketism’…

I don’t!

cjcjc: patronage and nepotism can be one and the same thing.