‘The shadow culture minister, Ed Vaizey, has denied that Conservative media policy is dictated by Rupert Murdoch and executives at his News Corporation media empire, dismissing the suggestion as “completely laughable”.
Vaizey told delegates at a Westminster Media Forum event in London that Tory policy on the BBC, in particular, has been “wilfully misrepresented”.
He singled out a column in the Guardian last week by Jonathan Freedland [HERE], which argued that the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, had decided to axe services in an attempt to prevent the Tories from making more swingeing cuts if they form the next government. Freedland also said Thompson was right to fear the Conservatives would do this because of “two words: Rupert Murdoch”.
Vaizey responded today: “If a Conservative has any kind of critique of the BBC then somehow this a ‘Sky agenda’. I noticed that in Monday’s Media Guardian James Purnell, a former BBC employee, said BBC2 should only broadcast in the evenings. Nobody has written that to understand where James Purnell is coming from you just have to understand two words: Rupert Murdoch.”
He added: “There is a legitimate debate to be had about the [size] of the BBC.” The culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, had conceded as much, Vaizey argued.
Conservative opposition to the BBC Trust’s decision to close educational service BBC Jam demonstrated that the party did not have the corporation in its sights, he said.
“You shouldn’t lose sight of the fact the BBC has massive public support,” Vaizey said. “The idea that somehow there is any agenda to do down the BBC is completely laughable.”
Tory policy on the BBC was straightforward, he added. A Conservative government would replace the BBC Trust with an independent regulator and force it to be “more transparent about its finances”.
He said news organisations need to know how much the corporation spends on its news website in order to make judgments on how best to run their own online businesses.
Vaizey reiterated that Tory media policy is dictated by a “de-regulatory approach” but insisted he “liked Ofcom”.
The Conservative leader, David Cameron, last year set out plans to reduce Ofcom’s size and strip it of its policy-making powers.
“We felt there was a leadership vacuum from DCMS [the department of culture, media and sport] so Ofcom was driving policy. With a new and energetic Conservative government you would get leadership on media policy and Ofcom would return to its regulatory role,” Vaizey said.
He also said the Conservatives have no plans to privatise Channel 4 and defended the party’s proposals to fund rollout of high-speed broadband to rural areas with licence-fee money currently earmarked to meet the cost of digital switchover as “a perfectly sensible and intellectually coherent proposal”.
Vaizey added that the principle of using licence-fee money to fund other projects was now well-established.’
Original article HERE.
