U.K. GOVERNMENT ENTERS FRAY OVER MURDOCH’S BSKYB GRAB

Amid growing complaints that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is gaining far too much control over the British media, Vince Cable, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, has stepped in and ordered media regulator OFCOM to investigate the “plurality issues” raised by Murdoch’s efforts to buy the 61 percent of satellite operator BSkyB that it does not already own. Murdoch’s four national newspapers already represent 37 percent of newspaper circulation in the U.K. In the House of Lords on Thursday Liberal Democrat Lord Razzall observed that News Corp is now the sole supplier of news to commercial radio stations in the country, while Lord Puttnam (a.k.a. film producer David Puttnam), a member of the Labor Party, complained that the level of media concentration already in the hands of Murdoch in the U.K. would not be permitted in any other country.