Regulatory Theory cw2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Regulatory Theory cw2 - Essay Example That made it necessary to merge with British Satellite Broadcasting and that is how a new entity came into existence called BSkyB. Currently, BSkyB is the most dominating company in the British pay-TV market. By owning 100 percent of BSkyB, Rupert Murdock is likely to have a dominant role in the British print and electronic media that subsequently may play a critical role in influencing major government economic and political policy issues. Rogers (2003) sees the mass media channels such as TV, newspapers, radio in a different perspective as mass media have the capacity to reach a large audience quickly, spread information and alter weakly held attitudes. Thus, too much concentration of media power in one hand or group of people could be detrimental as it may even affect the plural fabric of the society. It is a fact that some 30 years ago the newspapers such as ‘The Times’ and ‘Sunday Times’ were allowed to have a control by Rupert Murdock even though at that time he owned other print publications such as ‘The News of the World’ and ‘The Sun’. The reasons were given that it was necessary in view of the likely closure of these two print media if matter were referred to the MMC. In 1990, Sky TV and the British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) were merged for the reasons that both were making losses and that was the only alternative to save both of them (Douglas, 2010). In a current scenario, pay TVs continue to expand in size and BSkyB with around10 million subscribers in its fold and revenues that is 2-3 times larger than its nearest rivals BBC and ITV has a dominant position in the market. That means that complete buyout of BSkyB will place Rupert in an enviable position to exert considerable influence in the national media (Douglas, 2010). On this acquisition efforts, competition such as BBC, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and BT wrote to Vince Cable urging him to initiate necessary