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New analysis has painted a worrying picture of the UK’s media landscape, with oligarchs owning a larger slice of the pie than ever.
The latest report into media ownership in the UK from campaign and research group the Media Reform Coalition (MRC) shows the situation has become markedly worse from the last time it carried out similar analysis in 2021, with even fewer companies controlling larger shares of the media landscape.
The MRC found that three companies still control much of the print and online media landscape in the UK.
The Daily Mail Group (DMG), News UK and Reach own 90 per cent of the UK’s national newspaper market over all, placing control of the press in the hands of just a handful of oligarchs.
They also have 40 per cent of the total audience share of the top 50 online news brands.
On top of this, Russian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev owns the Evening Standard, and has the largest shareholding in the Independent.
The forthcoming auction of the Telegraph titles and Spectator magazine also risks further reducing the diversity of voices in the UK’s national press.
Potential bidders for these titles include the Daily Mail General Trust and a co-owner of GB News, which are already making big moves in the market.
The situation with local news is no better either.
The MRC report notes that local journalism is “in peril” in its report.
Around 2.5 million people live in areas without a single local newspaper, and across print and online publishing more and more local titles are being closed or consolidated into generic ‘hub’ websites, producing little to no news in the areas they claim to cover.
“Despite the launch of a number of independent and hyper-local outlets, the absence of sustainable funding and support for local public interest journalism means the sector remains shackled to the commercial imperatives of a few apathetic publishing giants”, the report says.
Calling for corporate media’s power to be curbed, the MRC conclude: “At a time of intensifying political instability and widening economic inequalities, we urgently need a programme of genuinely progressive reform aimed at creating a freer, fairer and more accountable media.
“And if we want to lay the foundations for a media system that serves and represents the full diversity of the UK population, its opinions, its communities, its constituent nations and indeed its divisions, then we need to take action now to curb media power.”
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