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Media concentrations in Europe, by Bernd Malzanini

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The danger which could result from transborder media concentrations should not be overlooked. Every democratic commonwealth imperatively calls for multifaceted information. Diversity of opinion in the media and broadcasting services is therefore vital, both for constitutional law as well as for freedom of information for citizens. The idea of ensuring pluralism is expressly mentioned in the EU charter of Basic Rights decreed in 2001. Only a short time ago, the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) pointed out the importance of freedom for broadcasting services for the free, individual and public formation of opinions, and emphasized the task of the legislator to create an arrangement which ensures that the diversity of existing opinions are able to find expression as widely and completely as possible in broadcasting services. Precisely the broadcasting service is still of particular importance due to its wide-ranging effect, up-to-date transmission and suggestive force. Precautions to protect media diversity must continue to be offered due to the risk presented by media concentrations for public formation of opinions.

A while ago, Italy exemplified that the dangers pointed out here remain a threat even in these times of yield-orientated financial investors. A communication concern calculated that the manifold media owner and former state president, Silvio Berlusconi, appeared a total of 3 hours and six minutes in Italian television during the first two weeks of 2006 in his voting campaign - not including radio interviews and media releases. The opposition leader, Romano Prodi, appeared for all of eight minutes on television. This shows that media is deliberately used by those who have this media at their disposal. It is true that there are not many media owners such as Berlusconi, Murdoch, Axel Springer and Leo Kirch left, whose consciousness of broadcasting certainly governs or governed their media activities.
The large company mergers, however, hold enough potential for further conflict and misuse: newspaper products, online activities and broadcasting services which were provided by rival companies, are now uniformly supplied by one provider or a provider group. Cable network operators become broadcasting service organizers, purchasing programme and sports rights and controlling access to their platforms. Telecommunication companies, which partly belong to the state, participate in broadcasting services. The large media concerns have their finger in the work of what were up to now independent producers, leading to depletion of production diversity. Satellite and cable platforms develop gatekeeper positions and control the access to the consumer via the introduction of so-called conditional access systems, navigation systems, electronic programme guides and addressable end devices (for more see: www.kek-online.de and www.digitaler-zugang.de).

Should the media fulfil their task as fourth state authority, their public function, their information function and their criticism and control function, this would call for pluralism and transparency. In principle, the presence of media concentrations does not yet mean the absence of diversity of opinion, as long as the protagonists maintain certain rules for quality assurance. In principle, however, one could say that media conglomerates which are active across the borders do not widen freedom of opinion and information, but could rather lead to homogenisation of content at a European level. An example of this are programmes such as "Deutschland sucht den Superstar” (Germany's search for a superstar, "Wer wird Millionär?” (Who wants to be a millionaire)? and "Big Brother”, which are presented in other countries in the same form but under different titles. As well as the uniform production of programme formats, one must view the uniform source of "raw material" for news and information programmes, for example via news agencies which belong to the concerns, as being problematic.

Here, one has good reasons to assert that the media comes up against language barriers more quickly than conventional goods and other services. The formation of opinions within the population still takes place at a national level, and in spite of European unification attempts, one cannot yet speak of a total European opinion formation and therefore of a total European influence on opinions.

Fact is, however, that transnationally operating media concerns have power over the market accordingly, and are therefore able to force national media companies from this market. This problem should be confronted with a pan-European media concentration law, at the latest when the power over opinions resulting from this leads to a strengthening of the power over opinions in individual national opinion markets.
It should not be forgotten that television programmes, too, already target a large number of Polish, Russian or Turkish-speaking proportions of the population across the borders, outside their countries of origin, possibly leading to a one-sided influence in diversity of opinion in the respective target country.

However, experts continue to debate on whether the EU even has the authority to ensure diversity of opinions. Before this regulation is clarified, however, the creation of transparency would give a first overview of possible dangerous situations. A monitoring system at European level in collaboration with the national media supervisory authority could prove suitable for this task (see e.g.: www.mediamonitor.nl and http://ec.europa.eu).

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