The Tories have been trying to capitalise on the government's troubles, but their media policy is no more coherent
The government is struggling to salvage anything at all from Lord Carter's digital economy bill – and the thousands of hours of Ofcom and industry effort that lie behind it. There is a degree of political consensus on the issue of online piracy but little conviction that what the bill proposes will prove fair or effective in tackling it. Meanwhile, the £6-a-year tax on fixed-line phones to fund otherwise 'uneconomic' high-speed broadband rollout is fiercely opposed by the Tories, and the government has kicked its own proposal to top-slice the licence fee into the very long grass of 2016 and beyond.
Which brings us to the one major proposal that still, formally at least, remains alive – the plan to pilot the provision of local news on ITV in Scotland, Wales and north-east England via so-called independently financed news consortiums (IFNCs). But this too is running into trouble as the Tories have stepped up their opposition to it. Indeed, it is quite widely believed – not least at ITV – that the IFNC proposals will be derailed by the general election.
Throw in the somewhat intemperate attack by Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, on Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, and Bradshaw's very public criticism of the whole idea (his government's) of the trust – which earned him a rebuke from No 10 – and Labour's media policy is, to put it politely, in disarray.
The Tories, meanwhile, have been doing their best to take advantage of the government's troubles. But when you look a little closer they don't appear to have a coherent media policy either. True, they are against top-slicing, describing it in terms – a threat to the BBC's independence, and so on – that will have been music to the corporation's ears. Or rather, they were until George Osborne said he planned to raid the licence fee to pay for broadband. Jeremy Hunt, Bradshaw's shadow, said he would 'tear up' the BBC charter and do away with the BBC Trust. And then said he wouldn't, because to do so mid-term would threaten the BBC's independence. More recent proposals to radically reform the trust will first need its agreement, but more worryingly appear to herald just the sort of political interference in the BBC's operations the party wants us to believe it rejects.
The Tories are opposed to IFNCs – and especially plans to spend licence fee cash on them. They talk instead of creating a more benign regulatory environment for commercial broadcasters, in the hope that ITV may not give up on regional news just yet. But practically, doing away with the contract rights renewal (CRR) mechanism governing ad rates – the major regulatory problem ITV faces – will require primary legislation that is sure to be highly controversial and take a long time to enact. So what are their proposals for securing plurality in quality TV news in the nations and regions? They don't really have any. They support the idea of local TV-based multimedia services but have no firm plans for funding them.
They set up a committee of industry heavyweights under Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general, in the hope that a suite of practical policies would emerge pre-election. It was supposed to report last autumn, but the leaked idea of replacing the licence fee with direct taxation ( a move Dyke has championed before) was opposed by other members of the group and has already been rejected by David Cameron. Months of wrangling have ensued to avoid the whole report being sunk by a headline-making proposal that will immediately be dismissed by the party. The Tories are enjoying the government's media muddles but show every sign of being potentially only weeks away from some of their own.
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