Labour leader demands a reduction on Murdoch's UK media empire
Labour leader Ed Miliband has spoken out against the Murdoch empire, saying that he has “too much power of British public life”. Speaking in The Observer, Miliband criticised the market share which Murdoch has in the UK media. “I think that we’ve got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News. I think it’s unhealthy because that amount of power in one person’s hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous.”
News International, which is a subsidiary of News Corporation, owns three national newspapers (The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times). News Corp. does not own Sky, they have a 39.1% share in BSkyB. The takeover bid from News Corp. to acquire full control of BSkyB was dropped last week after major opposition in wake of the phone hacking scandal.
Rupert Murdoch and his son James will face the media select committee on Tuesday. Former CEO of News International, Rebekah Brooks, will also be facing tough questions from the committee.