Posts Tagged ‘Rupert Murdoch’
Cable takes on Murdoch, and looks set for a first round defeat (updated)
December 21st, 2010
I don’t usually delve into breaking stories, but this one is a meeting of the worlds of Government and Media, and looks set to have significant impact on the UK Cabinet, and potentially News Corp in the UK, so forgive me on this one occasion.
As you may have seen, this afternoon news broke that The UK’s Business Secretary, Vince Cable, indicated that he would seek to block Rupert Murdoch from taking over British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). In fact as you can hear in the Daily Telegraph’s recording, Cable seems to take on a whole raft of issues in what he thought was a discussion with constituents, but turned out to be a discussion with under cover reporters from the Daily Telegraph.
Yesterday, Cable had already been quoted attacking the UK’s Coalition Government, but this disclosure was held back. The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that Cable said: “Can I be very frank with you … I have a nuclear option, it’s like fighting a war. They know I have nuclear weapons, but I don’t have any conventional weapons. If they push me too far then I can walk out of the Government and bring the Government down and they know that.”
This afternoon, further details of the conversation were released confirming Cable also attacked Rupert Murdoch, saying: “You may wonder what is happening with the Murdoch press. I have declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we’re going to win.”
“I didn’t politicise it, because it is a legal question, but he [Murdoch] is trying to take over BSkyB, you probably know that. He has minority shares … And he wants a majority. And a majority-control would give him a massive stake.
“I have blocked it, using the powers that I have got. And they are legal powers that I have got. I can’t politicise it, but for the people who know what is happening, this is a big thing. His whole empire is now under attack. So there are things like that, that being in Government … All we can do in opposition is protest.”
Murdoch’s attempt to buy BSkyB outright is currently under scrutiny by Ofcom who were due to report to Cable in the next few weeks.
To date, Cable has been generally liked, and his position in the Government is certainly a crucial role, but can he continue after these comments? As i write, the Prime Minister is believed to be in conference with senior members of the Cabinet, who are likely to make an announcement later today. however, i can’t seem him surviving the expected backlash.
Before the News Corp-related quotes came out, Nick Clegg said his Business Secretary was “right to be embarrassed” about remarks The Daily Telegraph did publish, and David Cameron confirmed Cable had been “very apologetic” when the Cabinet met this morning, but i expect harsher words this evening.
News Corp for its part has commented; “News Corporation is shocked and dismayed at the reports of Mr Cable’s comments. They raise serious questions about fairness and due process.”
In fairness, this comment may force the Government’s hand, as competition law stipulates that Media Corp’s acquisition must be cleared by the Business Secretary. Mr Cable is supposed to judge whether the proposed buy-out would harm the media industry, after taking advice from the regulatory authorities. So how can he now be considered impartial?
So, will this cost Cable his job? In most other roles i don’t think it would even be a question, his position is going to be extremely difficult after these comments, and that’s without counting Media Corp’s considerable political reach. The rumour mill is already indicating Cable will resign.
However, he has been painted as a key part of the Government’s response to the economic downturn, so he will be difficult to remove easily.
This whole scandal really was of Cable’s own making, and if PR has taught me anything, it’s that nothing is off the record and to expect anything you say to come out at some point. It seems this basic advice escaped Cable on this occasion.
* Update, as of 18.00 21st December, Vince Cable will continue as Business Secretary, but will take no further part in the decision over News Corporation’s proposed takeover of BSkyB, which will be handled by The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
In a brief statement Cable confirmed: “I fully accept the decision of the prime minister and deputy prime minister. I deeply regret the comments I made and apologise for the embarrassment that I have caused the government.”
For full updates, i recommend the Guardian’s politics Live blog.
Google, News Corp and a bit of advice for restaurants
December 4th, 2009
The Google - News Corp debate has been raging this week, and while at first I made the decision not to add to the many, many, many opinions on this issue, after a debate with a colleague earlier today, I realised I couldn’t resist. So Tim, I blame you.
Some of the comments made this week by both Murdoch and Google have been quite telling in my opinion, and it’s much more than just the two big boys of media jousting for position. The Guardian has provided excellent commentary all week.
To recap, Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation addressed the US media regulators’ workshop in Washington this week, where he made a speech punctuated by his comment that internet users will pay for content, saying they would be happy to shell out for “information they need to rise in society”, before going on to attack internet news aggregation as “theft”, claiming that advertising-only business models were dead.
“From the beginning on, newspapers have prospered for one reason: giving readers the news that they want…If we fail, we fail like a restaurant that makes meals that no one wants to eat.”
Murdoch offered some points that made absolute sense, i.e. the restaurant example, and a few that didn’t, such as the ‘theft’, and ‘rise in society’ points above.
I think that simply suggesting Murdoch is blaming Google for the demise of national media is a bit of an over-simplification, although I don’t think he would be too upset if that was the general assumption. However, I think he has missed one key point, which is that Newspapers are so late to the content revolution that it’s nearly destroyed them, and that now they are realising the scale of the issue, their only response is to place traditional media monetisation rules on a medium which not only doesn’t accept these rules, but has also been enjoying their content free for years.
Why would you pay for a service that hasn’t changed or evolved at all from the service that you’ve been getting for free for years? Is news from newspaper sources more valuable to the user than news from other sources? Are people that loyal to a newspaper brand to pay for online content that has no added value and is no more useful than news form other sources? Not in my opinion.
So what about Google’s response to this? Well, both Matt Brittin, the director of Google UK, and Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive have made interesting comments in return. Schmidt’s was in Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, which many will point to as a success in terms of paid-for content.
But I was especially interested in Brittin’s comments, who was speaking in UK Parliament to the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, as he worked as director of strategy and digital at Daily Mirror publisher Trinity Mirror before joining Google in 2007, so he should understand the issue.
My favourite quotes from Brittin were:
“We do not steal content. If you look at Google search and Google News what you will find is snippets, a little line that will take you through to the original websites…
“That’s accepted as in line with copyright law worldwide, seen as like a newspaper article quoting lines from a book in a book review. We defend copyright owners’ rights and it’s wrong to paint us as stealing content. We are like a virtual newsagent…
“Publishers have control, they choose to make content available for free online. They have control now and have always had control to allow them to opt out. They can say, ‘I don’t want to appear in Google search or in Google News or in one and not the other.
“They choose to stay and have content discoverable because they find it helpful to have huge numbers of people coming through to their content.”
That pretty much says it all in my opinion. Google and other search engines are driving many thousands of readers to these websites, if the publishers wish to opt out they can do, and this is something Murdoch has threatened and I believe would do if pushed.
However, as we all now know, this week Google has also made a concession by allowing publishers of paid for content to limit the amount of free access users have to their websites from Google News.
This means publishers can limit Google News users to no more than five pages of content a day without registering or subscribing. In affect, Google is still driving traffic to the content, but the publishers get their fee if the user wishes to continue looking or get more content.
I think this is Google’s way of settling the publishers down. Google has the upper hand in the long term, and whether this decision was affected by political forces I guess we’ll never know, but by giving a little Google gets a lot in the long term, and I feel the outcome will still be the same.
In reality most users will look at other sources for their news once the free clicks have gone from major publishers, or learn that it becomes a nuisance navigating away from publisher’s sites after the free clicks, so stop visiting them in the first place. That is unless, you’ve guessed it, there is more useful and relevant content on offer to warrant a charge.
In many ways this is similar to a restaurant that makes meals that no one wants to eat, as Murdoch said, or more precisely a restaurant that charges today for exactly the same meal that it offered free yesterday.