[cma-l] The Guardian: Tories attack government media policy as 'complete and utter shambles'

[CMA-L]

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt will attack U-turn on product
placement and plan to share licence fee

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/17/tories-attack-government-media-policy

The Conservatives will today launch a scathing attack on the
government's handling of media policy, describing the U-turn on
product placement and the plan to share the BBC licence fee as
"nothing short of a complete and utter shambles".

In a speech to the Royal Television's Society's Cambridge Convention
later today, shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to go
further than before in attacking the government's performance on media
policy, accusing it of lacking leadership or stability.

"The government's approach to the media sector has been nothing short
of a complete and utter shambles. It is hard to find a sector that has
suffered from so much dithering, so many U-turns and such a relentless
conveyor belt of reviews and consultations that have ultimately led
nowhere," Hunt will tell RTS Cambridge delegates.

"This is no way to nurture any industry - let alone the communications
sector that last year, according to Ofcom, generated revenues of
£51bn," he will add.

"All businesses need certainty to operate. Yet this government has
changed its mind on so many aspects of broadcasting policy, on so many
occasions, that you simply don't know whether you're coming or going."

Hunt described the U-turn on product placement, with the government
now expected to give the go-ahead to a relaxation of regulation
following a new consultation after previously rejecting it, as
"evidence of a cowardly government who simply cannot make a decision".

"We've had a consultation. We've seen the evidence. If [culture
secretary] Ben Bradshaw wants to throw a bone to the commercial
broadcasters he should stop hiding behind yet another review and go
ahead and do so," he will say.

"This isn't leadership and it certainly isn't governing. It is
management consultancy gone mad and dithering at its worst."

Hunt described the government's push for top-slicing the licence fee
to pay for regional news provision on ITV1 as "breathtaking".

"Product placement may have been a U-turn, this is more like a
zig-zag," he will say. "Given parliament's likely view I'm sure
there'll be another change, another climbdown and yet more uncertainty
before the general election."

Hunt will tell TV executives in Cambridge that he cannot think of a
single decision from the government "that has changed the broadcasting
sector for the better".

"We've seen plenty of reviews. There have been nine separate DCMS
consultations on everything from free-to-air listed events to
community radio. And then we've had Ofcom's 113 consultations since
last year," he will say.

"But what has changed? What decision has been implemented? What can
anyone point to that the government has done? All we have had from
this government is the appearance of action. A whirlwind of consulting
and reviewing to keep everyone busy. This is nothing but bluster and
hot air with precisely nothing achieved. And now they are running out
of time. And under pressure they are changing their minds on an almost
daily basis."

Hunt is also expected to reach out to delegates, saying that Tory
leader David Cameron, a former communications director at former ITV
company Carlton, "understands this sector".

"What I can promise is that we have a leader who understands this
sector and its many varied challenges," he will say. "Having worked in
it he has a personal interest in and an intuitive feel for your
issues. And he'll provide the leadership that is so utterly missing
and which you so desperately need."

\\

Community Media Association
-- 

http://www.commedia.org.uk/

Support community radio, sign the petition!
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/allthevoices/