EDITORIAL

Stop Murdoch Takeover of Media

THE way Rupert Murdoch, the global media baron, is spreading his tentacles into the Indian media is an object lesson of the danger posed to our democratic system by the invasion of the foreign media. The Vajpayee government, despite the opposition of the parliamentary standing committee on communications, allowed the entry of foreign capital upto 26 per cent in the print media.  Subsequently, it also framed rules that for TV channels uplinking from India foreign shareholding will be allowed upto 26 per cent. This meant that 74 per cent of the news channel must be Indian owned.

The CPI(M) and many others had warned that this would lead to de facto foreign ownership of Indian media companies. The current episode about the Murdoch owned Star News’ request for uplinking on the basis of it having diluted its share holding to 26 per cent is a glaring case of how foreign ownership and control can be accomplished. The Star TV set up a shell company with a share capital of Rs 1 lakh of which 74 per cent is owned by Indians. This shell company will be controlling and running assets worth hundreds of crores of equipment and staff which are actually fully owned by Star TV. The shell company, the Media Content and Communications Services is the “Indian face” of Star TV which is the Asian wing of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. After the widespread criticism of this brazen stratagem, Star has announced a hike of its share capital to Rs 6 crores. This in itself is ridiculous given the fact that comparable TV channels have assets worth hundreds of crores.

The Vajpayee government instead of putting an end to this farce, has been giving repeated extensions to the Star News channel and asking for further clarifications. The clout that Rupert Murdoch enjoys with the BJP-led government is visible in how they have perfected ways to circumvent even the feeble regulations and laws.  Already Murdoch is running a chain of FM radio stations with a shell company which has 74 per cent share with Indians. Under this cover, Star is operating four radio stations in the country. The Vajpayee government has also been prompt in considering Star’s application to operate the Direct to Home (DTH) technology which would enable TV viewers to directly access channels without having to go through the cable operator. In the application for the DTH licence, Star has shown two of its own employees as having 74 per cent share in a shell company. Despite this obvious ploy, the government has issued a letter of intent to Star to start DTH operations in India.

It will only be a matter of time before Murdoch decides to apply this technique to the print media and takeover some major newspaper. There are some newspaper proprietors and editors in India who are willing to act as junior partners of western media barons. During the discussions on allowing foreign capital in the print media, such worthies as the Indian Express editor Shekhar Gupta, the India Today group and the proprietor of Dainik Jagran were in the forefront of lobbying for allowing foreign capital in the print media.

Rupert Murdoch’s penetration and takeover of sectors of Indian media has serious implications not just for the proprietary interests of Indian newspapers and television. There is the larger issue of the democratic and political structure of India being subverted by such global capital and media interests. Murdoch is chairman of Newscorp which owns more than 175 titles in three continents. He dominates the print media in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In television, Murdoch owns the Fox channel in the US and Sky TV in Britain, besides Star TV and other television companies. It is well known that Rupert Murdoch actively intervenes in the domestic political scene wherever he owns newspapers and television stations. Murdoch’s support to Blair in Britain and Bush in the US is well known. His aggressive advocacy of war against Iraq led Ted Turner, the former owner of CNN, to accuse Murdoch of “war mongering” to promote the war. The Guardian in a media commentary a few weeks before the launching of the war on Iraq remarked that “Rupert Murdoch argued strongly for a war with Iraq this week, which might explain why 175 editors around the world are backing it too”. There is no dearth of Indian editors who would have slavishly toed Murdoch’s line on the war on Iraq, if he owned their paper. 

The Murdoch controlled media in India would back the BJP-led government, or, any government which is prepared to protect its commercial interests. The Vajpayee government by allowing the brazen twisting of its own rules and regulations is harming not just the interests of some domestic media proprietors but endangering the country’s democratic system and political integrity.  The only correct step for the government at this stage will be to reject the Star’s application for uplinking and prevent other “shell company” operatives to take over segments of the Indian print and electronic media.