DENIS O'BRIEN'S 25 per cent stake in Independent News & Media does not raise any cross-media ownership issues, a meeting of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has concluded.
The BCI met yesterday afternoon to discuss the appropriateness of Mr O'Brien's shareholding in the newspaper group, given the billionaire businessman's control of national and local radio licences.
It found that Mr O'Brien's 25 per cent holding in Independent News & Media did not breach its media ownership and control policy, which considers factors such as the ability of an investor to influence media content.
Mr O'Brien's company Communicorp owns the only two national commercial stations, Today FM and NewsTalk, as well as Dublin pop station 98 FM, Dublin youth station Spin 103 and regional station Spin SouthWest.
In a separate announcement yesterday, the Communicorp-backed consortium Boxer DTT was awarded the licence for commercial digital terrestrial television services (DTT) in Ireland.
Communicorp and Boxer DTT chairwoman Lucy Gaffney said yesterday that the DTT licence did not create any further cross-media ownership issues because Boxer would provide the platform for DTT services and would not provide broadcasting content.
Ms Gaffney said Communicorp had not been in contact with the BCI in relation to its review of Mr O'Brien's radio licences, and that the group had always co-operated fully with any of its rulings. Last year, the BCI blocked Mr O'Brien from buying Dublin station FM104.
The BCI has the power to stop media mergers. It is legally obliged to promote the plurality of media ownership and must guard against any person having "control of, or substantial interests in, an undue amount of communications media".
