THE NEW broadcasting authority will be given extra powers to curb the concentration of media ownership under legislation to be published today by Minister for Communications Éamon Ryan.
Under existing legislation, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland can block sales in cases where the buyer would end up with more than 25 per cent of the licences available nationally.
However, the new authority to replace the commission next year will be able to impose this ownership ceiling at local and regional levels, and not just by taking into account all licences available throughout the State.
In addition, it will be able to block purchases by newspapers, or other existing media organisations, if this threatened the "diversity of opinions" available in any region, the department said last night.
The Competition Authority is currently able to veto purchase, or order sell-offs, as happened when it forced Denis O'Brien to sell Dublin's FM104 after it bought it along with Today FM and Highland Radio. However, this authority acts purely on commercial grounds, when it fears that ownership changes would lead to dominance in advertising markets and audience share.
The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, which should be formally in action next year if there are no delays in the passage of legislation through the Oireachtas, will have a much wider remit based on the need to maintain "diversity of opinion".
The new powers are contained in a section in the legislation which requires the new body to examine "the desirability of allowing any person, or group of persons, to have control of, or substantial interests in, an undue number of sound broadcasting services in the area specified in the notice".
Last night the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources said this would mean that the authority "will have to consider not only whether some person/organisation has too many licences out of the total of radio licences available in Ireland, but also whether they might have too many licences in a specific area or region".
The Broadcasting Commission set a 25 per cent national limit for any one owner after a consultation process in 2005, and the new body will now have to set its own ceiling - though it is unlikely to change significantly.
"The BAI will need to adjust the existing BCI policy in this regard, probably to set down maxima for the number of licences that can be held in any one region [or where the region is the whole country].This is seen as an appropriate strengthening of the legislation, as the existing consideration of the number of total licences held gave no consideration to the geographic coverage of each licence held," a source in the Department of Communications said last night.