Ofcom: The Office of Screwing Over Murdoch?
There are several winners in the wake of News Corp's collapsed BSkyB takeover, but the most unlikely is one we’ve all overlooked. It might surprise you, too. In 2009 David Cameron promised a “bonfire of the quangos” if the Conservatives took power. He singled out one quango in particular: Ofcom. The uber-regulator was created …
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re: Branded bottled water
We had that exact same product when I worked at RBS, it's actually bottled on site from what is basically Brita filtered water and the bottles are re-used. It was a sacking offence to take a bottle, as the whole point was to save money on the previously ridiculous bills for bought in bottled water.
Your acronym in the title doesn't work.
Office of Screwing Over Murdoch would be OSOM or OOSOM, not OFCOM.
I just thought I'd point it out.
Re: Your acronym in the title doesn't work.
"Office of FuCking Over Murdoch" was deemed to be too NSFW.
C.
There are many things wrong with Ofcom and the concept of Quangos as a whole, but choosing this case as an example of what's wrong is just being plain contrary (or a magnificent troll on your part).
The worst thing they did in this case was not objecting to NewsCorp's effective control of BSkyB at a much earlier stage (despite numerous complaints). And while they blocked the takeover they seem willing for the effective control to remain as status quo.
another predictable Orlowski piece
A story with 3 groups of self serving, empire building, sleazy, cheating scumbags is just too easy to project bias onto. Predictably Andrew picked 'big content' as the good guys and everything has to follow from that. He ALWAYS champions 'big content' blind to any nuance or confounding factors.
OFCOMs biggest failing is not their mad empire building, it's their abject failure to get off their arses and actually defend the public. The politicians have been busy bending over for Murdoch for political advantage we've not counted.
There are no good guys here. But we'll settle for bad guys getting the right result for all the wrong reasons. Seems to me this is as close to working as the whole system has ever worked. Without that separation of control between government and QUANGO, the bickering and delays, we'd now have the wrong result for all the wrong reasons. Politicians can at least be shuffled every few years, Murdoch is an untreatable cancer.
Normal Reasoning
If the Murdochs hate something, that something has got to be good ting.
Right?
It certainly tastes like tap water...
Having drunk from the fabled bottles in meetings at their offices, it certainly tastes more like tap water than anything else. The bottles do look cool though...
Anyway, Jonathan Bliss hits the nail on the head for me. They are deliberately an independent regulator, so the idea is that JH & crew won't be able to make them do what he wants. Whether or not this was the right decision, it does sound like Ofcom have ignored DCMS and acted independently.
As for capture by Sir Humphrey more generally, in the majority of cases it's not capture, but ministers realising that the things they promised in opposition are unworkable / impossible / illegal / downright stupid. That's not capture, that's the civil service doing their job.
If you want to see an interesting example of this, look into the detail of Vince Cable's comments on the graduate tax when he launched the new fee structure - once in government, and with access to government tax experts he realised that a graduate tax would be too easy to dodge and fiddle in practice, so he thought (rightly or wrongly) the new fee structure would be the next closest thing. Regardless of your views on paying for higher education, a hypothecated graduate tax cannot work within the confines of our tax and HE systems.
Why the evil empire must die.
1. Nicking "Lost" from Chan4 part way thru series.
2. Nicking "Madmen" from Beeb part way thru series.
Re: Why the evil empire must die.
It introduced me to torrenting, I can remember the first thing I torrented*, and the second thing was Lost.
* Got the DVD as well.
But everything I torrented was originally on FTA TV be it BBC, ITV, C4 or other Freeview channels, then got taken over by a pay channel.
Yet I still lost interest in Lost half way through the penultimate series, still have it to watch.
Oh and I haven't bothered to watch F1 this year as I still haven't managed to get a Astra 1 LNB.
Re: Burn the witch
Neither were nicked, neither were nicked part-way through a series.
Sky paid more money in deals on the open market.
And the new Mad Men got only 47,000 viewers on BSkyB, costing it £5 per episode per viewer. A real flop for BSkyB.
Re: Burn the witch
Still very annoying though and are a primary cause of torrenting in the UK.
From the perspective of an outsider, it looks as though after years of signficantly influencing who would be in power in the UK, Murdoch has been emasculated. His media holdings will still have influence but to nowhere near the same degree.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the actions of politicians and media in Britain, the fallout from the current governments actions will be that Murdoch will no longer be able to control who gets elected. And I doubt Prime Ministers will be calling him very often in future. Which in itself is a very good thing.
I'm conspiracy theorist enough to think that after over a decade in which the Tories were kept out of power by, among other things, Murdochs influence, Cameron may even have planned it this way.
From Camerons perspective having to stick with Ofcom in its current form isn't too much of a price to pay. Looks like Vince Cable was right, if as usual, a little to free with his mouth.
Sorry, but...
Whoever gets The Sun's backing in the next election will have a huge advantage.
Re: Sorry, but...
The Sun's backing will go to whoever they judge is going to win, just as it always has. Don't be fooled by "It's The Sun Wot Won It" headlines, it was Kinnock that lost it.
Looks very much to me like
Murdoch was basically circumventing democracy. The whole News International / Winning party relationship comes across as bent as a nine pound note.
It never bothered me of course until I realised it was happening, I'm as unobservant as anyone else.
Ownership vs control
"the perception was (and is) that the Murdochs own Sky, while not actually owning it."
Careful.
Control does not require total ownership. If you play your cards right it doesn't even require majority ownership.
Do a bit of research. See who is and was on the board(s) of the companies of interest in this picture. See where else they (and their relatives, partners, etc) are directors.
Then try to convince anyone with a clue that ownership matters much, when you've already got control by other means.
Other side of the story
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9226292/Will-Rupert-and-James-Murdoch-topple-David-Cameron.html
"Screwing Over Murdoch?"
If he gets a life sentence, that'll be screwing the bloke over.
Ten years would be justice but it's not going to happen.
Screwed over? Hardly.
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