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FREE LAW JOURNAL - VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1 (18 JULY 2005)
pluralism, thus, governs the extent to which the allowed ownership of media companies by the same
person or capital group shall be 5 .
The same documents state that the “definition of pluralism views media concentration as being in
opposition to pluralism” 6 , because, “[C]ontrol of a collection of media by a single person ... has the
potential effect of making the spreading of ideas dependant on acceptance by a single person and of
restricting alternative means ... Concentration of control of media access in the hands of a few is by
definition a threat to the diversity of information. 7 ” This is why the restrictive regulation of media
ownership is regarded to be a legal instrument as a measure against concentration 8 .
Barendt and Hitchens show us two main concerns regarding the regulation of media ownership. The first
is related with avoiding unfair competition. There is no difference between media companies and others
with regard to this issue, because general competition rules are mainly concerned with securing economic
objectives. But the second concern, arising from the diversity and plurality questions, goes further than
simply economic objectives and justifies the specific rules that restrict media ownership in order to
maintain that ownership concentration in media does not limit diversity of information and opinion 9 .
Media ownership rules, specifying certain limits for multi-ownership in one sector or for cross-ownership
in different sectors, serve for external pluralism by way of constructing a system that is supposed to
proactively prevent the concentration of power. In this essay development of the rules of this kind are
addressed. The examination of different national experiences assist us to determine common trends of
development and so to reach an adequate perspective of the Turkish state of affairs with a comparative
view. Following a short review of the deregulatory pattern of change in three examples of national
regulation -UK, Germany and Italy- and a brief account of the failure of regulation at European level, the
evolution of Turkish media law in this regard will be considered below. The word ‘media’ here has the
meaning of ‘audiovisual media’, i.e. the conventional broadcasters of television and radio, which are the
most widely used means of communication and the most important source of information -compared with
others such as press and internet- for the people in Turkey.
1. NATIONAL TRENDS TWORDS DEREGULATION
1.1. United Kingdom
In United Kingdom, prior to 1990, the commercial broadcasting system was based on regional monopolies
in terms of both dissemination and revenue. Broadcasting Act of 1990, by putting an end to the old
monopoly structure and opening the broadcasting market to competition, liberalised the system 10 . The
multi-ownership provisions of the 1990 Act made possible for a company to own two broadcasting
5 David Goldberg, Tony Prosser, Stefaan Verhulst, “Regulating the Changing Media”, David Goldberg, Tony Prosser, Stefaan
Verhulst (eds), Regulating the Changing Media, A Comparative Study, Oxford, 1998, p. 19; Cavallin, Ibid; Pluralism and
Media Concentration in the Internal Market, supra note 4, p. 18.
6 Cavallin, Ibid.
7 Pluralism and Media Concentration in the Internal Market, supra note 4, p. 20.
8 Media Diversity in Europe, supra note 2, p. 9.
9 Eric Barendt, Lesley Hitchens, Media Law, Cases and Materials, Longman Law Series, London, 2000, p. 242; see also Media
Diversity in Europe, supra note 2, p. 8.
10 Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, Regulating Media, New York/London, 1996, pp. 79, 99.
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DR. SAIM UYE - PLURALITY OF OPINION VERSUS CONCENTRATION OF OWNERSHIP : RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN TURKISH MEDIA LAW