BBC chief takes aim at Murdoch media monopoly

Sir Christopher Bland, the chairman of the BBC, yesterday launched an outspoken attack on Rupert Murdoch, the powerful media tycoon, over the cut-throat battle for access to the digital airwaves.

In his first public assault on the media mogul, he told a Westminster Media Forum conference that Mr Murdoch now had a stranglehold over satellite and cable distribution, sports rights and digital access.

The digital access issue is causing acute concern, with the digital gateway in danger of being entirely controlled by Mr Murdoch after his canny investment in pioneering "black-box" technology which decodes digital television signals and gives viewers access to channels.

The digital age, Sir Christopher told an audience of broadcasters and politicians, needed "effective, clear and enforceable rules to ensure that the digital gateway is genuinely open, to be used by all broadcasters on level terms".

But he warned: "That is not the position we start from today. [Rupert Murdoch's] News International and BSkyB between them have a monopoly of satellite distribution in the UK, dominate the provision of programmes to cable homes, and have a near-monopoly of those programming `battering rams' - sport and movies. And ... they own the proprietary technology that will control digital access, subscription management, and programme navigation systems."

It would therefore be "unwise to rely on the normal process of commercial negotiation to sort out the gateway issue", the corporation's chairman continued.

Sir Christopher also took a swipe at Mr Murdoch for apparently bowing to pressure from the Chinese government in removing the BBC from his China satellite.

"In Rupert Murdoch's own words `advances in television technology have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes' - said shortly before he removed the BBC from his China satellite in response to pressure from...?" Sir Christopher continued, refusing to finish a sentence so clearly understood by industry insiders.

He was referring to Mr Murdoch's ousting of the BBC from the Asia Pacific region two years ago, after it had begun broadcasting on Star TV, the Hong Kong-based satellite station. Mr Murdoch was widely seen at the time to have bowed to pressure from the Chinese government to remove the BBC from Star because it was angered by the corporation's objective reporting of domestic incidents such as the Tiananmen Square massacre.