July 31, 2002	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 20,1423

LONDON: Tony Blair will become engulfed in controversy this week when he tries to overturn the findings of a highly-influential committee that wants Rupert Murdoch to be blocked from extending his stake in British television.

The Observer in London has been told that the government will reject the central findings of a report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Bill, which will this week say that the ‘Americanization’ of British television must be stopped.

The prime minister is set to put his reputation on the line over such a controversial issue, lining up with Murdoch, who has been criticized in the past for wielding too much influence over the government.

Blair will argue that it is ‘untenable’ to allow European-based businesses and individuals, but not American ones, to take over British TV companies. His moves will infuriate opponents of his links with Murdoch.

Critics have suggested that Blair wants to keep Murdoch ‘sweet’ so that News International newspapers will be less hostile during any future referendum on the euro.

A leaked copy of the joint committee report, obtained by The Observer, reveals growing concern that moves to allow American businesses, including Murdoch’s Fox TV, to take over British broadcasting companies such as Channel-5 or part of the ITV network.

The report, to be published on Wednesday, will warn that the British TV industry could be put at risk if the government does not make a U-turn on the issue. Its findings were put together after heavy lobbying from the BBC and Channel-4.

Earlier this year Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, published a Draft Communications Bill announcing that the government wanted to loosen controls on running British TV.

She said that rules preventing American companies owning British TV licences should be scrapped and the strict limits on the ability of newspaper owners such as Murdoch owning TV channels such as Channel 5 should be relaxed. Both moves were seen as helpful to Murdoch’s plans for expansion in Britain.

The government was so concerned about the political ramifications and controversial nature of its proposals that it set up a joint committee of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons to scrutinise the plans.

One official who has seen the report said that objecting to the committee’s central finding was ‘unheard of’. It is now likely that the government will agree to a review of the issue, but make clear that it wants to stick to its plans.

Murdoch already has a controlling stake in the satellite channel BSkyB and is head of News International, owners of the Times, the Sun, the Sunday Times and the News of the World.

Any further acquisitions would greatly strengthen his position in Britain. The committee, headed by the Labour peer and film maker Lord Puttnam and including Lord Hussey, a former BBC chairman, will say that government arguments about new ownership rules were ‘lacking in force’ and ‘based on an untested aspiration’.

It will also argue that American broadcasters such as AOL/Time Warner and Disney would engage in a ‘determined and sophisticated attempt’ to shift away from British-based programmes to American ones such as The Simpsons and Celebrity Boxing.

In one of the key findings, the report says that Britain has not been able to get a reciprocal agreement with America that British companies should be allowed to take over US television stations.

This has left the government in a weak bargaining position, the report will say. It recommends that the whole matter should be reviewed by Ofcom, the government’s new media super-regulator, before a final decision.

The committee will also say that the BBC governors should be stripped of some of their powers to control the corporation. Instead, the report will argue that the corporation, which it says has a ‘dominant’ position in the British broadcasting market, should be brought under the control of Ofcom when it comes to issues of competition with commercial broadcasters.

The government has said that it will respond to the committee during the autumn but that it is wedded whole-heartedly to change.

“A lot of thinking at the very highest levels went into putting together the (communications) bill,” said one Whitehall figure who has intimate knowledge of the legislation.

“The committee seems to be trying to conceal its anti-American prejudice by way of weak argument.”—Dawn/The Observer News Service.