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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Stumbling at the First Hurdle

OFCOM is known throughout the tiny world of communications nerds as a breathe of fresh air in a sea of bureaucratic bunglers. I was immensely worried when a Labour Party apparachnik was appointed to be top dog and feared that this country’s cancer of bureaucratic inference would spread to the communications sector.

Well, it looks as if my worst fears are being played out at the first test of his judgement. The only need to order an inquiry into the BSkyB acquisition of a minority stake in ITV is if someone wants to stand in the full glare of the media which unfortunately is one of the saddest traits of today’s generation of UK bureaucrats. Only an idiot can realistically say that a change of control has happened at ITV.

Ed Richards get a grip before you blow OFCOMs legacy.

Update: Someone has emailed me and said that technically this is in fact the second hurdle; the first was the partial ban of Junk Food Advertising which had already hammered another nail in the ITV coffin.