National news media markets in the UK vary significantly in terms of their levels of concentration. The national press, based in London, is wholly commercial and highly concentrated. Broadcast markets have varying degrees of consolidation, but in the specific area of broadcast news, the public broadcaster – the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – dominates, with one major commercial competitor, Independent Television News (ITN), providing national news for commercial radio and all terrestrial public service broadcasters. Domestic television news is also supplied on free-to-air digital terrestrial television as well as subscription cable and satellite channels on 24-hour news channel Sky News. Online news is naturally more fragmented, but legacy print and broadcast newsbrands make up the majority of most popular news sources, with the BBC in particular enjoying a dominant position among UK online news consumers. UK legislation limits media mergers under certain circumstances and prevents cross-ownership of broadcast licences by newspaper owners, but also to ensure that Channel 3 (ITV) licensees use a single news provider (Ofcom, 2018b).
The National Press
The UK has 11 mainstream national daily newspapers (including the Independent, which ceased publishing in print in 2016 and the i, originally a condensed version of the Independent, most recently purchased by DMG Media in November 2019), nine Sunday newspapers and a weekend edition of the Financial Times (see Table 4). Consolidation in recent years has been driven by the exit of JPI Media, a major publisher of local and regional newspapers, from the market with the sale of the i to DMG Media in 2019 and the purchase of Express Newspapers (publisher of the Daily Express and Daily Star and their Sunday equivalents) by Trinity Mirror in March 2018 (Trinity Mirror rebranded as Reach Inc two months later).
The most recent revenue figures available for all owners of national newspapers are from 2018. Table 4 shows the state of the national newspaper landscape in 2020, with company revenue figures from each of the parent companies in 2018.[1] The 2018 figures show that three companies – News Corp UK and Ireland, Reach Plc, and DMG Media Ltd – account for 72 per cent of all revenue for national newspaper publishers. The companies also publish two-thirds of all national newspapers and represent 87 per cent of all weekly print circulation (Media Reform Coalition, 2019, p.5).[2]
[1] News Corp turnover calculated by combining those of Times Newspaper Ltd and News Group Newspapers Ltd
[2] Figures from November 2018 – calculated by the addition of Johnston Press Plc (former publisher of the i, now owned by DMG Media) to the News UK, DMG Media and Reach Plc circulation share.
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National Broadcast: Television
Terrestrial (Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and cable/satellite) television in the UK is supplied by a range of companies with substantially different corporate structures and ownership models. Within this ecosystem, however, television news at the national level is almost entirely produced by three organisations – the BBC, ITN and Sky News.
The six companies that produce UK terrestrial television have very different structures. The BBC, the nation’s public broadcaster, is funded by a compulsory licence fee, which raises approximately £3.6 billion each year, supplemented by additional income to a total of £4.9 billion (2018 figures). The Corporation spent around £1.7 billion on all television services in 2018 (BBC, 2019a, p.58). ITV, the traditional terrestrial commercial rival to the BBC, achieved external revenues of £3.3 billion in 2019 (ITV, 2019b, p.52), while Channel Four – publicly owned but commercially funded – saw revenues of £975 million (Channel Four Television Corporation, 2018, p.156). The remaining terrestrial commercial broadcaster with public service broadcasting obligations, Channel 5, is ultimately owned by US-based Viacom International (2018 revenues of US$12.9 billion – approximately £9.8 billion in 2018) (Viacom International, 2019, p.34), yet Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited had revenue of only £376 million (Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, 2019, p.10). The satellite broadcaster Sky Group had 2018 revenues of £13.6 billion (Sky Group, 2019, p.10) but since October 2018 has been ultimately owned by US Group Comcast (2018 revenue: US$94.5 billion/£71.4 billion) (Comcast Corporation, 2019, p.74). Finally, BT, traditionally a telecommunications infrastructure company, moved into subscription sports coverage in 2013. The parent company’s 2018 revenue was £23.7 billion (BT Group, 2019, p.4). The overall concentration of the television news market is therefore complicated by the fact that for some companies (for example, BT) television content production is a minor aspect of a much larger corporate portfolio, while the US companies Viacom and Comcast dwarf the UK-based television market in which they have a stake. Table 5 accordingly shows the domestic revenue of those UK-based television broadcasters who provide news; BT is excluded since its broadcast output consists solely of sports, though it should be noted that BT’s total group revenue is approximately equal to all other television broadcasters combined.
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The television news market is more consolidated. The BBC is responsible for all news published across its broadcast and online platforms, while the commercial public service broadcasters – ITV, Channel Four and Channel 5 – receive news from a single supplier: Independent Television News (ITN). ITV consists of a series of regional licenses with a degree of shared national programming and is obliged by law to use a single news provider for all licenses. ITN has supplied ITV with news since 1955. Channel Four has used ITN since it launched in 1982 and though Channel 5’s news bulletins were produced by Sky News between 2005 and 2012, it too has reverted to ITN. Sky provides its own 24-hour news channel Sky News, available on its own subscription platform as well as free to the public via DTT.
The BBC does not disaggregate its news spending across different platforms in its annual statements, but in 2018 the Corporation allocated £355 million to News and Current Affairs (BBC, 2019a, p.61), of which £53 million was spent on the 24-hour BBC News Channel (p.58). ITN’s total revenue was £127 million, of which £89 million was derived from its news operations (ITN, 2019, p.53). Sky, unfortunately, also does not disaggregate the proportion of its business that is devoted to Sky News, (also a problem when estimating the UK’s radio news markets, given Sky News’ prominent position in radio news provision) meaning that it is not possible to gain a clear picture of the proportion of the domestic UK television news market that is controlled by each company. However, the fact that three companies supply television news in the UK is an indicator of a consolidated market.
National Broadcast: Radio
National radio in the UK is provided via both analogue and digital broadcasting. Regardless of the method of transmission, public broadcasting is handled solely by the BBC and commercial national radio is dominated by three companies: Global Radio; Bauer Media; and Wireless Group. Analogue national radio broadcasting consists of five BBC stations covering music, live sport entertainment and news, plus Classic FM (music; Global Radio); Absolute Radio (music; Bauer Media) and TalkSport (sport; Wireless Group). The BBC operates five stations that broadcast nationally in both analogue and digital (Radio 1; Radio 2; Radio 3; Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live) as well as a further six stations that are digital-only (including the World Service). There are 40 national digital commercial stations available via two multiplexes (Digital One and Sound Digital). Of these 40 stations, almost three-quarters are owned by Global Radio (14 stations), Bauer Media (nine stations) and Wireless Group (six stations) (Arqiva.com, n.d.).
BBC expenditure on its national radio stations (analogue and digital, excluding BBC World Service) in 2018 was £304 million (BBC, 2019a, p.59), roughly equal to Ofcom’s estimate of £302 million for national commercial radio revenue in the same year. Ofcom also records a figure of £107 million for commercial radio sponsorship – as distinct from advertising revenue – but does not disaggregate this data for local or commercial markets (Ofcom, 2019f, slide 10). It is difficult to determine precise levels of concentration in the national commercial radio market: Wireless Group was purchased in 2016 by News Corp, and the parent company’s accounts do not supply a specific revenue figure for the subsidiary. The other large commercial companies, Global Radio and Bauer Media, are also dominant in local radio, so it is difficult to ascertain which portions of their revenue are derived from national broadcasting, and which from local broadcasting. In addition, four smaller publishers (Folder Media, Sunrise Radio, A Spokesman Said Ltd and Jack FM) fall below the ‘small company’ legal definition in UK company law and therefore are not obliged to publish revenue figures. It can, however, be stated with some confidence that the overall radio market is concentrated: the BBC accounts for around half the market, and three companies – Global, Bauer and Wireless – dominate the commercial sector.
In terms of radio news provision, the UK is a duopoly: the BBC provides news and current affairs programming across all of its radio outlets, while all news programming on commercial radio is produced by Sky News Radio and supplied to stations by Independent Radio News. Since neither the BBC not Sky disaggregate their news funding figures by platform, it is not possible to determine a definite figure for the national radio news market.
Digital-First National Newsbrands
In addition to legacy print and broadcast, the UK has a range of digital-first newsbrands, some of which have national scope, such as HuffPost UK and LadBible, an entertainment site that has steadily increased its journalism output (Buzzfeed operated a respectable UK journalism operation that was abandoned unexpectedly in May 2020). These sites attract significant audiences – 11 per cent of UK news consumers report having used HuffPost for news in the previous week, with eight per cent for Buzzfeed prior to its cutbacks and six per cent for LadBible (Reuters Institute, 2019, p.69). The emergence of highly partisan right- and left-wing news sites in recent years has added an element of pluralism in the UK’s online news market, though sites such as Breitbart (which has a dedicated ‘Breitbart London’ subsite) and left-wing sites such as Novara Media or The Canary attract very small audiences, with none reaching over 2 per cent of UK news consumers (Reuters Institute, 2019, p.69).
