The late 1970s were a phase where the idea of strengthening anti-monopoly legislation became imminent but both the Labour and the Conservative government since 1977 ignored the advice from the Press Commission to strengthen it. This was the reason why the antimonopoly law in 1981 was ineffective and Rupert Murdoch was given permission to buy The Times and the Sunday Times. At this period Murdoch owned national daily newspapers with 30 per cent circulation of all British newspapers, and national Sunday newspapers with 31 per cent circulation. The take-overs have not even been referred to the Monopolies Commission (Curran, 1991).

1986 marked a big change for the press in Britain. The Employment Acts of 1980 and 1982 by the Conservative government weakened the power of the trade unions. Until this time the press owners were forced to accept that the unions were against new technologies, which would decrease the amount of workers, and which could strengthen the proprietor’s role and financial success. It was Rupert Murdoch again who gained from this political change the most: In 1985 he built a new computerised printing plant in Wapping, while the union protested against the change. The members finally went on strike on January 24 ^th 1986, which gave Murdoch under the new Conservative employment law the right to dismiss the print workers without being required to give them expensive compensations. Murdoch lost only one day before his new system in Wapping produced the first newspaper editions because he transferred all technology while negotiating with the union. The new technology transformed the cost structure and increased the profitability of media companies (McNair, 1996).

The economy of the 1980s changed to an “Alliance capitalism” which made it possible that for example Murdoch’s company News Corporation owned newspapers in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. These control and have directorial influence over the two biggest news agencies of the world Reuters and Associated Press which insist to be able to prevent any take-over. In the 1980s changing practises in particular of the entertainment industries with a few enormous multi-national companies dominating the market occurred. This decreased the competition and created oligopolies with industry sectors shared by a few global companies. A British example is again Rupert Murdoch owning Fox in America, Star TV in Asia and Sky in the UK (Paterson, 1998).

Another change in the 1980s and 1990s economy was due to the introduction of new technologies, some of them multi-national. Technologies like the Internet transformed the stable media landscape and made an expanded range of new media products, new niche markets and new sources of competition possible. The response of the leading media companies was a combination of political lobbying and market adaptation. They pressed for a relaxation of anti-monopoly controls by arguing that there is no longer a need for regulation on the market and that concentration is necessary to be able to compete on the global media market. At this time many press and TV companies and other media merged. Murdoch in this phase was again not stopped by anti-monopoly law, acquired rival titles and became the biggest media mogul in Britain (Curran, 2000).

The Broadcasting Act 1990 was the first step to deregulation in British Broadcasting ending restrictions on ownership of ITV franchises, which meant that one company could hold only one franchise and that overseas ownership was forbidden (CCMS, 2001a). Further, satellite television and licensed commercial radio was made subject to less public service requirements than the other broadcasting systems. The Act also expresses concerns about possible completely foreign-owned broadcasting systems, but it proposed only a few measures to prevent it. The Act further opened new markets for moguls by expanding the number of broadcasting outlets through more efficient spectrum management. The term that broadcasters should produce a sufficient amount of quality programmes was undefined (Curran, 1991). The opportunities for further merger were set up and the Conservative government wanted to build a free market for the broadcasters (Waldenmaier, 2000).

The Broadcasting Act of 1996 weakened the anti-concentration laws and the crossownership legislation. Further, the development of digital radio was set up which offered new markets. Publishers having more than 20 per cent on the newspaper market can have additional 15 per cent on the radio and TV market. The 1996 Broadcasting Act led to a deepened concentration on the media market (Waldenmaier, 2000).