Concentração dos media em 10 países europeus: um estudo Acaba de ser publicado na Holanda um importante estudo sobre concentração da propriedade dos media na Europa, envolvendo dez países. Intitulado "A mapping study of media concentration and ownership in ten european countries", o estudo de 257 páginas, coordenado por David Ward, estuda o problema nos seguintes países: Espanha, França, Itália, Alemanha, Luxemburgo, Reino Unido, Bélgica, Suiça, Suécia e Holanda. Eis um sumário das principais conclusões:

? "A wide range of regulatory instruments is employed in the countries to ensure that media markets remain plural. At the same time, competition policy is becoming an increasingly central mechanism for assessing whether a merger or acquisition involving a media company will have a detrimental effect on the sector. The instruments employed by the ten countries in the broadcasting sector range from ceilings for market share that any one broadcaster is allowed (and traditionally in Italy financial ceilings) and diversity in terms of shareholders (France) to less media-specific rules that are built on the idea of maintaining fair competition in markets. In some cases there are special provisions for mergers or acquisitions involving media companies (the UK); in other cases the media are subject to the same competition rules as any other industrial sector. ? The majority of countries in the study, which have set limits on market shares for the media industry, are witnessing concentration levels that are reaching the established ceilings and there is a lack of effective instruments to deal with the issue of increased market presence brought about by performance. ? Levels of concentration differ considerably in the ten countries as well as in the different sectors within each country investigated in this report. High concentration in one sector may be complemented by a moderate degree of concentration in another sector in the same country. However, calculations of media concentration show that in nearly all sectors included in the report concentration levels are increasing. ? During the past decade there has been increasing concentration of ownership throughout Europe; and this raises considerable pluralism issues. In the majority of countries in this study the press sector consists of a handful of newspaper groups that dominate the sector, despite the fact that there are thousands of titles available across Europe. ? The television and radio industries have also witnessed growing concentration in the respective markets as companies have grown through superior performance or through acquisition and merger. In most television and radio markets a strong public service broadcaster has retained significant market power. Since the introduction in the 1980s of commercial broadcasting in most of the countries covered by this study, there has been an increasing presence of a small number of large groups, which now dominate the commercial radio and television sectors".