Government set to allow US companies to bid for ITV

LONDON - The government is set to allow US companies to own UK media businesses such as ITV, despite the findings of a parliamentary committee, which warned against the dangers of such a move.

The government is said to be pressing ahead with plans to open up the UK media market to companies outside the EU, despite warnings from the committee, headed up by filmmaker Lord Puttnam, that to do so could threaten the UK programming industry.

One of Lord Puttam's greatest concerns is that if US media giants bought into ITV, they would flood the schedules with programming from the US.

The government has said that in order to prevent this it would impose restrictions on the amount of foreign programming allowed on a network.

Under plans drawn up by Tessa Jowell, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, a quota system would be introduced to ensure that a proportion of programming would be produced in the UK.

This would be upheld by media and communications watchdog Ofcom and punishable by heavy fines.

A senior government source said that the government wants foreign companies to support local and regional programme makers, and that importing cheap material from overseas does not work.

The source said: "If you look at the example of MTV, it thought it could send material from America, but now it has local networks."

Jowell is also expected to insist that foreign owners' content is broad and varied.

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