John Redwood MP has a go at Ofcom’s PSB review…

Link to Redwood’s blog here.  There are a few strands of dissent here:  (i) the ‘nations and regions’ approach; (ii) legitimacy-related concerns about policy making by unelected regulators; and (iii) paternalistic approaches to media regulation.  Here are some of the more interesting nuggets:

[H]ere we were again, a group of legislators answerable to our constituents, having to listen to the lowest common denominator, contradictory and often incoherent jottings of a quango that had spent far too much of our money on trying to craft a consensus for the future. We seemed to be there to take dictation and to accept that these “experts” had come up with the perfect balance of subsidised television, regulated markets and support for the BBC monopoly.

and this one:

I also enjoyed the contribution at the meeting from one participant who thought it was most unfair of web services to take advertising revenue away from ITV! It’s called free enterprise, and offering the public what they want. He should try it sometime. Ofcom seemed frightened by the power of the new technology, because it has the power to be the solvent of the monopolies and cosy arrangements that have sustained the current media elite and their views, which are so often different from the views of the rest of us.

I’ve found the Tories don’t really have a unified vision for UK media and communications policy.  There seems to be a bit of a tug of war within the party between those who favour scaling back state involvement (subsidy / ownership / regulation) in media and those who generally would not change the status quo much if at all.