Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of Talksport Radio clearly poses a major threat to BBC Radio Five Live’s excellent sports coverage. The Dirty Digger’s first thought in doing the deal may have been to make even more money but I suspect, knowing his cynicism and loathing of the very idea of public service broadcasting, it’s about further damaging the BBC, reducing the quality of its output, to take away the whole point of the BBC. Talksport’s most popular presenter, Colin Murray, has already decided to quit purely because of Murdoch.
As a Liverpool fan, Murray feels that working directly for Murdoch makes his position “unsustainable”, given the treatment the Sun handed out to the club’s supporters after Hillsborough. I am not going to quarrel with his principles there. But he does make a distinction between The Sun and Talksport and other parts of Murdoch’s Newscorp, which “are not a problem”. What can he mean by this? Sky TV, of course. But Sky TV is owned by Rupert Murdoch, isn’t it? What’s the difference? Well, actually it isn’t, not all of it anyway. Murdoch owns 39% of it through 21st Century Fox.
We are now venturing close to the world of semantics. Murray may have taken the view that as Murdoch does not own 61% of Sky, that’s all right then. And he may be right. It certainly means that Murdoch takes an almighty wedge out of the company by way of profits so, and this cannot be avoided, those of us, including Murray, I suspect, who take out a Sky subscription are contributing greatly to Murdoch’s coffers. I know that I am on the moral low ground when others tell me that they refuse to take Sky out of principle. I cannot use the excuse that, well actually my cable service is provided by Virgin because Richard Branson’s company pays Sky to show his channels. I’m well and truly on the hook, aren’t I?
And how about Jeremy Corbyn? Labour’s hapless leader recently did a lengthy interview with Sky News and a documentary with Vice TV, which is now 5% Murdoch owned. Is the great puritan pure anymore? Literally, probably not.
I used to work for the government, Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron’s right wing governments to be precise. I was watching from the sidelines as they persecuted the sick and disabled, slashed their benefits and painted them all as skivers and scroungers. I didn’t agree with what they were doing. I was just obeying orders, the soldiers of Nazi Germany used to say by way of excuse. And by virtue of my job, I was banned from speaking out. If you push things to the Nth degree, you can say that no one is innocent.
I’d say that, like me, Colin Murray is a bit guilty of association to Rupert Murdoch, except that there is no such thing as being a big guilty. I applaud him for sacrificing his job on a matter of principle because I can see what he’s done what he has done. Talksport will soon be the Sun of the airwaves. But 39% is 39% and that won’t be far away from the percentage of profits being enjoyed by the Dirty Digger. If Murray is feeling pleased with himself, the fact that he referred to bits of the Murdoch empire as “not a problem”, suggests he understands the conundrum. I know I do.
