The government must examine several media licenses issued to individuals in order to avoid the monopoly of the media

In most advanced democratic countries, media ownership has long been a subject of political controversy because of the fear of controlling hearts, minds, wallets and voting booths. Therefore, media regulators always strive to prevent or minimize the risk that a person or group of people will monopolize the media, to ensure fair political competition, equal opportunity for media players and various choices for end users.

With the current concentration of private power over the electronic media, which is becoming smarter, more powerful and more persuasive, allowing a person or a small group to create a media empire in a country poses a threat to national security, particularly in new democratic countries like ours.

The proliferation of media licenses granted to a few people in Ghana to build media empires and their growing diversification into multiple branches of the media is a dangerous phenomenon that goes against the very mandate of the National Communication Authority (NCA), who takes responsibility. ensure fair competition between licensees and end-users.

The question is how granting more than six one-person media licenses for building a multimedia empire in Ghana promotes fair and sustainable competition among licensees.

In my research, I found that on its website, the NCA mission statement made it clear that: "the NCA must" regulate the communications sector in a transparent and forward-looking manner, to promote fair and sustainable competition, stimulate innovation, encourage investment. , protect the interests of stakeholders and facilitate universal access to quality communication services for national development ".

In addition, "NCA's primary responsibility is to promote and ensure fair competition in the telecommunications sector, which includes the implementation of a competition policy within the jurisdiction of the NCA. 39. Authority: NCA promotes fair competition and protects communication service providers from abuse of market power "or from unfair and unfair practices by other service providers.

The Authority also has competing jurisdictions to combat anti-competitive conduct in broadcasting, spectrum use and telecommunications.

Now, unequivocally in my mind, the NCA has already laid the groundwork, promoting a system of unfair and anti-competitive competition by issuing multiple media licenses to a few wealthy and powerful individuals, in order to create multimedia empires against the only media. holders.

This particularity of the multiple licenses issued to individuals in Ghana is worse than any unprecedented media mergers and acquisitions ever recorded in the history of the media.

I will quote below the concept of the British media empire Rupert Murdoch, which the British government and regulators are currently struggling to manage.

Wikipedia has recorded that, the multimedia company in Ghana, currently owns and operates six (6) radio stations, six (6) news sites and a satellite television network. Among the stations owned and managed by Multimedia Group Limited are Asempa FM, Joy FM, Adom FM, Hitz FM, Luv FM, Nhyira FM, Joy News TV, Adom TV, etc. The Multimedia Group is today the largest independent commercial media and entertainment company established in Ghana in 1995 and owned by a Ghanaian entrepreneur, Mr. Kwasi Twum.

Looking at this, how could a media license owned by a single property be able to compete with this well-established multimedia empire?

The system has already created the media monopoly for multimedia and others, and today it is becoming extremely difficult to reach the multimedia group even if it is wrong. We can see the level of pomposity of their employees on their shows.

In addition, Wikipedia has reported that the group of companies (DGC) includes several media companies such as Peace FM, Neat FM, Hello FM, Okay FM, U2 Company Limited (UTV) and (Peacefmonline.com), etc.

Again, the question is, in the modern age, which democratic nation would facilitate the possession of this number of media licenses to create a media empire, and where are the equitable playgrounds of other unique license to compete with these well-built media empires in Ghana?

Learn from the painful experience of the UK today; About 30 years ago, the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government allowed Rupert Murdoch's media company to take control of "The Times and Sunday Times" without referring to the Commission. Monopolies and mergers (MMC), even though possessed the sun and the "news of the world". Since then, the British media group Murdoch has held at least four national newspapers, 39% of BSkyB, as well as other media around the world, including Fox News.

Today, the UK government and media regulators see it as an unfortunate and dangerous "control" issue. This situation led the UK media regulator to set up a separate investigation to determine whether News Corp was an "appropriate" holder of the 39% stake in BSkyB.

The recent BBC badysis titled: "Murdoch and UK media ownership" established that "media ownership has long been a subject of political controversy – particularly when it involves Rupert Murdoch. 39 BBC badysis concluded that "A man or company that controls much of the country's press and broadcasting interests is a topic of public interest – particularly when that person is interested in political program of its newspapers and that one of them claims to influence the general elections. "

By juxtaposing the so-called voice of the NDC minority leader in parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, who was clearly heard saying that two major Ghanaian media houses were accepting cash offers from politicians before granting any importance essential to national problems. to be interested in.

The audio file allegedly leaked would be from a meeting held at the headquarters of the National Democratic Congress in Accra as a result of the shooting of Ayawaso West Wuogon's constituency, revealed in a shocking manner that Citi FM and Joy FM (Multimedia) had been "outsourced" by the NDC broadcast live, the debates in Parliament about the Chancery controversy that the government of Ghana would have acquired would have been likely to shamefully embarrbad the NPP government.

Again, many badysts have attributed the highly documented documentary "The Militia at the Heart of the Nation", recently published by Joy News & # 39 ;, from Manbadeh Azure Awuni – to a kind of maliciously prepared documentary, narrated misleading and sensationalized in order to deceive Ghanaians An exchange of money with the opposition NDC to defeat the praise that would follow President Nana Akufo-Addo's decision to hold the magnificent 62nd Independence Day celebration. Ghana to Tamale.

In my opinion, the concentration of several media licenses granted to a small number of rich to establish media empires in Ghana is a recipe for political tragedy and a threat to national security.

If we do not pay attention, very soon, these few individuals owning the media empires would dictate who should be the president of Ghana by the highest bidder, which political party should win the general election, who should be jailed, who should to be dismissed responsibility, just like the tactics of the media empire Rupert Murdoch, which poses enormous problems to British governments and British politics.

So perilous that the Murdoch method of owning press houses is to invest heavily in existing news outlets, it is still not as dangerous as Ghana to grant several licenses to individuals knowingly to create empires medias.

This is not a healthy phenomenon to allow in Ghana and as soon as possible, its government is taking steps to reduce the number of licenses granted to these few people to better protect the country.

As the saying goes literally: "the key to a problem sometimes opens the door to another problem".

Probably, the recent revelations about these multimedia houses should send a clear message to national security and the NCA that allocates, allocates and regulates the use of frequencies in accordance with compliance and development strategies for the communications sector and has the responsibility to manage the access of civilian radio spectrum, to team up with the National Media Commission (NMC), which is also the Government of Ghana's agency responsible for recording, regulating and monitoring activities Ghanaian media companies to discuss the issues raised.

Unfortunately, in my research, I also found that the official Facebook page of the National Media Commission had been updated on October 21, 2017 at 7:33. Lol. No updates since.

I conclude by saying that it is generally accepted that freedom of speech is reinforced by the diversity or plurality of editorial voices, and not by these concentrated media empires. They become an "atrocious media cabal", which is not good for nation building.

Strict legal restrictions on media ownership in Ghana, like Nigeria and many other countries (at local and national levels), must be imposed, and major takeovers must be tightly controlled.

The diversification of media licenses, not the creation of media empires, can even create more jobs for media professionals, while at the same time ensuring healthy competition and helping citizens to better decipher problems and problems. to be well informed.

Peter Antwi Boasiako
London, United Kingdom.