Broadcasting: Recent Developments

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for securing this debate and for his passionate commitment to UK broadcasting. I declare my interest as deputy chairman of Telegraph Media Group and co-chairman of the ITV APPG. I have three points.

The first concerns BBC charter renewal. Like many noble Lords, I have a profound commitment to the BBC and its values, but I have long been concerned about the impact of its online activities on the UK’s commercial media sector and, in particular, independent local media. Only recently Ofcom made clear its own concerns that the BBC’s largely unchecked expansion into digital local news is harming the commercial sector, with profound consequences for media plurality. Its free-to-access online service is deeply damaging to independent local news provision and in the worst-case scenario threatens to extinguish it altogether as print sales decline to unviable levels. We cannot let that happen. The charter renewal process must set new boundaries of activity to rein back the BBC’s online news provision to sustain local and national news diversity and quality journalism.

Secondly, we need action to protect the position of our PSBs, which are the bedrock of our creative economy, by ensuring that they can stand up to the competition from global online platforms. I agree with Ofcom:

“If no action is taken, the very existence of the PSBs … will be threatened. Time is running out to save this pillar of UK culture”.


We need decisive action in a number of areas; first, on prominence, where we must robustly implement the Media Act 2024 to ensure that PSBs are prominent on equitable terms on TV screens and all major devices, including gaming consoles, and create specific rules to ensure that PSB content is prominent on all major video-sharing and social media platforms, including YouTube, without having to share revenues. Secondly, the PSBs are a source of trusted, quality news, which is more important now than ever. This is particularly true for young people, and we need to ensure that PSB content is actively promoted on the platforms they use. Thirdly, we need to recognise the importance of tax incentives for safeguarding UK content, which means tax credits for UK stories and at-risk genres.

My third point concerns the potential acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix, which I believe would have deeply damaging consequences for UK broadcasting. Netflix is already dominant in the subscription video on demand market. Present in almost six in 10 UK households, it accounted for nearly half of SVOD viewing in 2024. Were Netflix to be allowed to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery, the combined company’s revenue share of the market would be around three times higher than that of its nearest competitor. That is a virtual monopoly which would be potentially disastrous for our creative economy and for our consumers.

It would make it enormously difficult for other streamers to compete, something of great concern for our domestic streaming services, especially with the launch of Netflix’s advertising tier, meaning even more UK ad spend ending up in Silicon Valley. It would damage British talent and our leading independent production sector, as Netflix would have unprecedented market power in terms of both pricing and which projects to greenlight. And it would present a real danger to our cinemas because Netflix has never operated a traditional theatrical release model. I am particularly worried about Netflix’s clear desire to reduce the windowing times of releases. For consumers, a virtual monopoly means what virtual monopolies always mean: higher prices and less choice.

For all these reasons, it is clear to me that the CMA must conduct a full and thorough investigation into a merger, which, by cementing Netflix as a monopoly player, is clearly anti-competitive, with chilling implications for UK consumers and for the whole of our creative economy. I would be grateful for the Minister’s reassurance that this issue is being carefully scrutinised and that the Government will ensure that the CMA conducts a full review of this transaction.