The chief executive of broadcaster Five has hit out at the lack of regulation surrounding the rise of Google as a competitor to media companies.
Jane Lighting told NMA that if the company was a traditional broadcaster then it wouldn't have escaped regulation. And she warned that it was almost too late for anyone to put the brakes on the rise of the search giant as a dominant player in the media market.
"Google is clearly an incredibly powerful company," Lighting said. "It has a very substantial share of the advertising sector and it has a hell of a lot of leverage.
"If you had a broadcaster with that kind of leverage there would be all sorts of regulations. You couldn't have that much leverage in one place in terms of ad monies," she added.
Clearly new to this internet thing, she attempts to redeem herself by demonstrating her monkey-grip on the bleeding obvious,
"By the time Google is regulated, it will be too late, is my ultimate feeling. It's growing too fast for that so I think the market's going to do what the market's going to do."
You don't say! Markets are funny that way. And it may seem strange that someone in her position would be totally oblivious to the events of the last twelve or so years, but I have had much direct experience with mainstream broadcasters and can tell you they live in a world all their own. It's just at the junction of the small and large intestine, as demonstrated by this dazzling bit of analysis:
Lighting claimed that companies like Google escaped regulation because the competition authorities considered it too hard to take on.
"I do find it strange that we have broadcast regulation all over the place on the basis that it comes into people's homes, and then we have this other thing called the web that, because it's rather difficult to regulate, we [simply] let it get on with it," said Lighting.
Bad regulators!! Bad, lazy regulators! Can an upward career move to the BBC be far behind for Jane?
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