Proposed media ownership rules could increase the restrictions on local newspapers, the Newspaper Society has claimed.

It believes the Government’s consultation paper “completely fails to understand how newspapers and regional media markets operate”.

The comments came in the Society’s response to the paper, which was published on Monday.

It fears that a future media watchdog body might be given the ability to control the way in which local media develops alongside national media.

The Society is also disappointed the Government has failed to address the regional newspaper industry’s concerns over both newspaper transfers and cross-media ownership restrictions.

Society director David Newell said: “We are concerned by the consultation document issued today. It fails to understand the role of regional and local newspapers, and the competitive environment in which they operate.”

And he said that far from setting out a ‘lighter touch approach’, the consultation document threatened to extend controls and introduce “new and more onerous layers of regulation”, preventing local media from competing with other media still further.

The Newspaper Society has consistently called for a radical overhaul of the current ownership regulations and a change to specialist media controls, to give the regional newspaper industry the freedom to compete against print and non-print media on equal terms.

As part of its original submission, the Society included a report on media ownership legislation and its commercial impact on the regional and local newspaper industry.

The report recommended the current special regulations restricting both newspaper and cross-media mergers and acquisitions should be relaxed and that newspapers become subject simply to general competition law.

It argues that the specialist newspaper provisions of the Fair Trading Act should be removed, leaving newspapers subject to general competition law, and that the cross-media ownership regulations that constrain local newspaper ownership of radio stations in their circulation areas should be relaxed.

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