Ownership regulation Ownership Regulation Broadcasting legislation requires the ITC to ensure that its licensees comply with ownership regulations. At the application stage, the ITC has to decide, amongst other things, whether an applicant is a fit and proper person to hold a licence and whether the applicant is disqualified from holding a licence under legislation because, for example, the applicant is a political body or advertising agency. The Broadcasting Act 1996 introduced ownership limitations based, on the whole, on audience share rather than on the number of licences held. The key element of the legislation is that the ITC is responsible for ensuring holdings are restricted to 15 per cent of audience share. The 1996 Act also introduced new cross-media ownership rules.
Various restrictions apply to ownership of TV and radio licences, and TV licences and newspapers.
The ITC is responsible for deciding whether cross-holdings between newspaper publishers and terrestrial TV licensees would operate against the public interest.