【译】News Corporation's bid for BSkyB

News Corporation's bid for BSkyB

新闻集团欲收购BSkyB

 

Clouding over the Sky

天空之上的云朵

 

The Murdochs should be allowed to acquire Britain’s satellite broadcaster

默多克应当被允许收购英国的卫星广播服务商

 

Oct 14th 2010

《经济学人》2010-10-14

 

IT IS rare to find the Daily Mail, the conservative voice of middle England, siding with the left-leaning Guardian and the BBC. But the bosses of those outfits share a fear: that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation will end up owning British Sky Broadcasting, a satellite TV firm that it already controls. A joint letter sent to Vince Cable, the business secretary, warns of “serious and far-reaching consequences” for media plurality if the deal, which was proposed in June, goes ahead. Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director general, used a trip to New York to remind Americans that such a concentration of media ownership would not be allowed in their country. He is probably right—but the deal should be allowed to proceed.

 作为英国中部的保守派喉舌的《每日邮报》与左倾的《卫报》及BBC站在一边，这种情况十分鲜见。但是这些机构的老板们都有一个共同的忧虑：默多克的新闻集团将最终拥有英国天空广播公司，而实际上它已经是这家卫星电视巨头的大股东了。英国传媒业的大佬们联名致函给商务大臣Cable，警告称若6月份提出的这一收购交易达成，将对传媒行业的多元化产生“严重且不可估量的后果”。BBC的执行董事马克.汤姆森亲赴纽约提醒美国买家这一传媒业所有权的垄断性举动在英国是不会被允许的。或许他的言论是对的--但是这笔交易应当被允许进行。

If News Corporation does manage to acquire the 61% of Sky it does not already own (which would mean agreeing to a price with Sky’s shareholders) it would be a mighty force. Sky is Britain’s leading media company, having grown through the recession, as others faltered (see article). It now has nearly 10m satellite TV subscribers. News Corporation owns four leading newspapers: the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World. Critics worry that the company will use Sky’s considerable profits to cross-subsidise its newspapers, making them unbeatable. Some fear it will use the 24-hour Sky News to push a conservative agenda, turning it into a British version of the Fox News Channel. More vaguely, many feel Mr Murdoch already has quite enough influence over British life.

  如果新闻集团真的能收购它未拥有的那61%的天空股份（这意味着它将同意以天空的股东认可的股价进行收购），它将会进一步巩固其在传媒业的势力。天空广播公司是英国传媒行业的领头羊。在过去的金融危机时期，当其他传媒企业步履蹒跚地前行时，它却稳步增长。它目前拥有1000万的卫星电视付费用户。新闻集团旗下拥有四份主流报纸：《时代周刊》，《星期日时代报》，《太阳报》及《世界新闻报》。批评者担心新闻集团会利用天空广播可观的收益将其触角延伸至报纸业以外，从而使其变得不可战胜。一些人则担心它会利用天空广播的24小时新闻直播推送保守派议题，从而将后者变成英国版的福克斯新闻频道。一些更为含糊的论调则认为，默多克先生已经对英国人的生活产生了过多的影响。

These objections conveniently gloss over some of the realities of the media business. News Corporation could indeed use the profits from Sky to support its newspapers. But such cross- subsidy is already widespread in the newspaper world, and not just in Britain. The Guardian lost ￡38m ($61m) last year. Its parent company, which opposes News Corporation’s purchase, stayed afloat thanks largely to its investments in Auto Trader, a classified service. The Washington Post newspaper is supported by Kaplan, an education outfit. Besides, News Corporation has plenty of money-making TV networks in America which are more than capable of supporting its newspapers. Spending ￡7.8 billion for Sky seems a rather costly and roundabout way of propping up the Times.

这些反对声故意掩盖了传媒行业的一些事实。新闻集团的确是可以利用天空广播的收益来支持其报纸业的发展。但是这种跨行业已经在报纸业中盛行开来，而不仅仅是英国。尽管《卫报》去年亏损了3800w英镑（约合6100w美元），但由于在分类服务提供商Auto Trader身上的投资，其母公司仍然维持盈利。《华盛顿邮报》也得到了教育巨头卡普兰的支持。除此以外，新闻集团在美国国内也有许多赚钱的电视网络，这些都足以支持其旗下报纸的发展。如果是为了支持《时代周刊》，那么花费78亿英镑收购天空广播则显得代价太大而且道路曲折。

 

A cacophony of voices in news

媒体中的不和谐声音

 

The idea that Sky News will be turned into a Murdoch mouthpiece is scarcely more plausible. The channel is subject to strict impartiality rules. And it is not clear that an opinionated 24-hour news service would be successful even if it could be built. The Fox News Channel became a huge success in America by filling a gap in the market for conservative commentary. Britain already has plenty of that, in the form of blogs and fiercely partisan newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Sun that, unlike American papers, rarely separate reporting from editorialising. Britons probably get enough ideology in their daily news diets without having it on television, too. A greater danger is that News Corporation would be forced to drop Sky News as the price of taking over the company. That would leave the BBC as easily the biggest television and radio news outfit, strengthening that outfit’s already tight grip.

   天空新闻将变成默多克私人的喉舌的想法则更显得不足为信。作为一个卫星频道它是受到严格而公正的规则制约的。一个固执己见的24小时新闻节目即使可以创办起来，但能否获得成功也是不可知的。福克斯新闻频道之所以在美国国内大获成功，这要归功于它填补了保守势力评论的市场空白。但是英国已经有许多这种类型的传媒形式了，比如博客和激进的报纸，其中典型的代表有《每日邮报》和《太阳报》，它们和美国报纸不同，很少会将报道和社论区分开来。英国人可能在日常的读报中获取到足够的意识形态的熏陶，而这些在电视上是接受不到的。更大的风险在于新闻集团可能由于收购的价格过高而被迫放弃收购天空广播。那将会使BBC轻易地成为最大的电视和广播新闻机构，进一步巩固其现有的业界地位。

Rupert Murdoch is an outsize figure in British media and politics. His actual clout is less than many claim (ever the populist, his tabloids tend to follow, not lead, opinion polls) but still plainly large. Yet big does not invariably mean bad. He saved Fleet Street by crushing the print unions. He is leading a movement to charge for newspaper content online, which may help his peers. If he gets hold of Sky and uses it unfairly to crush rivals, he should be punished. If he simply wants to run a successful, competitive outfit, good luck to him.

默多克在英国媒体和政客眼中的“大鳄”级人物。他的实际影响力可能比很多人声称那样要小一些，但依然足够强大。但是大并不一定意味着坏。他通过击破印刷业联盟的手段挽救了Fleet Street。他正在引领者报纸内容网络化收费的新潮流，这将对他的追随者们大有裨益。如果他控制天空广播，并通过它不公平地击败对手，那么他将会得到惩罚。如果他只是简单地运营一个成功的，富有竞争力的企业，那么祝她好运。