As the dust continues to fly around James Warburton’s replacement with News Limited man Hamish McLennan, a News Limited spokesperson has described allegations and reports that the media giant is after control of Channel Ten as “conspiratorial, highly fanciful and wrong”. Emphatically adding that “News Limited has no plans to acquire Channel Ten”.
On the same day that McLennan told B&T that Being Lara Bingle and The Shire were mistakes brought about by Channel Ten’s former strategy of targeting a youth market, the News Limited spokesperson said that McLennan only worked for the company for “around a year”.
The spokesperson also took the opportunity in denying takeover ambitions to reiterate the company’s opposition to the imposition of additional tests for media saying the “massive increases in media diversity, and the extensive pro-competition and pro-diversity powers held by the ACCC and ACMA render them entirely unnecessary.
“Furthermore, as has been demonstrated overseas, such tests are subjective, vague and imprecise, difficult to interpret and wide open to political interference.”