The School of Communications and the BAI launch media ownership database
Mediaownership.ie, a searchable database of media ownership across Ireland, covering print, websites, radio and television, was launched today by the BAI and DCU’s School of Communications.
The website provides detailed information on who owns what media properties in Ireland. Members of the public can search by outlet, owners and shareholders to better understand the Irish media landscape. The information provided reflects media ownership in Ireland up to the end of 2019. The database will be updated in Q1 2021 to reflect the position at the end of 2020.
The project is part of the BAI’s commitment to promote media plurality, in line with the provisions in the Broadcasting Act 2009 and the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014.
Michael O’Keeffe, Chief Executive of the BAI, said
“The BAI is committed to promoting media plurality in Ireland and also to empowering audiences. In the recent Media Pluralism Monitor Report 2020, transparency of media ownership in Ireland was considered to be a medium risk (38%). By making this easily searchable database available, we are providing the public with information about media companies and individual owners thereby reducing the risk identified in the recent report.
The BAI also has a role in advising the minister on proposed media mergers in the context of protecting plurality of media. The information in this database will also act as an important resource when examining the impact any proposed media merger may have.”
Dr Roddy Flynn, project coordinator added
“The database has been created in a way to make it user-friendly, allowing visitors to perform broad searches, or to search by media outlet or shareholder. The information about ownership and shareholdings is derived from the Irish Companies Records Office, the FAME database, corporate annual reports, company websites and direct communication with media outlets and/ or their owners.
The status of all media outlets included in the Media Ownership database will be revisited at twelve-monthly intervals.”
Dr Donal Mulligan, design and development for the project, said
"The website is built as a public portal to the Media Ownership Ireland database, and so designed to make the often quite complex layers of shareholding searchable and navigable. It provides multiple ways to refine and focus searches, as well as lists that can show all matching Irish media outlets of a particular type or market.
The site is designed with meeting current best practice in web accessibility in mind, to allow better mobile and tablet browsing, and to increase accessibility to this public data.
Access to this data in Ireland has historically been difficult and in some cases costly, so the project helps to deliver a new centralised and maintained portal that we hope will aid the public in understanding how media in this country is owned."