“If democracy is to flourish, we will need diverse and independent voices in the media. Yet media concentration in Britain remains at worrying levels.” That’s according to John Cleese, Frankie Boyle, a host of Guardian journalists and the NUJ, who today demand a new media plurality law in a letter to the Guardian. For once, Guido agrees with the bien-pensant self-appointed watchers of the free press. There is a media organisation standing in the way of press plurality: the BBC.

This Guardian-produced chart shows that the BBC controls 39.3% of our news consumption, dominating far more of the market than any competitor. As this analysis from 2011 shows, TV accounts for 73% of news consumed by the public, and the BBC accounts for 70% of TV news coverage. The Beeb is also dominant online and on radio. Its threat to press plurality is even greater when one considers that it is protected from fair competition by a state subsidy via taxation.

As the media luvvies tell the Guardian today, “media concentration in Britain remains at worrying levels”. They are absolutely right when they say “If democracy is to flourish, we will need diverse and independent voices in the media”. No doubt they will follow up their letter with a call for the BBC to be broken up…