Argentina’s Supreme Court rules that breaking up private media monopolies is constitutional

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentina’s Supreme Court approved the country’s four-year-old broadcast media law on Tuesday, deciding that it’s constitutional to force private news media monopolies to break themselves apart if they exceed government-imposed audience limits.

The ruling is a huge victory for President Cristina Fernandez and a bitter defeat for Grupo Clarin, which has been a leading voice against her administration.

Clarin is one of Latin America’s largest media companies, with interests in newspapers, magazines, a nationwide television network and broadcast TV and radio stations. It would be forced to sell off its lucrative cable TV licenses once the law is implemented.

Among other restrictions, the 2009 law limits cross-ownership of media companies and says no TV network can command more than 35 per cent of the nation’s viewers and bars the same company from owning more than one or two radio stations in a single municipality.

By a four-three vote, the justices approved the law in its entirety, including four articles that seek to eliminate existing concentrations of media power. Two other judges approved some of these articles, and only one declared the entire law to be unconstitutional.

Clarin says the law is unfair because it applies no limits to competitors that deliver news, internet access and other media services through telephone wires or by satellite to consumers nationwide. Government supporters celebrated, calling the ruling a victory for diversity and freedom of expression in a media landscape too often dominated by private interests.