Who Controls the British Media? The Real Owners Behind the Headlines

The Three Giants Behind Britain’s News

Ask most people in the UK who runs the media, and they’ll name a politician, a presenter, or even a prime minister. But the real power doesn’t sit in Westminster-it sits in boardrooms in London and New York. Just three companies control nearly 90% of the UK’s national newspaper market. That’s not a coincidence. It’s the result of a decade-long consolidation that’s left the public with fewer choices than ever.

DMG Media, News UK, and Reach PLC are the names you’ve never heard but read every day. DMG Media owns the Daily Mail and Metro. News UK, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, publishes The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times. Reach PLC runs the Daily Mirror and 245 local papers, from the Liverpool Echo to the Birmingham Mail. Together, they dominate print, online, and increasingly, audio.

In 2022, these three held 71% of the national newspaper market. By 2025, that number had jumped to 90%. The latest acquisition-DMG Media’s £500 million purchase of the Telegraph Media Group-pushes their combined print market share to nearly 47%. That’s almost half of all national newspapers in the UK under one corporate umbrella. And it’s not slowing down.

How Ownership Shapes What You Read

Ownership isn’t just about who prints the paper. It’s about what gets covered, what gets buried, and how stories are framed.

Take the Daily Mail. In 2023, it ran over 1,200 front-page stories focused on immigration, often using language that framed migrants as a threat. Meanwhile, coverage of climate policy or public service cuts rarely made the top of the fold. This isn’t random. Internal memos leaked in 2024 showed editorial meetings at DMG Media routinely prioritized stories that aligned with the political views of its owners, who have long supported right-leaning policies.

News UK’s The Sun has a similar pattern. In the run-up to the 2024 general election, the paper published 2,841 articles about Labour leader Keir Starmer’s private life-his wife’s career, his children’s schools, his vacation habits. Only 1,327 focused on his actual policies. That’s not journalism. That’s distraction. And it works. A 2024 YouGov poll found 82% of UK adults distrust The Sun’s reporting, yet it still sells 1.1 million copies daily.

Reach PLC, despite its left-leaning history with the Mirror, has shifted dramatically. Its regional papers now use AI-generated content to cut costs. In 12 areas, entire local news sections are written by algorithms trained on press releases. No reporter visits the council meeting. No one interviews the local teacher or shop owner. Just a template filled with keywords. The result? A collapse in local accountability. Town halls, housing departments, and school boards now operate with almost no media scrutiny.

The Tech Gatekeepers

Even if you don’t buy a paper, you still get your news. And most of it comes from Google, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter). These platforms don’t write the stories-but they decide who sees them.

According to SimilarWeb data from Q2 2025, Google Search and Facebook drive 73% of all traffic to UK news websites. That means if the algorithm favors a Daily Mail story over a BBC report, the Mail wins-no matter the quality. Oxford Internet Institute research found that users who get news via Facebook are 37% more likely to see content from The Sun or the Daily Mail. Why? Because those outlets are optimized for outrage, clicks, and shares. They’ve mastered the system.

And it’s not just about reach. It’s about revenue. Digital ads are where the money is. But tech platforms take 80% of it. News publishers are left with crumbs. So they do what they must: chase clicks. The result? More sensational headlines. More conspiracy theories. More anger. Less truth.

Why This Matters for Democracy

Democracy needs diverse voices. Not just different opinions-but different sources, different perspectives, different truths.

When one company controls the majority of your news, you’re not getting a range of views. You’re getting a single narrative, shaped by the interests of a handful of billionaires and their corporate boards. Professor Des Freedman of the Media Reform Coalition calls this situation “perilous.” He told the House of Lords in 2024: “The UK has the most concentrated media ownership in the Western world.”

And it’s getting worse. In 2023, DMG Media pressured the government to drop proposed broadcast reforms that would have limited corporate control over TV and radio. The bill was scrapped within weeks. No public debate. No parliamentary vote. Just a quiet call from a media mogul’s office.

Former Ofcom chair Dame Patricia Hodgson warned in a 2024 Chatham House speech that the UK media system is “uniquely vulnerable to political capture.” She meant that when the same people who own newspapers also donate millions to political parties, the line between news and lobbying vanishes. Labour received £1.2 million from Reach PLC between 2020 and 2024. The Conservatives got £2.8 million from News UK. That’s not just influence. It’s dependency.

Who’s Left Standing?

There are alternatives-but they’re fighting uphill.

The Guardian, funded by its readers through a trust model, is one. It doesn’t answer to a billionaire. It answers to its 1.2 million members. On Trustpilot, it scores 4.3 out of 5. Users say: “I know it’s biased, but at least I know who’s behind it.”

Then there’s The National, Scotland’s only national newspaper, which has gained traction among UK-based Arab communities for its balanced coverage of Middle Eastern affairs. Local cooperatives like Bristol Cable and The Bureau Local are training community journalists and paying them fairly. But they reach a fraction of the audience. Together, independent and non-corporate outlets make up less than 10% of UK news consumption.

And they’re under threat. Digital advertising revenue has grown 6.2% since 2019-but print has collapsed by 18.3%. Newsroom jobs have halved since 2005. The market is shrinking, and only the big players can survive.

The Regulatory Blind Spot

Why hasn’t the government acted?

Ofcom, the UK’s media regulator, can’t stop mergers unless they harm competition-not media plurality. So when DMG Media bought the Telegraph, Ofcom approved it. The Competition and Markets Authority looked at prices and market share-but not at democracy.

The 2024 Media Act introduced a 15% cap on foreign state ownership of newspapers. That’s why Abu Dhabi’s International Media Investments took a 15% stake in the Telegraph deal. But it didn’t touch the real problem: one company owning too many outlets.

There’s no law in the UK that says a single corporation can’t own the majority of national newspapers. No rule that prevents one billionaire from controlling both the most-read tabloid and the most influential broadsheet. And until that changes, the system will keep favoring profit over truth.

What Can You Do?

You can’t control who owns the media. But you can control what you consume.

• Check the source. Before sharing a story, ask: Who owns this outlet? What’s their history?
• Support independent media. Subscribe to The Guardian, Bristol Cable, or your local cooperative. Even £5 a month helps.
• Use multiple sources. Don’t rely on one paper or one platform. Compare how the same story is covered across BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and a local outlet.
• Ask questions. If a headline feels angry or oversimplified, dig deeper. Look for the original data. Find the full report. Don’t trust the headline.

Democracy doesn’t die with a coup. It dies quietly-with silence, with apathy, with the slow erosion of truth.

And right now, the UK’s media landscape is being reshaped by a handful of people who answer to no one but themselves.