Culture, Media and Sport

Radio continues to be a strong and highly valued medium in the UK, with 87% of the population tuning in every week. However, the means by which listeners tune into radio has undergone a significant shift in recent years. In particular, there has been sustained growth in listeners’ use of voice-activated devices (such as smart speakers) to access online streams of live broadcast radio. The use of these kinds of devices by radio listeners has grown strongly. According to the most recent figures from RAJAR, 18% of total radio listening is via a voice-assisted device.

In response to these changes, the Media Act 2024 amended the Communications Act 2003 to introduce new powers to protect the availability and carriage of online streams of UK broadcast radio on such voice-activated services (defined as radio selection services or RSS.) These protections were put in place to ensure that listeners using these services as designated by the Secretary of State are able to continue to access live radio. Before making any such designation the Secretary of State must first receive a report from Ofcom, which the Secretary of State received on 19 March 2026.

Having taken into account Ofcom’s advice and recommendations, the Secretary of State agrees with Ofcom’s conclusion that 700,000 users is the appropriate threshold for designation. Consequently, the Secretary of State is minded to agree that Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri should all be designated radio selection services.

Before making regulations to designate these services, and having already received Ofcom’s report, the Secretary of State is now required by section 362BB of the Communications Act 2003 to consult persons who appear to represent providers of radio selection services and providers of internet radio services, and other appropriate persons.

This consultation launches today and responses can be submitted by the closing date of 9 September 2026.

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The Enterprise Act 2002 (Mergers Involving Newspaper Enterprises and Foreign Powers) (No. 2) Regulations 2025, which can be found at www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/1351/made, were debated and approved by Parliament in December 2025, and came into force on 31 January 2026.

They amended the exceptions for state-owned investors in the foreign state influence regime in the Enterprise Act 2002 to provide that, if a state-owned investor acquires a direct holding of more than 5% of the shares or voting rights in a newspaper—up to a maximum of 15%—they must notify the Secretary of State and publish certain details on a website before the end of a period of 14 days beginning with the date of the relevant acquisition in order to qualify for the exception.

When the regulations were laid before Parliament, I made a written statement, which can be found at https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-10-30/hcws1009 that set out the Secretary of State’s commitment to sharing a statement every six months on the details that state-owned investors have published about their investments pursuant to the regulations.

Since 31 January 2026, the Secretary of State has received no notifications of acquisitions resulting in a state-owned investor holding more than 5% in a UK newspaper directly.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will continue to publish statements every six months to maintain transparency around state-owned investment in newspapers, and to build public and parliamentary confidence in this regime. The next statement is due in January 2027.

I am repeating the following written ministerial statement made today in the other place by my noble Friend, the Minister for Museums, Heritage and Gambling and Department for Culture, Media and Sport Lords Minister, Baroness Twycross:

I am pleased to inform the House that we have today published a consultation on banning unlicensed gambling sponsorship and advertising in sport and all other sectors. This follows our announcement in February of our intention to consult on banning such sponsorship in the sport sector.

Under current legislation, businesses are able to enter into advertising and sponsorship arrangements with gambling operators that are not licensed by the Gambling Commission, so long as those operators’ services cannot be accessed by consumers in Great Britain. Unlicensed operators achieve this by geo-blocking their websites. However, this can be circumvented by consumers using a virtual private network. This has become a particular issue over the past year in the sporting sector, particularly football, as the result of changes in the advertising landscape.

We therefore intend to introduce a ban on unlicensed gambling sponsorship and advertising that will target any physical forms or manifestations of advertising or sponsorship. Within a sporting context, this will include kit and equipment sponsorships, pitchside billboards, tournament programmes, venue infrastructure, and the naming of events, leagues and venues. This will make it a criminal offence for any club, league, event, venue, individual or related assets to advertise or be sponsored by a gambling operator not licensed by the Gambling Commission when operating in Great Britain. We also intend to apply this ban to all sectors, to avoid other sectors replacing sport as an alternative vehicle for unlicensed sponsorship.