Turner fears risk-takers will be turned off

Ted Turner, the maverick media chief, said at the weekend it would have been "virtually impossible" to launch CNN more than two decades ago if ownership laws in the industry had been relaxed to the extent now being proposed.

In comments likely to enrage fellow directors at AOL Time Warner, he warned too about increasingly powerful media conglomerates bending news presentation to serve their own "political or financial interests".

The remarks appeared in an editorial in the Washington Post, in which Mr Turner railed against further concentration of the American media industry. He argued that under the proposed rule changes entrepreneurs would be squeezed out. "These rules will stifle debate, inhibit new ideas and shut out smaller businesses trying to compete. If these rules had been in place in 1970, it would have been virtually impossible for me to start Turner Broadcasting or, ten years later, to launch CNN."

Regulators will vote later today on the rule changes that will allow the conglomerates to buy more TV stations and newspapers.

"For a corporation to launch a new idea, you have to get the backing of executives who are obsessed with quarterly earnings and afraid of being fired for an idea that fails," he said. "They often prefer to sit on the sidelines waiting to buy the businesses or imitate the models of the risk-takers who succeed. Two large media corporations turned down my invitation to invest in the launch of CNN."

His comments on reporting appear particularly apposite in the wake of the Iraq war. He points to "warning signs that large media corporations could abuse their market power by slanting news coverage in ways that serve their political or financial interests".

"Naturally, corporations say they would never suppress speech," he added. "That may be true. But It's not their intentions that matter it's their capabilities. The new FCC rules would give them more power to cut important ideas out of the public debate. It's precisely that power that the rules should prevent. Some news organisations have tried to marginalise opponents of the war in Iraq. Pope John Paul II also opposed the war. How narrow-minded have we made our public discussion if the opinion of the Pope is outside the bounds of political debate?"