\n\tBUENOS AIRES: The Supreme Court in Argentina has upheld a law that limits media ownership, now forcing Grupo Clarín to sell off a large part of its holdings, after a legal battle that has waged on for four years.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe legislation, passed in 2009, says that no one media group can own more than 24 audiovisual licenses and cannot hold more than 35 percent of the nation's viewers. The law had been challenged by the Argentine media giant Grupo Clarín, which owns the country's main cable operation Cablevisión, the Artear media company and numerous other media outlets. Grupo Clarín argued that the law violates the constitution by forcing companies to sell off previously acquired licenses.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Argentine Supreme Court has now officially declared that the Audiovisual Media Law in question is, in fact, constitutional. Media groups now have one year to comply with the law, starting immediately after authorities hammer out how it is to be implemented. This will see the conglomerate having to divest some of its assets.<\/p>\n
\n\t"Grupo <\/span>Clarín laments the ruling, which doesn't take into account the value of journalistic independence as a precursor for freedom of speech, and as such seriously questions the real possibility of criticizing political power, an indispensable democratic assumption," the media group said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BUENOS AIRES: The Supreme Court in Argentina has upheld a law that limits media ownership, now forcing Grupo Clarín to sell off a large part of its holdings, after a legal battle that has waged on for four years. The legislation, passed in 2009, says that no one media group can own more than 24 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-top-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n