JEREMY Corbyn has announced plans to set up a nationalised rival to Netflix and Amazon that would give audiences the power to commission the next big hit.
The Labour leader said a British Digital Corporation (BDC) would "harness data for the public good" and could even develop a new social media platform similar to Facebook.
He insisted the "public realm doesn’t have to sit back and watch as a few mega tech corporations hoover up digital rights, assets and ultimately our money".
It came as he attacked the UK newspaper industry and echoed the language of Donald Trump, insisting most people think it churns out "fake news day in, day out".
Mr Corbyn was delivering the prestigious Alternative MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, where he outlined his vision to shake up the entire media industry – including overhauling the BBC.
He said: "One of the more ambitious ideas I’ve heard is to set up a publicly owned British Digital Corporation as a sister organisation to the BBC.
"The idea was floated by James Harding, former BBC Director of Home News in the Hugh Cudlipp lecture earlier this year.
"A BDC could use all of our best minds, the latest technology and our existing public assets not only to deliver information and entertainment to rival Netflix and Amazon but also to harness data for the public good.
"A BDC could develop new technology for online decision making and audience-led commissioning of programmes and even a public social media platform with real privacy and public control over the data that is making Facebook and others so rich."
He added: "It could become the access point for public knowledge, information and content currently held in the BBC archives, the British Library and the British Museum.
"Imagine an expanded iPlayer giving universal access to licence fee payers for a product that could rival Netflix and Amazon. It would probably sell pretty well overseas as well."
Mr Corbyn said the BDC could be funded using a digital licence fee collected from tech giants and internet providers, or through a "windfall tax" of digital corporations such as Facebook and Google.
He wants to force major tech companies to plough cash into a “public interest media fund” while giving some local, investigative and public interest journalism organisations charitable status.
The Labour leader also called for BBC staff and licence fee payers to have a say in electing its board.
He argued the broadcaster could lead the way in publishing transparent workforce equality data – "including for social class". It is not clear how this would be defined.
Elsewhere, he suggested placing the BBC on a permanent statutory footing to end government control through charter renewal.
He said: “The BBC should be freed of government control, democratised and made representative of the country it serves to help it do that.”
It came as he launched an attack on the "print barons" and editorial choices of UK newspapers, insisting: "A free press is essential to our democracy, but much of our press isn’t very free at all."
He added: "For all the worry about new forms of fake news we’ve ignored the fact that most of our citizens think our newspapers churn out fake news day in, day out."
Questioned by a reporter, Mr Corbyn denied his plans were "retribution or retaliation" following a summer of press scrutiny over claims of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party.
He raised the prospect of giving journalists the power to elect editors and having seats on boards for workers and consumers "when a title or programme gets particularly large and influential".
Tory chairman Brandon Lewis branded the proposals a "wholescale plan for more state control over our media".
He added: “From forcing BBC journalists to state their social class, to a nationalised Facebook, these measures are an attempt to hamstring our free press and legitimate scrutiny of Jeremy Corbyn."
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