The government last night accepted 120 of the recommendations of the joint committee into the Communications Bill but did not yield to demands to think again on moves to relax cross-media ownership rules.

Claiming that a "good bill has been made better", Tessa Jowell accepted recommendations to enlarge the board of Ofcom along with over 100 of the committee's suggestions.

Among those accepted included: fining the BBC in respect of breaches of "tier one and tier two obligations" which the broadcaster has to meet as part of its regulation; undertaking a review of the television programme supply market; increasing the size of the Ofcom board; looking again at the drafting and structure of Ofcom's general duties; and, making clearer how self-regulation fits within the new framework.

Jowell said: "Lord Puttnam and his Committee have been a critical friend. They aimed to 'make a good Bill better'. Their input has achieved this - we have taken the vast majority of their recommendations on board.

"For example, we have already acted on their recommendations about independent productions by asking the Independent Television Commission to undertake a review of the television programme supply market.

But she defended the government's decision to ignore the committee's warning against relaxing media ownership laws.

"While the committee's contributions have led to significant changes to the original draft, we have also been able to remain true to the key principles of reform that underpin the Bill: liberalising the market to cut out unnecessary bureaucracy, while retaining safeguards that will protect the plurality and diversity of our media," said Jowell.