Media Ownership in Australia - Part 1 Intro

Phew - I forgot my username and password briefly - this is just a copy of the first ownership post I did a couple of weeks ago. I am going to get some more information tonight.

I have looked at the following to try and get an understanding of ownership laws in Australia, particularly in relation to TV. I have had a look at the Parliament of Australia's website which outlines the current laws. The Media Laws Blueprint, which was rejected in 2002 is now going to become legislation after the Liberal Government's victory in the upper and lower houses in the previous election. The date mentioned by Communications Minister, Helen Coonan is June or July this year.

The following laws are from the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.

Television

A person must not control television broadcasting licences whose combined licence area exceeds 75 per cent of the population of Australia, or more than one licence within a licence area (section 53). Foreign persons must not be in a position to control a licence and the total of foreign interests must not exceed 20 per cent (section 57). There are also limits on multiple directorships (section 55) and foreign directors (section 58).

Cross-Media Control

Under section 60 a person must not control:

* a commercial television broadcasting licence and a commercial radio broadcasting licence having the same licence area;
* a commercial television broadcasting licence and a newspaper associated with that licence area;
* or a commercial radio broadcasting licence and newspaper associated with that licence area.

Subscription Television Broadcasting Licences

A foreign person must not have company interests exceeding 20 per cent in a broadcasting subscription licence, and the total of foreign company interests in any licence must not exceed 35 per cent (section 109).

Luckily, yesterday I had a lecture in another of my subjects, The Media, Australian and Global which went over in brief the laws that are changing.

• Digital Action Plan b 2010-2012 (digitisation of TV)


• No new free-to-air television stations, however, multi-channeling of the current stations is allowed


• Anti-syphoning laws - means that if you buy the rights to show a program you must show it. In past, have been cases where channel e.g. 9 will buy rights to two shows then only show one so that people will tune into that and not have competition.


• Foreign ownership restrictions will be removed except for conditions mentioned in other legislations e.g. Competition


• Cross-media Ownership - removal of this with conditions. There is still a requirement for a number of players in the marketplace - 5 in the city and 4 in the country, (drop from current level of 11).

So, of course, that explains the deal making going on with the fat cats trying to buy up and secure deals across different media platforms before the laws come about (although not in law until this happens).

The obvious implication of these changes are lack of diversity in the media, which if you saw the doco we watched 'US Media Blues' by Yves Bosset about the passive nature of the US media post 9/11 is terrifying and the effect of the media on politics.

I think that the decision to only have the 3 commercial stations currently in existence is ridiculous - it would be great for competition to have a new player in the market. This appears to be a clause put in by the big guns, so this is again concerning to see the influence the media has on pollies.

Government Bodies overseeing Reforms once Implemented

• Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)


• Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)

Some useful sources I found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_in_Australia
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21423667-7582,00.html
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2006/1711568.htm