 The Howard Government’s proposed new media regime is a lost opportunity to take up the real challenges confronting the media and entertainment industries in Australia. Having spent months creating the discussion document, the paper released today does not address these future challenges and will significantly reduce diversity in Australia. The Government’s discussion paper, Meeting the Digital Challenge: Reforming Australia's media in the digital age, talks about providing “a richer and more media diverse environment” but it does not deliver on that promise.
Alliance federal secretary Christopher Warren says the paper fails to deliver on expectations that the government is serious about reform and investment in a diverse Australian media.
“Rather than embracing the creation of a truly diverse media, with many owners, and providing multiple media outlets, this paper is all about placing the media into the grasp of just a handful of media owners,” Warren said.
The Government’s proposed reforms aim to tear-up the 20-year-old cross-media and foreign ownership restrictions and, in their place, encourage a free-for-all of merger activity among the major media players. This will result in fewer voices in almost every city and region.
The paper aims for a minimum number of commercial media players in a city to be reduced to just to five and, in a region, to just four. In Sydney and Melbourne the proposed reforms could more than halve the number of independent voices from the existing 12 or 13 to just five. “And the last time this sort of merger activity took place, Australia ended up with debt-laden companies almost all of whom ended up in receivership,” Warren said.
“Already, we have seen a dramatic collapse of local content and production in our media and entertainment industries This white paper proposes to further deny Australian audiences their own cultural identity and information from their own news organizations by reducing media diversity and encouraging foreign ownership,” Warren said.
The discussion paper also aims to treat media assets like any other business: subject to the same competition rules and foreign investment policies. “But media assets are different to other businesses. They are a vital pillar of the democratic process and, as such, play a crucial role of informing the community. Fewer media players cannot perform that function properly.”
The transition of digital should provide a raft of mechanisms to increase diversity and local content. But the paper totally misses the opportunity that digital technology provides, Warren said.
For more information contact Christopher Warren on 0411 757 668The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance - the people who inform and entertain Australia |
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