Content, Consolidation And Clout How will regional Australia be affected by media ownership changes? A report by the Communications Law Centre 2006 Funded by a Faculty Grant from the University of New South Wales, 2005 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all those in Wollongong, Launceston, Townsville and Toowoomba who participated in the focus groups for this study, and the academics, commentators and journalists who gave us their time and insights. Special thanks go to: Elizabeth Beal, Philip Bell, Ginger Briggs, Lesley Hitchens, Jock Given, Julie Hillocks, Geoff Lealand, Julie Miller, Nick Moustakas and Julian Thomas. Analysis of media companies and a draft of some sections of Chapter Four were provided by Danny Yap as part of a placement for the University of New South Wales Law School social justice internship program. The Faculty Research Grants Committees of the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW provided funding for the initial part of this project including the field work in regional centres. The project was completed by the authors following the closure of the Communications Law Centre at UNSW in June 2005. The CLC continues its policy, research and advocacy work through its centre at Victoria University. About the authors Tim Dwyer is Lecturer in Media Policy and Research at the School of Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney. Derek Wilding was Director of the Communications Law Centre from 2000 to 2005. Before that he worked for the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and at Queensland University of Technology. He is currently a Principal Policy Officer with the Office of Film and Literature Classification. Helen Wilson is Adjunct Research Fellow with the Communications Law Centre. She was Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Media and Cultural Studies at Southern Cross University, and is currently editor of Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy. Simon Curtis was Clayton Utz Senior Research Officer at the Communications Law Centre from April 2004 to July 2005. He is currently a researcher at the Faculty of Law, UNSW, on a project examining self-regulation in the communications sector. Any views expressed in this report are those of the authors and not of the organisations for which they work. Communications Law Centre The Communications Law Centre is an independent, non-profit, public interest organisation specialising in media, communications and online law and policy. In Victoria, the Communications Law Centre is a research unit of Victoria University. Director: Elizabeth Beal Level 1, 283 Queen Street Phone +61 (0)3 9600 3841 Melbourne VIC 3000 Fax +61 (0)3 9670 7902 PO Box 14428 Email [email protected] Melbourne VIC 8001 Web www.comslaw.org.au © Communications Law Centre Limited 2006 ABN 89 003 623 630 ISBN 1-875538-35-6 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright preserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the Communications Law Centre. The cartoon on the front cover is by Reg Lynch CONTENT, CONSOLIDATION AND CLOUT i Contents Acronyms & abbreviations iii List of tables and figures iii Executive summary v Key findings xxiv 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Media ownership and regional Australia 3 1.2 Current media ownership 4 1.3 Outline of the report 9 2 Rationales and realities of Australian media ownership regulation 11 2.1 The rationales of media ownership regulation 12 2.1.1 Media influence 13 2.1.2 Content choice: the new diversity? 15 2.2 Continuity and change in Australian media ownership regulation 22 2.2.1 Media ownership regulation 1923-1986 22 2.2.2 Regulatory changes 1987-1988 25 2.3 Current media ownership laws 26 2.3.1 Cross-media and media concentration 26 2.3.2 Limits on foreign ownership 28 2.4 Convergence, competition and regulatory change 29 2.4.1 Revisiting the Productivity Commission’s Broadcasting Report 30 2.4.2 The Broadcasting Services (Media Ownership) Bill 2002 34 2.4.3 Increasing role of competition regulation 36 2.4.4 Proposals for deregulation 39 3 Media ownership, networking and local content provision 44 3.1 Equalisation and local content 45 3.2 ABA Investigations: Localism policies in regional TV 48 3.2.1 First ABA Report, August 2002 48 3.2.2 Second ABA Report, June 2004 53 3.3 Existing content sharing practices 54 3.4 Anticipated legislative reform and preserving local content 56 4 Media mergers and regional consequences 58 4.1 Introduction 58 4.1.1 Review of regional media ownership – methodology 59 4.2 Potential changes in ownership 63 4.2.1 Macquarie Bank 63 4.2.2 APN News and Media 63 4.2.3 Rural Press 64 4.2.4 Southern Cross Broadcasting 64 4.2.5 Prime Television 65 4.2.6 WIN Corporation 65 4.2.7 West Australian Newspapers 66 4.3 Impact on services in selected regional areas 66 4.3.1 Possible mergers 66 COMMUNICATIONS LAW CENTRE 2006 CONTENT, CONSOLIDATION AND CLOUT ii 4.3.2 Effects on diversity 71 4.4 Impact on services in other regional markets in Australia 75 4.5 Conclusion 79 5 Case studies of regional media issues 82 5.1 Wollongong 83 5.1.1 Power and the city 83 5.1.2 Major media 86 5.1.3 Advertising and competition 96 5.1.4 Media ownership 97 5.1.5 Summary 98 5.2 Townsville 99 5.2.1 The Townsville Bulletin 100 5.2.2 Television 102 5.2.3 Radio 104 5.2.4 Summary 105 5.3 Launceston 105 5.3.1 The Examiner 107 5.3.2 Advertising 112 5.3.3 Television 113 5.3.4 Radio 114 5.3.5 Media ownership 115 5.3.6 Summary 115 5.4 Toowoomba 115 5.4.1 The Toowoomba Chronicle 117 5.4.2 Television 122 5.4.3 Radio 123 5.4.4 Media ownership 124 5.4.5 Summary 124 5.5 Observations and comments 125 6 International developments in ownership and content regulation: 128 New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States 6.1 New Zealand 129 6.2 United Kingdom 132 6.2.1 Broadcasting Act 1996 132 6.2.2 Communications Act of 2003 135 6.2.3 The Public Service Broadcasting Review 140 6.3 Canada 144 6.3.1 Legislative and regulatory framework 145 6.3.2 Media ownership consolidation 150 6.3.3 Canada’s approach to maintaining media diversity 151 6.4 United States 157 6.4.1 Legislative and regulatory framework 159 6.4.2 FCC order and Appeals Court response 160 6.5 Australia compared 162 7 Conclusion: content, consolidation and clout 165 References 172 COMMUNICATIONS LAW CENTRE 2006 CONTENT, CONSOLIDATION AND CLOUT iii Acronyms and abbreviations ABA Australian Broadcasting Authority ABT Australian Broadcasting Tribunal ACCC Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ACMA Australian Communications and Media Authority BDU Broadcasting Distribution Undertaking (Can) BSA Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Cth) CBSC Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council CROC Crown-Owned Company (NZ) CRTC Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission DCITA Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts FATA Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 (Cth) FCC Federal Communications Commission (US) FDU Forward Development Unit (part of the former Department of Communications) MCH Ministry for Culture and Heritage (NZ) NZOA New Zealand On-Air Ofcom Office of Communications (UK) PC Productivity Commission PSB Public Service Broadcasting (UK) List of tables and figures Tables 1. Percentage of national daily press circulation 5 2. Percentage of national television audience reach 5 3. Percentage of national radio audience reach 6 4. Regional media companies examined in this report 62 5. Impact of forecast mergers on markets in regional Australia 77 Figures 1. Companies with significant investments in metropolitan television and 7 newspapers 2. Companies with significant investments in regional media 8 3. Current ownership and potential mergers in four regional markets 68 (Wollongong, Townsville, Launceston and Toowoomba) COMMUNICATIONS LAW CENTRE 2006 CONTENT, CONSOLIDATION AND CLOUT iv COMMUNICATIONS LAW CENTRE 2006 CONTENT, CONSOLIDATION AND CLOUT 5 Executive summary Media ownership and local content The current context for media ownership reform – and in particular, the bundling of ‘Regional Service Protections’ with the dismantling of the cross-media rules – needs to be seen in the context of far-reaching decisions in media policy made in the 1980s and the short-term gains of media policy in the 1990s. The most significant regional media policy decisions of the 1980s were ‘equalisation’ of television markets (so that most regions were supplied with three commercial services) and ‘aggregation’ of a large number of small regional markets in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria into a small number of large geographical zones. These were accompanied by the replacement of the two-licence cap with the 75% national reach rule for television and the introduction of rules preventing cross-media holdings of commercial television, commercial radio and major newspapers in the same market. These decisions have, in most cases, resulted in extra television services provided by three regional television networks. However, a by-product has been the national syndication of programs and a loss of local television content in some areas that mirrors the loss of local content on regional radio. Networking and local content provision The report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts, Local Voices: An inquiry into regional radio (September 2001), drew attention to the decline of local radio programming.