Locally Significant Content on Regional Television A Case Study of North Queensland Commercial Television Before and After Aggregation John Michael Flynn B. Journalism A thesis submitted to the Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology for the degree of Master of Arts (Research) 2008 Abstract This thesis is an exploration of the fate which has befallen the regional commercial television industry in North Queensland in the wake of the aggregation policy introduced by the Federal Labor Government in 1990. More specifically, it examines the effectiveness of policy outcomes which stem from the Australian Broadcasting Authority’s 2001 inquiry into the adequacy of regional and rural commercial television news and information services. The research is primarily concerned with the quality of local content provided by regional commercial broadcasters in response to the implementation of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s points system for broadcast of matters of local significance. The policy outcomes are balanced against an historical context, which traces the regional commercial television industry in North Queensland back to its very beginning. Regulatory reform has resulted in a basic level of news content being maintained. However the significance of elements of this news content to local viewers is minimal. The reduction in local information content, despite being identified in the earliest stages of the ABA investigation, has not been adequately addressed by the reform process. i Acknowledgements This thesis may have withered on the vine without the support and encouragement of the senior academic staff at the QUT Creative Industries Faculty at Kelvin Grove in Brisbane. To my supervisors Doctor Lee Duffield and Doctor Angela Romano, a special debt of gratitude is owed for their steering role in the project and the commitment to see it through to the finish with professionalism and sustained vigour. A special thank-you also to the television industry professionals, in particular, Dick Chant, John Baker, Andre Heise, Michael Mahin, Rodney Tindale and Paul Smith, who gave so willingly of their time to assist with documenting a small, yet significant chapter in the history of Australian television. Lastly, a heartfelt vote of thanks to the staff of the Cairns City Library, for selflessly opening up their newspaper archive for this project. I will remain forever apologetic for the fate of the microfiche viewer. ii Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents iii Statement of Original Authorship v Chapter 1. Introduction 1 The Genesis of Aggregation 2 The Australian Broadcasting Authority Review 4 Purpose and Structure of This Thesis 5 Chapter 2. A Methodology for Researching Regional Television News. 8 Applied Methodology 14 Interviews 16 Submissions to The ABA Review 19 Theoretical Grounding 20 Chapter 3. The Role of Regional Television as a Public Sphere Institution. 22 Journalism, News and Democracy 23 Television News and Democracy 25 A Media Model for Liberal Democracies – Introducing the Public Sphere 29 Politics in The Public Sphere – the Theory of Communicative Action 32 Communicative Action – the Mass Media 34 The Public Sphere and Regional Television 35 Localism in The Global Era 35 Localism, Diversity and Regulatory Policy 41 Formative Research on the Impact of the ABA Regulations 46 Chapter 4. Regional Television in North Queensland – an Historical Perspective. 48 iii The Genesis of Local News and Information Programs in North Queensland 50 The NQTV Era 58 Local Programming and Commercial Goals 65 The Aggregation Bloodbath 66 The Desperate Scramble for Network Affiliation 74 The Newsroom Closures 82 The Industry Flashpoint 85 Chapter 5. Local News and Information Programs in Cairns. 89 WIN News – Weeknights at Six P.M. 89 Seven Local News – Weeknights at Six 90 Southern Cross Ten News Updates 90 Textual Analysis – The Search For Meaning 92 Sample 1. Murder On a Cairns Street 92 Sample 2. Road Fatality, Smithfield 98 Sample 3. The Water Crisis – Reviving The Bradfield Scheme 99 Sample 4. Coverage of Local Sport 105 State Focus – Southern Cross Broadcasting 118 Water Recycling 127 For a Few Dollars More 130 Critical Observations and Qualification of Journalistic Merit 131 Chapter 6. Nourishing The Public Sphere. 134 The Future of Local News and Information Services 134 The Lessons of History 135 Aggregation 136 Textual Analysis – Summary of Findings 138 Southern Cross Broadcasting 139 Addressing the Lack of Local Information Content 143 Burying the Myths – Mounting a Case For Regulatory Reform 144 Locally Significant or Significantly Local 147 The Four-Point Regional TV Recovery Plan 149 Regulation, Protection and Competition 151 Appendix I State Focus interview, John Metcalfe. 153 Appendix II State Focus interview, Peter Beattie. 157 References 163 iv Statement of Original Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signature Date v Chapter 1. Introduction This chapter provides an overview of the research topic. It also provides a backgrounding to the issues discussed in this thesis by outlining the key findings of the Australian Broadcasting Authority’s review into the adequacy of local news and information programs on regional commercial television. On November 22, 2001, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) commenced an investigation into the “adequacy of local news and information programs provided by commercial television services in regional and rural Australia” (Australian Broadcasting Authority, 2002). The investigation was a direct response to a public backlash which followed a wave of regional television newsroom closures in Queensland and New South Wales. The closures, instigated by publicly listed companies Southern Cross Broadcasting and Prime Television were not the first to hit the regional television industry. A similar wave of newsroom closures occurred between 1991 and 1995, shortly after the dawn of aggregation (a process further discussed below). In Queensland, these earlier closures predominately involved the Queensland Television (QTV) and Sunshine Television licensees. Aggregation is a term used to describe a regulatory process, overseen by the (then) ABA, which saw the number of commercial television licensees increase from one 1 to three, for the bulk of regional television license areas in Australia’s Eastern States. In Queensland, aggregated commercial television hit the airwaves on January 1, 1991 with regional audiences in coastal areas between the Gold Coast and Cairns gaining access to the same ‘diversity’ of programming as viewers in Australia’s capital cities. The Genesis of Aggregation As a concept, or perhaps more correctly an ‘ideal’, aggregation traces its genesis to the Federal Labor government of Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer (later Prime Minister) Paul Keating in the 1980s. The regional television equalization or ‘aggregation’ policy was closely tied to a broader policy concerning cross-media ownership laws and was at the heart of the Keating “mantra” of diluting Australia’s concentrated pattern of media ownership. The Keating doctrine can be found in the parliamentary Hansard of the time: The previous Government said to country people, ‘you can watch one channel and, not only that, in some places you can actually watch the channel owned by our person, read the newspaper owned by our person and listen to the radio owned by the same person’. That was what the previous government believed in. (Parliament of Australia Hansard, 1988, p.2) The new aggregated markets, where network affiliates provided a relay of services from the Nine, Ten and Seven networks (notionally supplemented with local content), replaced the previous system of ‘one station towns’. To generalize, prior to aggregation, major coastal centres in regional Queensland were each serviced by a 2 single commercial television licensee, which ‘cherry picked’ program content from the three major networks at vastly reduced cost. Cities which hosted the ‘solus’ broadcasters included Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Maryborough, the Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba. These enterprises were recognized as being highly profitable. Given the pool of available funds, the programming mix was supplemented with a variety of local information shows which fitted within the ‘journalistic genre’, including news, sport, local entertainment, travel, cooking shows and children’s programs. This thesis will present evidence that with the arrival of aggregation, the immediate profitability of these largely ‘local’ enterprises diminished because of the advent of competition in each local market and the home-grown content (aside of news) on regional television sets in Queensland largely disappeared. The new players in the aggregated markets in Queensland (Win Television, Sunshine Television and QTV) initially persisted with local news programming, but it too started to vanish. WIN Television, a Nine affiliate which enjoyed the backing of the nation’s highest rating network, was the only company to persist with news for the entire period post- aggregation. As outlined above, at various stages, newsrooms associated with Sunshine Television, QTV and more recently its successor Southern Cross Broadcasting,