Why Turnbull should pursue media reform, despite the opposition of Murdoch and Stokes
After the appointment of Mitch Fifield as Communications Minister yesterday Nic Christensen argues media reform could and should now be an easy win for the government.
I’m about to do the dangerous thing of contradicting my boss, but I think the issue of media reform could actually be resolved fairly swiftly under Malcolm Turnbull.
After the leadership change last Monday my editor Alex Hayes gave a succinct analysis of why we are unlikely to see media reform before the next federal election: put simply the new PM can’t afford to alienate media moguls Kerry Stokes and Rupert Murdoch, especially in the run up to a 2016 federal election.
Far be it for me to argue with the boss (he is certainly right that the fight will require political will and courage that’s been sorely lacking in Canberra for a while) but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t do it. In fact correctly handled it could be an easy win for the Turnbull government and new Communications Minister Fifield.
A prediction or maybe just wishful thinking:
– The reach rule could be dropped if legislation required a certain number of hours of local coverage (news largely) by regional stations.
Seven would buy Prime, and if the writer’s quite logical conclusion that Gordon’s WIN could merge with TEN came about, then the outcome would be NINE left to buy/merge with Southern Cross. Rural WIN and SX stations would get a change of network programming but so what (apart from WIN gaining the poorer lineup! But if WIN owns TEN that is some encouragement to do better)
– Cross-media regulations could also be dropped, with the proviso that PAY TV operators cannot own free-to-air, in the interest of maintaining a competitive environment. Common ownership of TV, radio, print and online is not the end of the world.
– The anti-siphoning list could be drastically reduced to test matches, grand finals and a very few races. Pay TV can provide a vastly wider array of coverage of sport and variations of that coverage than can free-to-air. That’s the quid pro quo for charging subscribers and is only fair. Legislation could mandate that any event covered live by Pay TV be available several hours later to free-to-air stations if they want to contract to pick up.