Transcript

PAT MCGRATH, REPORTER: The arrival of television in Australia 61 years ago ushered in an era of mass culture.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: You beauty!

PAT MCGRATH: Every major moment beamed into our living rooms.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: From Dallas Texas the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died.

PAT MCGRATH: For audiences and for advertisers, the TV screen reigned supreme for decades.

MOLLY MELDRUM: I would like to present you with...

PAT MCGRATH: Fostering a generation of cashed-up media moguls, but those days are dying fast.

MEGAN BROWNLOW, PWC MEDIA ANALYST: Advertisers are abandoning free-to-air television and that's largely because they're seeking digital alternatives.

MARK DAY, MEDIA COLUMNIST, THE AUSTRALIA: The whole media world is being turned upside down by the digital revolution and you can't go back on that.

PROTESTERS: Together, united, we'll never be defeated.

PAT MCGRATH: Today in the most important week of the year for the parliamentary press gallery, there has been another demonstration of the financial crisis threatening the media industry. Fairfax journalists protesting against their employer's plan to cut newsroom staff by a quarter.

There's talk also of Channel Ten collapsing, another blow to the variety of content audiences get to read and watch. Now the Government's promising a rescue package.

MITCH FIFIELD, COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER: We want an Australian media that will survive and prosper. While we mightn't always like what you write, what you print, what you broadcast or what you stream.

What you do is an important underpinning for the diversity and health of Australian democracy.

PAT MCGRATH: What's on the table is the axing of about $130 million in licence fees the TV networks pay to the Government. That is particularly welcomed by the cash-strapped Ten Network. But there is a much bigger change, the Government's also reintroduced legislation to repeal the long-standing two out of three rule designed to stop a media company owning TV, radio and print in one city.

MARK DAY: That might have been arguable in 1987 before mobile phones, before the digital age. I mean we didn't have an internet worthwhile in 1987 and the digital transition has disrupted everything.

PAT MCGRATH: The Communications Minister says the changes are vital if the industry is to survive.

MITCH FIFIELD: The idea behind the abolition of the two out of three rule is to give Australian media organisations the opportunity to configure themselves in the way that best supports their viability. What we are told repeatedly by Fairfax, by news Limited by 10 is that the abolition of that rule will create real opportunity for media organisations to better configure themselves.

JONATHAN HOLMES, JOURNALIST: They'll configure themselves by merging, by getting bigger and more powerful. Mitch Fifield argued, understandably, that in the days of the internet, media diversity doesn't matter, it is catered for.

To some extent, of course, that is true. But the fact is that our agenda is still dominated by the big players, by the ABC, by Fairfax and above all, by News Corporation and that is going to become even more true, it seems to me, with these new rules.

PAT MCGRATH: For audiences that could mean less choice when it comes to traditional forms of media.

JONATHAN HOLMES: I would say without a doubt Rupert Murdoch stands to gain the most from the new rules. He can barter if he wants to, certainly it will help Fox Sport to bid for more sports that it wants.

ANDREA CARSON, MEDIA ANALYST, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: I think the most important thing from those watching tonight is what it means for public interest journalism. Are we getting quality journalism? I don't think changing these laws, is going to guarantee that.

Will it increase the power of Rupert Murdoch? Absolutely. I think it was no coincidence that we saw Rupert Murdoch as the intermediary between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull at the meeting those two leaders had last week, one introducing the other.

NEWS REPORT: The next generation of news.

PAT MCGRATH: Younger media consumers are already getting their news and entertainment elsewhere. For them, greater concentration is becoming less important. Megan Brownlow has crunched the numbers on how the audience is changing

MEGAN BROWNLOW, PWC MEDIA ANALYST: They like shorter content and they don't like to be interrupted by advertising, we know that and generally they like it delivered on demand.

MARK DAY: With that choice available to the population, diversity of voices is no longer an issue and it should be off the table entirely.

PAT MCGRATH: The Government needs crossbench support to get the measures through the Senate.

GAMBLING ADVERTISEMENT: The world's biggest online sports betting company.

PAT MCGRATH: Nick Xenophon is still deciding whether he will support the relaxation of the rules, despite the Government offering him the carrot of voluntary restrictions on gambling ads during live televised sport before 8:30pm.

NICK XENOPHON, NXT SENATOR: On the face of it, it could lead to a greater concentration of ownership unless you are building in a number of safeguards. For instance, it's important that there be strong regional voices.

PAT MCGRATH: Yet the shake-up does nothing to address the industry's most fundamental problem, that is TV advertising market is flatlining.

MEGAN BROWNLOW: We are looking at a minus 1 per cent revenue drop on average each year over the next few years. That is a minus 1 per cent compound annual growth rate drop. So that is significant when you think about costs increasing, which is one half of the painful pincer movement they are experiencing.

PAT MCGRATH: The other half is the growing dominance of digital giants like Facebook and Google, which together are snatching an estimated 80% of new advertising revenue.

NICK XENOPHON: My concern is that the elephant in the room is the impact of Facebook and Google. $3.2 billion in advertising revenue they siphon away from Australian media companies and they do it by cannibalising the content of Australian journalists.

MARK DAY: Mitch Fifield's moves for media reform are too little too late. If he had done this a decade ago or if a Government had done it a decade ago, they might have given Australian companies a chance to compete with the global interlopers who have come in and knocked the revenue out of everybody. That's Facebook and Google.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Look, of course, there is a crisis in mainstream media and newspapers and in free-to-air television but the consequences nevertheless are going to be even more a concentration of media in one of the most media-concentrated countries in the world.