It has been another sad year in the history of Australian media regulation.
So sad indeed, that it might have been better to abandon regulation altogether, other than to allocate the broadcast spectrum by auction to ensure there are no technical clashes of signal.
The highlight of the year was the Government’s final balancing of the account between the major media interests in Australia (namely Packer and Murdoch) while taking no notice of the interest it should be balancing — that of the public.
In March, Communications Minister Richard Alston announced the Government’s policy on digital television. This wonderful new technology should have been used to improve diversity and choice in television. Instead the Government balanced off the moguls.
First a technical explanation. The old analogue technology requires 7MHz a channel. The existing five television signals (three commercial, the ABC and SBS) and some space for two-way telecommunications burns up virtually all the available space. With digital you can transmit a lot more in a 7MHz band. Moreover, more space is created because the digital signal does not need the same amount of free space between the channels to prevent interference from overlap.
A lot of people think that you replace the five existing analogue channels with five a wide-format, very high definition, cinema quality digital signals. In other words, the same content that you get now, but in cinema quality. This is rubbish.
With digital there is room for six signals where there is now one. Each would be high-quality with no ghosting. You could have one cinema-quality signal plus two other signals.
In short, digital technology should allow us to receive a choice of at least 10 but up to 30 programs in the place of the present five. The public would love that, but the Government stopped it. Instead, it adopted virtually everything wanted by Kerry Packer’s Nine Network.
After 2001, instead of getting a choice of 10 to 30 programs, we will get the same old five programs — the same old crap but in higher definition. And this will go on until 2006.
That is great for the existing commercial networks. No competition. No need to spend any extra money on programs. No danger of splitting advertising revenue. The same captive audience watching the same rubbish in higher definition.
The commercial networks argued they needed the triopoly to continue for five years (it was going to be seven but for a Senate amendment) so they could pay for the investment needed in the new digital technology.
But why should government hand out monopolies to protect corporations against changing technology? It doesn’t do it in any other industry.
The government should have auctioned the new spectrum to the highest bidder. The revenue could have been used for schools, hospitals or to retire debt, and the public would have been better served by new channels and greater diversity.
So why did the Government make a decision which was so beneficial to Kerry Packer and cost perhaps $1b in lost revenue?
Well, think back to before the 1996 election when the Government promised a comprehensive public review of cross-media-ownership rules. It did not happen. We got an issues paper instead, in October, 1996. The usual suspects responded with the usual self-serving suggestions.
In April 1997 the brave new, market-oriented Coalition suggested it was going to scrap the cross-media ownership rules. This would allow Packer to buy Fairfax. Prime Minister John Howard suggested there was merit in a big Australian media company being able to compete on the world stage.
But nasty foreigners were still to be precluded from buying television stations which meant Rupert Murdoch (an American citizen) could not buy the Seven Network.
The Murdoch press got stuck into Howard. Headlines associated his name with failure, especially in the Daily Telegraph. Howard backed off. Changes to media ownership rules were postponed to September and then to early March this year, when they were put off the agenda altogether. Now that would not please Packer. With an election coming up that could be difficult for Howard.
Never mind, if Packer couldn’t have Fairfax he could have a lot of free television spectrum and be insulated from further competition with the digital television decision. (Not to mention the tax-package leaving tax avoidance alone.) And thus came the media policy black spot of the year.
I used to think that the best small-l liberal position was one that supported government regulation of the media to promote diversity and to prevent undue foreign influence in an industry which is so important to the national consciousness. Well, after 1998 I’m not so sure. 1998 fits the sorry history of media regulation in Australia — delay in introducing new technology so the goodies can be handed out to mates or those the government of the day fears most. FM radio, black and white TV, colour TV and pay-TV all fit that pattern.
I don’t think governments are capable of acting in the interests of the broad mass of Australian consumers; they act for what they see as their own interests. Labor was no better than the Coalition (probably worse). The silly thing is, that no matter how much they gave these moguls they still turned on them. They had to, to keep up the fear factor.
The market could not have delivered such an appalling result. Our regulatory system has resulted in Australia has the most highly concentrated and highly foreign-owned media of any developed country in the world. The digital television decision this year was a disgrace.
(Interestingly, in the video industry, where government had no hand because it had no constitutional power, the new media technology was introduced without delay. Moreover, the industry generated a large amount of employment and we have seen a great deal of diversity from chain video stores to small video stocks in bush milk-bars to niche video shops catering for diverse tastes.)
I think a better small-l liberal position is for Australia to abandon all foreign-ownership and cross-media ownership rules; auction off as much spectrum in radio and television as possible for, say, five-year licences; allow advertisements on pay-TV now; abandon all the content rules and advertising time limits; give public broadcasting about six channels with solid funding; and use the money from spectrum auctions to promote Australian and children’s content through the public broadcaster and funding for independent production houses which can on-sell to the television companies.