In the mid-1970s reporters on The Canberra Times produced used not merely a single carbon copy, but five – hammered out on upright Remington typewriters.
There were no photocopiers, you see. The original went to the Chief Sub-Editor – for publication or the spike. One copy went to the Chief of Reporting Staff. And the remaining four went from The Canberra Times office in Mort Street to CTC- Television, Radio 2CA, Radio 2XL in Cooma and Radio 2GN. There was only one television and one commercial radio station in Canberra. Fairfax owned both, and the two rural stations.
We thought nothing of it. The broadcasters just added The Canberra Times material to whatever else they had. Without it, their audiences would have been the poorer.
Discussion about media ownership in the past week or so reminded me old system.
Before television came to Australia in 1956, a Royal Commission was held. It said a broadcast licence was a public trust and recommended that only existing newspaper companies could be given that trust. So Fairfax, Herald and Weekly Times and Consolidated Press were handed the lion’s share of the television licences very cheaply.
However, in 1956 they were perhaps the only ones with the money and experience to do anything with the new technology.
Little happen for 30 years. Then the Herald and Weekly Times was swallowed by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd and Fairfax crumpled and was refloated to a diverse ownership vulnerable to takeover. The Hawke-Keating Government’s answer to increasing concentration of ownership came in 1987 with the cross-media ownership rules, under which you could be a “queen of the screen or a prince of print, but not both”.
The aim was to “support competition policy; discourage concentration of media ownership in local markets; and enhance public access to a diversity of viewpoints, sources of news, information and commentary”.
They have, of course, done almost exactly the opposite – as government regulation in this area so often does.
The rules prohibited the ownership of a daily newspaper having a television licence in a major city. They also restricted foreign ownership. But now Australia has the most concentrated media ownership and the highest proportion owned by foreigners in the western world. It was a complete policy failure.
Before the policy had even begun, technology and practice had so separated print, radio and television that the sharing of news and views across mediums was impossible – no more carbon copies of news from newspaper offices being used by TV or radio. Television demands pictures. Radio got talk back and more diversity – however crass – than anyone could desire. Print concentrated more on long analysis. It would not have mattered if one company owned a slice of all three mediums; technology and audience would demand separate newsrooms.
Then came the Howard Government. Its regulation of digital television was designed to expedite digital television and free the analog spectrum for better things. It has done the opposite.
It has delayed digital update – now at about 11 per cent of households, and tied up the analog spectrum for television for perhaps another decade because no politician will dare turn it off make so many television sets redundant. People have to be encouraged to buy new technology voluntarily – but it has to give them something. Under this Government’s broadcasting regime the opportunities for digital have been squandered by pandering to the existing commercial networks’ demands that there be no fourth network and multi-channelling be restricted.
With no new content, why bother with digital. Australia has a pitiful choice of free-to-air programs compared to other countries. Silly Government. Policy failure.
Now Communications Minister Helen Coonan is leading the charge for change.
Perhaps experience will tell her that technology will quickly make any specialised regulation redundant. For example, the cross-media ownership rules and restrictions on foreign ownership look quaintly ridiculous now that the internet enables the five Australian television networks and any number of foreigners to put out with impunity what in effect are newspapers.
Before long the internet will, no doubt, enable them to stream any amount of news, live sport or other programs into the home. Many people are moving to pay because regulation has caused such mean pickings on the free-to-air channels.
So let’s stop unnecessarily regulating for particular technology or with an eye to favouring a few individual owners.
Broadcasting need not be treated specially. It should be subject to whatever anti-monopoly and foreign-control provisions apply to all industry under the Trade Practices Act and other law. Nor should the Government protect existing players against changes in technology.
Obviously, the spectrum has to be allocated otherwise stations would jam each other. But once the spectrum is sold for a licence period, let them get on with it. They could use it to multi-channel in digital, or turn off the analog signal, or use the whole spectrum for very high-definition broadcasts. But it should be their choice not the Government’s. When the licence period ends, the spectrum should be reauctioned.
And who cares if a company then buys a newspaper, radio station or internet? Indeed, Australians might be better served with multi-media companies because on current trends newspapers might need some cross subsidisation from broadcast revenues to maintain their excellence. Audited circulations of most newspapers are falling even though accurate surveying shows readership rising. They must be reading it free on the net. Newspaper profits are rising, but revenue share of classifieds is being taken by the net.
And now the technologies which diverged (print, radio and television) are converging on the net with a single platform to deliver voice, vision and print. The unregulated internet has boomed, like the unregulated video industry before it. The audience benefited.
It makes sense that one company should be able to own a slice of television, radio, newspaper and internet and deliver content as the audience demands.
Regulation has been a complete failure.