These regulations rest on an outdated conceptual framework. They assume that there is a fixed pie of media content and media outlets - there can only be so many television or radio stations, for instance. The regulatory framework then slices up that pie to a number of operators, and ensures they don’t get in each other’s way.
But this model is entirely unsuited to the contemporary media landscape. Gone are the days when our consumption of news and opinion was constrained by the number of printers in the town, or broadcasters with licenses. An infinite range of news and opinion can be now gathered at almost no cost from the Internet, produced by professionals and, increasingly, amateurs.
This new availability of sources requires us to look carefully at what we mean by “diversity”. The left-wing political critique of the 2006 reforms centred on the notion that a free market in media would necessarily result in media monopolies - Australians ruled over by omnipotent media moguls, rather than their democratically elected politicians. It’s true that the vast bulk of media consumed by Australians is still clustered around these “traditional” owners - Fairfax and News Limited have the lions share of online readership for Australian news sources.
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But the measure of diversity should not be an analysis of what everybody is currently reading or watching, but what is available for their consumption, should they choose to investigate outside of the Murdoch, Packer and Stokes empires. We should not only include sources like On Line Opinion, but also the Washington Post, Pravda, and the Borehamwood & Elstree Times. Diversity is a question of available choice, not a question of how best to stop everybody reading Murdoch’s tabloids.
This question about what constitutes true diversity pervades the debate over ownership regulation. The reflections of former FCC chairman Michael Powell on a similar debate about reform in the United States could easily apply to Australia:
Here’s the truth: the ownership debate is about nothing but content … [The ownership rules] became a stalking horse for a debate about the role of media in our society. … It was really an invitation for people with particular viewpoints to push for a thumb on the scale, for content in a direction that people preferred.
Luckily, little the government does will alter the inevitable migration of our media consumption to the Internet. But retaining the byzantine regulations which we have inherited punishes consumers by both privileging and restricting the traditional media outlets which have, until recently, been protected from full exposure to the market.
There are a range of specific reforms that can be adopted. Governments could take convergence seriously and begin to harmonise regulations across networks - the regulations that apply to radio broadcasting should apply to television broadcasting, which should also in turn apply to web broadcasting and podcasts. Similarly, the use of the electromagnetic spectrum should be determined by the market - who owns it, what technologies utilise it, how many television and radio stations are broadcast on it, and so on.
But the biggest change needed is philosophical. There is no legitimate role for government in the entertainment business. Consumers determine what they want to watch on television, listen to on the radio, or browse on the Internet. The sooner policy-makers acknowledge this simple fact, the better off our media will be.
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