FYI | Jul 19 2006
Communications Minister Helen Coonan’s proposed changes to the Australian media laws and regulations is widely expected to open the door to a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions in the sector.
Given the rapid increase of the internet and its impact on the sector, this may well be the last time that old media moguls will stare at each other with dollar signs in their eyes. Give or take another ten years and the current landscape will be dramatically different. I think that few experts will contest this.
Will it be a better environment for Australian citizens?
Most of the time this question is answered by referring to the trend of media concentration which is expected to receive a big boost once the proposed changes will become law in this country.
I would like to take a different angle on this issue.
When was the last time anyone spotted a truly new and refreshing informative magazine in Australia? Does anyone expect anything "new" to happen in the world of radio or television, apart from the fact that all will be digital in a few years from now?
I would argue that differentiation in opinions and voices within the traditional media landscape is already under threat, and certainly in decline, because of a general focus on margin preservation in an industry which is arguably feeling the pains of change.
Work is done by leaner organisations, employing fewer journalists, resulting in lesser time being spent on research and enquiries. Increased ownership concentration is not going to change this, but neither will a status quo in my opinion.
The salvation is, of course, the internet.
It is my impression that only few Australians realise that it is the internet that is guaranteeing a diversity of voices in today’s information landscape.
Not only because a simple click on one of your browser favourites can provide you with nearly instant access to reputed offshore sources such as the BBC or The Wall Street Journal (not to mention the various other techniques available), but more importantly because it is the internet that has provided Australians with a set of fresh and independent media voices.
Personally, I think Australians are blessed.
I can think of several European countries that arguably have a more diverse traditional media landscape, but somehow this hasn’t translated back into the online world.
Internet media companies are often not more than copycats – or they consist of two man and a dog in a basement. There’s only so much one can expect from such enterprises.
Australia has at least three independent voices on the internet I can think of that are valuable enough to cherish and combined they will guarantee Australian readers will have access to quality reporting and to news and stories that don’t make the cut in the mainstream media.
Probably the most advanced of all is Crikey, which despite the tremendous work of Stephen Maine has benefitted from change of ownership and subsequent financial injection two years ago. Crikey reported today News Ltd (NWS) and Fairfax (FXJ) are in talks, apparently considering combining their online job classifieds operations to form a joint front against industry leader Seek (SEK).
(Yes, this is obviously always a danger for the independent players who are by default smaller than the big mastodons).
But it is another story in Crikey today that really attracted my attention. Apparently Rupert Murdoch has ordered that all News Ltd newsrooms will be transformed into fully integrated operations whereby journalists will write and publish on the internet first and subsequently amend and alter their stories for other media, such as newspapers and magazines.
Now, this ladies and gentlemen, is a true revolution.
Remember how Bill Gates’ Microsoft completely overlooked the internet until the mid-nineties and then all of a sudden made the radical move of –overnight – diverting the focus of large parts of Microsoft staff towards the internet.
Is Rupert Murdoch about to change global news reporting in a similar fashion?
Success or failure to do so, it won’t change the fact that large media companies are like large miners: they are by default only interested in large projects that require a larger scale of economics to be viable.
Apart from the fact that certain stories will still not make the cut, integrated newsrooms or not.
FN Arena received a question from a reader this week which I thought is worth highlighting.
For whatever reason this reader had decided to go long on Croesus Mining (CRS) through increasingly popular CFDs or Contracts for Difference. As Croesus management has called in the administrators, who are now considering all kinds of options, and the shares have been suspended since, the reader saw himself confronted with the highly unusual position of having to pay, every day, for a trading position which may well be worthless already.
At first the broker involved seemed to have forgotten the true spirit of client service (although we do understand the position of the broker as well).
I told our reader never underestimate the power of the media. It seemed that simply flagging we were interested in investigating the matter has brought both parties to a mutually beneficial agreement.
Rest assured, FN Arena intends to continue playing its own part in all of the above matters.
In case you’ve missed it, we just launched a new service on our website: (more) Sources of Wisdom which gives our subscribers access to regularly updated information from third parties. There are eight different sources on the service already. They are all independent. We anticipate this number will grow.
More new services are on the agenda.
We hope you like them all!
Till next week,
Your independently busy editor,
Rudi Filapek-Vandyck
(Supported by the equally independent Fab Four: Greg, Rob, Chris and Terry)