Media Cross Ownership Laws

[tortured_soul]

With the impact of media cross ownership laws being felt already with PBL splitting up their company and Kerry Stokes buying part of the West Australian
Im interested to ask you guys whether you believe that this is the start of the end of a diverse Australian Media

Or do you believe that these changes are much ado about nothing

 

[CoggaRules]

With the impact of media cross ownership laws being felt already with PBL splitting up their company and Kerry Stokes buying part of the West Australian
Im interested to ask you guys whether you believe that this is the start of the end of a diverse Australian Media

Or do you believe that these changes are much ado about nothing

we are in deep ****. I mean, blind freddy knows the power of the media, and to now allow the most powerful media moguls, the opportunity to have a stake in every pie, is dispicable. Totally ridiculous and for what? Helen Conan, the barbarian suggests, its going to give us diversity. I mean WTF is this lady on? diverse what Helen? Take a look at the comercial stations and tell us what is so deiverse between the 3 of them, please?
Its all the same ****, hide the truth from eveyone and give them reality, the way you want to show it to them.

 

[- PC -]

Or do you believe that these changes are much ado about nothing

I think ultimately cogga is close to the mark. 3 stations all showing the same...newspapers attacking state govs...if the West Australian screams one more headline about ''why is this done'' I will scream. ( I flip to the back pages anyway)

With the rise of internet and PayTV I see a dilution of media control anyway. And apathy forms a large part of peoples consciousness anyway

 

[1jasonoz]

Packer has done what he has done purely to free up cash. By selling 50% into an equity fund, Packer still has the power to stop anyone from trying to take PBL over, but it gives him a war chest of cash in the Billions that he can use to buy assets he previously couldn't.

Sevens move on the other hand is both defensive and offensive in nature. By buying about 12.5% of WAN he now has two options open to him;

1/ The 12.5% stack will stop a competitior from acquiring the 90% of the companies newspapers that they will need, to be able to move to a compulsory take over. If any competitor of Seven wanted to takeover WAN, they now would be faced with a blocking holding from Seven, and would have to deal with Stokes.

2/ The 12.5% that seven holds can also be used as a base for a move towards gaining control of WAN, gaining access to a medium (newspapers) that Seven does not have compared to PBL. (ive always wondered whya merger between say Tabcorp and a Ten Corp or Seven hasn't taken place, as this is the model that PBL is built on).

 

[1jasonoz]

Now we have News Corp getting into Fairfax;

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20613789-643,00.html

News deals into Fairfax play
Jane Schulze
October 20, 2006
NEWS Ltd's surprise purchase last night of a 7.5 per cent stake in John Fairfax has dealt it into a seat at the expected carve-up of its Australian newspaper rival.
Goldman Sachs JBWere hit select institutions after 8pm to buy Fairfax shares at $5.20, a 10 per cent premium to the $4.74 closing price, up 1c for the day.

The Australian understands News acquired the shares to give itself a strategic stake in the rapidly accelerating carve-up of the local media industry.

It was unclear last night whether News intends to continue buying today to build a larger stake through GSJBW, which was appointed by News to advise on options under the new media rules. "It is merely an investment and it is entirely friendly to the existing board," Andrew Butcher, spokesman for News Corporation, parent of News Ltd, said last night.

Speaking before the identity of the buyer was revealed last night, Fairfax Media chairman Ron Walker said he hoped the buyer was "friendly to the cause".

News, publisher of The Australian, is Fairfax's main rival in the Australian newspaper market and accounts for 70 per cent of metropolitan newspaper sales.

It would be prevented from mounting a bid for Fairfax - worth $5.1 billion at the price paid last night - by competition rules.

The stake is short of the 10 per cent required to block another bidder from gaining full control of Fairfax under Australian takeover laws, and is unlikely to give News the ability to seek a board seat at Fairfax. But it would give News a valuable insight into and a say over moves by other media players to acquire Fairfax or its main newspaper titles.

Long seen as the most obvious target following the removal of cross-media and foreign-ownership restrictions, the Sydney-based newspaper group is the publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne's The Age and The Australian Financial Review.

It has the most open of share registers among the major media companies, with no proprietor holding a significant stake.

A holding of 7.5 per cent of the company would make News the fourth-largest shareholder in the company behind fund managers Maple-Brown Abbott with 10.35 per cent, Perpetual with 8.25 per cent, and Commonwealth Bank with 8.85 per cent, according to figures published ahead of last night's buying.

It is not known which institutions sold to News, but if it was any of the top three it could push News higher up the register. Fairfax has been protected from hostile takeovers by Australia's cross-media and foreign-ownership restrictions, which have prevented television and radio station owners from also controlling newspapers in the same market, and limited foreign ownership of newspapers to 25 per cent. But those rules will be lifted next year after legislation passed both houses of federal Parliament this week.

That will open up the Australian market to a rash of potential media deals from local and foreign players, with the fate of deals governed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

But already some of the main players have been positioning themselves to take advantage of the new rules.

Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd chief James Packer has long been seen as a buyer for the Fairfax group, which was coveted by his father Kerry.

Mr Packer this week gave himself new flexibility and financial muscle to be a player in the media shake-out by selling his established media businesses to a new company half owned by private equity group CVC Asia Pacific.

The buying last night made for a dramatic climax to a quiet day among media shares as investors digested PBL's $4.5 billion sale and Seven Network proprietor Kerry Stokes snapping up 15 per cent of West Australian Newspapers.

After hitting a record high on Wednesday, PBL's shares fell back 3 per cent yesterday to $19.95, leading falls in the media stocks as investors took profits from several days of strong gains. Shares in Southern Cross Broadcasting were 25c lower at $14.50; West Australian Newspapers shares fell 35c to $10.30; Seven Network shares dipped 5c to $9.10; and Austereo's were unchanged at $2.12.

 

[Pessimistic]

Its a bit rich to go on and on about how labour is union dominated when its now plain for all to see wh pulls Howard;s strings.

This and the workplace crap is rubbish and howard knows it. Its electoral suicide too - somethng howard hates. But eventually he had to dance his 'owners' tune

 

[whythelongface]

Its a bit rich to go on and on about how labour is union dominated when its now plain for all to see wh pulls Howard;s strings.

This and the workplace crap is rubbish and howard knows it. Its electoral suicide too - somethng howard hates. But eventually he had to dance his 'owners' tune

The scary part is that it probably won't be. As long as interest rates remain steady with only slight increases before the next election and unemployment low then the Howard govt. will still win the next election.

Media cross ownership will little or no impact on the general public as the majority have little idea about who owns what.

 

[CoggaRules]

The scary part is that it probably won't be. As long as interest rates remain steady with only slight increases before the next election and unemployment low then the Howard govt. will still win the next election.

Media cross ownership will little or no impact on the general public as the majority have little idea about who owns what.

as long as he doesnt have control of both houses after the election then a step forward has been achieved. The bottom line right now is that he has the keys to the country and can do whatever he likes.
Of course he will chuck in a couple of hotly debated subjects, that are super important in the overall scheme of things, like RU486 and Immigration laws, that show all and sundry, look at us, see? we debate policy and do listen.
But if you havent woken up to the megalomaniacal way Johhny always says, i truly believe, or in my opinion, or we must do...., etc. and how those policies happen after 3 minutes of debate, then you are indeed asleep.
If he comes out after the next election with the same control of both houses then we are in deep sh-it. Why? because the longer this dude has the country living for the moment, the harder its going to be, when the realisation of what that lead to in the future hits.

Johnny my man, how the public believe that cross media ownership, had to be legislated for, because this would lead to diversified services, is beyond me. I mean, one dude comes out with 4 bill so he can buy casinos in other coutnries, the same dudes that were media moguls already, are scrambling to have fingers in pies that they couldnt before, and this is what was needed to provide deiversfied services?
Oh i get it, they had to be able to do that, so we could watch the news on our mobiles huh?
Far out, how could i have missed that.
But hang on, you know what? dont know about anyone else here, but how long has it been since one of either C7, C9 or C10 have actually had a doco aired, that didnt involve, a just dead great austailian or a rehash of something bad that happened to aussies. SO the same dudes that owned the same stations are now going to own other forms of media, and these dudes are going to give us diversified what?

 

[Pessimistic]

wall as johnny said - we sill have the internet

 

[medusala]

Its a bit rich to go on and on about how labour is union dominated when its now plain for all to see wh pulls Howard;s strings.

Just Howard's? Why do you think Richo was known as the minister for ch9?

 

[1jasonoz]

wall as johnny said - we sill have the internet

Funny in banning Crikey from budget media meetings (for writing articles about the wasted oppurtunities by Howard/Costellos spending on non productive welfare) the reason given was that Crikey wasn't a real media entity like the Nes Corp Fairfax etc, they where only an internet site and thats why they where banned!