The contest between right-wing TV services in Australia just moved up a notch: recent entrant Australian Digital Holdings – rival to the more established Sky News Australia – is buying the Southern Cross Austereo commercial television network. ADH launched with a YouTube channel hosted by Alan Jones and now offers various channels under the Newsmax brand, including programs hosted by Chris Smith, David Flint and Lyle Shelton.
When ADH’s interest in the SCA network was made public back in October last year, Guardian Australia’s Amanda Meade noted that SCA already carries the Sky News Regional channel, and cited warnings that ‘diversity of local news could be at risk’. So how did this come about and how is it affected by broadcasting regulation?
SCA is still an important player in the Australian media scene owing to its large number of commercial TV stations and its commercial radio networks, including the Triple M and Hit brands, and its LiSTNR podcast and streaming service. True, the radio networks are not the star performers they once were, and changes to the media ownership laws a decade ago removed the need for three regional networks (Southern Cross, Prime and WIN) to operate as affiliates of the metro networks. Prime has since been acquired by Seven.
In fact, it was an earlier change to the media ownership laws that allowed SCA to take shape as a combined TV and radio media provider. In 2006, Communications Minister Helen Coonan steered through Parliament the removal of the cross-media rule that prevented the control of commercial TV and commercial radio licences in the same market. In one of the first big transactions resulting from that change, Macquarie Media Group (which had earlier acquired DMG Regional Radio and RG Capital) acquired Southern Cross Broadcasting, with the larger company then acquiring Austereo in 2011. But it wasn’t until a decade later that the last piece of the cross-media puzzle slotted into place with the Morrison government’s repeal of the rule that blocked control of more than two of the major media platforms – commercial TV, commercial radio and associated newspapers – in the same market, resulting in the most significant deal of all, Nine’s acquisition of Fairfax.
Today, SCA’s commercial TV network serves vast regional locations across eastern and central Australia, including Tasmania. Although other state capitals have their own metro licence areas, under the Broadcasting Services Act Hobart is part of the larger state-based licence area, Tasmania TV1, and it’s treated as a regional market. It’s also subject to an exemption to the rule that would otherwise require the three commercial TV licences in that market to be controlled by separate players. Instead, a joint venture exists so that WIN has the Channel 9-affiliated service, SCA has the Channel 7 service, and a joint venture between them controls the Channel 10 service.
So what rules will apply to ADH? As the cross-media rules have been repealed, it’s all down to content regulation. We observed last month in relation to Darwin that there’s no obligation to provide a commercial TV service, apart from the quotas that apply in selected regional areas. Tasmania is one of the aggregated licence areas, so some local content rules will apply. But that doesn’t affect aspects such as impartiality; they’re covered by the co-regulatory code of practice. The Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice requires that news and current affairs programs must present factual material accurately. It also requires that licensees ‘present news fairly and impartially, and clearly distinguish the reporting of factual material from commentary and analysis’. That last rule doesn’t apply to current affairs programs which, like news programs, must ensure that ‘viewpoints included in the program are not misrepresented’.
These rules will apply to ADH, and the regulator, ACMA, does investigate complaints about impartiality. ADH director James Morrison has offered assurances that the SCA service will be 'independent and run separately to Newsmax' and that ADH will in fact invest in the network, possibly restoring local bulletins in some areas where these were axed under SCA. This is encouraging; it also needs monitoring.
Derek Wilding, CMT Co-Director