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Regional networks to launch campaign blitz for media reforms

Prime Media boss accuses Tony Abbott of kowtowing to media mates while regional jobs are going.

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Prime Media, WIN Corporation and Southern Cross Austereo will launch a television, radio and digital campaign to pressure the government into the media reforms it has delayed.

It follows the government opting not to unwind the two-thirds ownership rule and the Reach rules while job losses have been impacting in regional television.

The campaign will contend that the decision will create two classes of citizens – those in regional and those in metropolitan Australia.

The Australian Financial Review reports Prime Media boss John Hartigan has accused a “bloody-minded” Tony Abbott of kowtowing to Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes.

“This is the Prime Minster’s bloody-minded captain’s pick to look after a couple of media mates,” he said.

“This is playing with people’s lives.”

Last week, Coalition MPs held a crisis meeting in Parliament House with the chief executives of Prime and WIN, well-attended by regional MPs.

In a party room meeting Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull pointed out that after WIN had closed bureaus in Mildura and Mackay there was a threat to its Wide Bay bureau, in the electorate of Deputy PM Warren Truss.

“The only way to secure our future and the future of regional news services is if we update media laws,” said Hartigan.

“We’re trying to keep jobs and we lost the argument because of the interests of two proprietors.”

The newspaper also suggests Foxtel buying into Channel 10 would allow Foxtel, Channel 10 and Channel Seven to stitch up sport broadcasting by offering a joint platform.

10 Responses

  1. Aggregation was always set up to support the metros, Kerry was very open about it. After 25 years of this ridiculous set up, it’s time legislation was amended to finish these regional stations off and end the lip service they provide. Let the metros buy them out and be done with it.

  2. Whilst I do agree the reach rule needs to be scrapped so broadcasters can operate on a fair national level playing field the same as Foxtel, Stan, Netflix and Presto – I don’t have a lot of sympathy for them.

    They have allowed themselves to become repeater stations with zero investment in local news or programming or branding in many instances. To commit to 30 minutes of local content a day out of a networked 24 hour schedule is not a lot to ask of a broadcasting license. The regionals have also been pretty bad at working with the networks with catch up players and selling local advertising within those national catch up players. They could operate much smarter, they have never really had a vision for the future and now they Arw caught with their pants down.

    Just let nine buy Win, seven buy prime and ten buy southern cross. True national networks. National ratings. And each…

  3. The Regional stations shouldn’t expect any concessions from the majors who are desperately trying to shore up their own businesses. Seven West Media’s share price is down 44% this financial year, Nine Entertainment Co is down 29% and TEN is down 23.5%. It’s all the Internet’s fault, people looking at small screens in their hands instead of the screens on the wall.

  4. WIN TV has the most to lose out of the regionals. They need the reach rule to change now so they don’t have to affiliate with 9 in December with a 40% proposed increase in program fees. If they do sign it will benefit their competitors as they would need to increase rates. They are in a very vulnerable situation.

    1. We could see Southern Cross in WIN areas become a dual Nine/Ten affiliate at the end of the year then? There is nothing stopping that happening legally as far as I am aware? That would truly stuff WIN up.

  5. All goes back to how badly the policy of aggregation was set up. The metro networks prior to aggregation gained very little income from the regionals as there was no competition in regional areas, basically the regionals were able to set their own price by cherry picking what to take and not take. Then when aggregation came in, bonanza time for the metros! As most regions were expanded into 3 networks, this ushered in fulltime networking to fill schedules and competitive pressure to affiliate with the best rating metro. From that time onwards, the metros have been advantaged by this and been milking the regionals ever since. For regional TV it is game over!

  6. Regionals have been decreasing their staff for the past twenty years. The regional content they produce is virtually nothing. And now they say if they don’t get what they want they will cut services. I’m call BS !!! They haven’t done themselves any favors. Time for these businesses to look at a new model or disappear.

  7. The idea that selling out to Sydney and Melbourne will improve the local service of regional networks is crazy. Part of the reason they are strapped for cash is that Sydney and Melbourne are extracting double the affiliations fees out of them. It’s all just about stock prices. If you want commercial regional networks to serve local regions then you need to make that a key condition of regional broadcast licences. Though if everybody is going to use the internet for news and streaming services they will just go broke.

    Nine wants to buy up regional TV and radio to extract even more revenue from its content, Seven doesn’t because Seven and Prime have a good working relationship, and they want to block Nine’s expansion. Ten doesn’t want change because they can buy anything and could be bought, and they want to stop Nine too. Murdoch wants change where it helps him but not where it…

  8. The regionals are keen to sell their setups to the major players asap – before values spiral downhill too much further.
    And if anyone thinks jobs will be saved, think some more.
    Prime, SCA-10 and WIN TV’s regional presence will be downscaled to no more than 2 or 3 person sales offices.

  9. I think the closure of WIN Mackay has been blown up bigger than what it is. Unlike most other WIN News bulletins in regional QLD the Mackay bulletin only started broadcast in 2009 and I think Wide Bay WIN News was the same year.
    Mackay still has access and views of Seven, Nine, Ten, APN (Newspaper), Prime Radio, Southern Cross Austereo Radio, ABC Radio, ABC TV, News Limited through The Courier Mail & The Sunday Mail just to name a few.

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