Australian Media Ownership, Advertising Campaigns, and Legal Aspects

This report provides an analysis of the Australian media landscape, examining the impact of media ownership laws, advertising campaign principles, and the implications of media mergers. It discusses the abolition of cross-media ownership laws and the rise of social media giants, highlighting the role of regulatory bodies like the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Australian Press Council. The report delves into specific regulations, including the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, and the dominance of major media companies such as News Corp and Nine Entertainment. It explores the effects of mergers, such as the Nine Entertainment and Fairfax merger, on media diversity, editorial independence, and staff. Furthermore, the report examines the principles governing advertising campaigns, including relevance, fairness, accuracy, and legal compliance, within the context of Australia's implied freedom of political communication. It also addresses issues of media bias, the influence of advertisers, and the challenges of maintaining credibility in a polarized media environment, referencing articles from various publications and surveys on media credibility.

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Executive summary
In the current scenario, business organizations tried hard for the laws to be removed Due to
the changing pattern of media and apprehensions regarding the increasing influence of social
media giants. Editors would still have the full control over the newspaper and the paper will
retain it special tone as well as target audience with itself. This report discussed five
advertising campaign principles in context to Australian law named as relevance of campaign
in context to government responsibility, fairness, use of Accurate and verifiable facts and
compliance with legal requirements. Freedom of political communication has been implied
by Australia as it does not have any right to free speech. Along with this, there are regulation
in the format and presentation of political advertising but little regulation on content. This
report summarized that there is vulnerability of electoral from getting targeted by advertisers
due to emergence technologies.
Introduction
Australian Government in 2017 abolished age-old cross media ownership law that
prevented any business organization from owning 2 or more platform among T.V. Station,
radio station and Newspaper (Park and Abril, 2016). Due to the changing pattern of media
and apprehensions regarding the increasing influence of social media giants like twitter,
Facebook etc, media companies tried hard for the laws to be removed (Park and Abril, 2016).
Australian Communication and Media authority in Australia is referred to as a regulator
for radio and television. In the context of Print media , it is regulated by Australian Press
Council . In a press release by Michelle Rowland, it has been stated that “Level of media
ownership in Australia is highest in the world”. Broadcasting Services Act 1992 has been
used to control the media ownership. This act has been administered by ACMA (Australian
communication and media authority). . Also in case of rural media , it is dominated by
Australian community Media (Rennhoff and Wilbur, 2011) .In context of foreign
ownership of Australian media, Act 129 of 2006 allowed for changes to the foreign
ownership & cross media with Broadcasting services Amendment(media ownership) Bill.
2006. Australian media is dominated by News Corp and Nine Entertainment, both of them
controls the concentration of media within them.Even Australian Associated press which is
responsible for dissemination of news and selling on other platforms such as Australian
Broadcasting Corporation, owned by Newscorp, Nine and Seven west Media. Even rural
and regional media is in merger with Fairfax Holdings. Australia has only three free to air
network for television which are Nine Network, Ten Network Holding and Seven west
media. If combined license area exceeds seventy five percent of the population of Australia

then a viewer cannot not control television broadcasting license as me mentioned in section
53 of Broadcasting service act 1992.There is also limit in the multiple directorship and
foreign directors in section 55 and section 58 respectively. In Case of Radio media there is
prohibition of more than two license in same license area as menetioned in section 54 of the
act. Cross Media Control is maintained by section 60 of the act and have provisions
regarding various combinations of media among television radio and newspaper.Also there
are some exceptions in these control rules. Australian communication and Media
Authority has right to permit the license holder in any area to provide for second television
broadcasting service. If the area had two commercial television broadcasting license then
ACMA can permit for third service there. The two out of three rule of Broadcasting
Legislation amendment (broadcasting reform) Act 2017 allowed various modifications in
diversity rules as well as media control rules in Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Michelle
Rowland MP, 2019). These amendments introduced a new regulation that demands local
content provisioning by regional commercial television licenses which comes under the
preview of network having control to more than seventy five percent to Australian
population. These amendments repealed 2 out of 3 rule and seventy five percent audience
reach rule. The rules that are still continue applying market radio rule, one to a market
TV rule and Number of voice rules
Referring to the Article published in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Nine entertainment
company and The merger of Fairfax media and just structured as a merger but technically
speaking it is a takeover in reality as shareholders of fairfax has revived shares of Nine
Entertainment and money in order to give up upon the share of Fairfax and its assets and the
Fairfax brand will cease to exist (Mail Online, 2019). The Fairfax shareholder will have the
49 percent of the shares while that of Nine’s will have 51 percent of shares with them (Duke,
2019). It has also given that the Fairfax have opportunity to contribute three members to the
new board. For the company the deal is termed as “pretty big”. The outcome of the deal will
be the biggest domestic media company in Australia with 6000 staff members and
appreciable as well as strong presence in the field of TV, radio and online media. The
company will get estimated annual revenue of $3 billion and earning of around $483 million.
On comparing various media houses in Australia , it can be mentioned that the 2nd best tv
network is Nine whereas Herald has the privilege of having the large audience segment
among any newspaper in the country .For readers it will not going to affect much (The
Economist, 2018). The Nine’s board has given the Fairfax charter of editorial

independence (McDuling, 2019). This clause is preventing the Nine board member from
interfering in the newspaper, for commercial and political gains .Editors will still have the
full control over the paper and the paper will retain it special tone and target audience with
itself.This will not going to affect the life of reader as the paper will be intact in terms of
content and standard because it will still be controlled by same team that was controlling its
content previously.
Talking about effect of merger on media landscape, it can be said that getting hold over the
majority of the shares of Fairfax is the most important driver of the deal. There will be
increased exposure to channel Nine TV shows as it will try to grow the business and better
compete with others in the field such as News Corp’s REA Group because the majority
ownership in real estate platform now passes to Nine.While talking about the staff of the
newspaper and the Television , it is quite possible to see newspaper hidden faces on T.V
shows now as the company will collaborate with other media companies including ABC .For
the freedom of speech , if reporter of Fairfax criticised something that NINE has done then
NINE will not come in the was of this.Also there are estimates that Nine entertainment has
made 144 roles redundant sales , product and other support functions (Mazzoni, 2019).This
affected around 92 people. The control of Nine has promised that they will not cut any
editorial job for the tie being as mentioned .
In the article published in The Conversation by Andrea Carson, it has been said that instead
of writing headlines, Australian media is busy in creating its own (Ketchell, 2017). As the
media houses are more of corporate nature then those whose role is to aware people, there has
been incidences where the bosses and journalists found themselves in the conflict of
objectivity. In a recent case, Fairfax journalists was involved in boycotting the budget when
boss selling newspaper to capital equity giant in Australia in protest at their bosses to cut
editorial jobs. Australia is not very diverse in media industry. News corp control more than
seventy percent of the routine circulation and Fairfax only 20. In context of biased nature of
media houses , they are moderately conservative. It has been found that the Australian media
houses often publish factual information utilised with loaded words that attempt to influence
audience by appealing to emotion of stereotype. Job of a media house is to report the news,
investigate into this and scrutinise the behaviour of public officials. Increased political
Interference with media houses leads to budget cutting and attempt to influence content. The
federal election 2019 showed that Australia is stuck with in increasingly polarised media.
Presence of highly concentrated media ownership and inability to do anything in this context
.

News corporations are behaving like any other business entities. They are targeting niche
market by giving them the stories they want .The fairness of media can be revealed by the
way they write and the topic on which they write. Roy Morgan Research did media
credibility survey in last decade and found that 36% journalists are describing themselves at
Centre , rest have polled themselves to varying level of biasedness .In 2013 , Roy Morgan
Research, posted a report outlining the political profiles of newspapers and found out that
reader of Financial review during the average week were twenty two percent more likely to
vote Liberal as compared to Australian average. Moreover, the tone of newspaper is in
correlation with newspaper content. which leads to desired political learning of the reader. A
biased media is not always that bad as expected . They all are abided by media law and ethics
as every one is biased out there. Every story written by media expected to be balanced with
every side . There is other point of view to think that political interference to media gives a
vast range of stories and facts that ultimately meant no story is lost. The fairness and biased
nature of media is the matter of perception as if the reader is fair then he will have the option
of the story of every side from the biased media all around him. However as per Media
credibility survey, it has been found that Australians don’t trust media. Journalists in the
survey also admits that public doesn’t like them as they are not accurate in the mindset of
Australian. Journalists think that the perceived bias of media companies is leading to their
bad image .
Referring to the article dated 12 March 2019, published in CNN BUSINESS , it has been
given that news cycle is not Fox News friendly recently . As there was a release of Audio
clips by a media organisation named Media Matters for America who campaigns against Fox
News (MeyStory by Nathaniel Meyersohn, 2019). The clip contains misogynistic comments
by Tucker Carlson which undermined Fox’s sales pitch. There has been allegations that
there was a event by Fox News intended to press “against the notion that the network is only
for conservatives “ . Advertisers usually avoid getting around any controversy that leads to
heavy loss to Fox News as Ad buyers were not able to avoid it (Morgan, 2019).Fox network
sales executives hosting a big event for advertisers to promote the brand value of Fox News
also some prime time shows were going to be front and centre . But due to the controversial
headlines about Carlson and Pirro’s offensive statement Ima show advertisers avoided to
involve in the show that undermines Fox’s credibility. Advertisers are used in order to
influence political debate that ultimately leads to influencing vote .Australian law has five
advertising campaign principles (Horne, 2012). First is about relevance which stated that
campaign should be in relevance to government responsibility (D'Agostino, 2019). Second

principle is about fairness that campaign material in advertising should be demonstrated in
objective , fair and accessible manner .Accurate and verifiable facts should be used to meet
the objectivity of campaigns. It should not promote party interest and also must not mention
the party in government by name .Lastly campaign must comply with legal
requirements.while broadcasting during election the broadcaster must give all the parties
equal opportunity to broadcast their election matter during election period .Australia have
implied freedom of political communication as it does not have any right to free speech.Also
there are regulation in the format and presentation of political advertising but little regulation
on content .But due to emerging technologies there is vulnerability of electoral from getting
targeted by advertisers.As in the case of Fox News controversy, the network was hosting
advertisers to promote his network , in the same way political parties host and sponsor these
advertisers to advertise in favour of their party or candidate that could lead to influence voters
(Param, 2018) . Also it has been known worldwide about Cambridge Analytica controversy
which was a advertiser on Facebook that influence voters in the U.S. elections. These
advertisers have access to masses and in order to get monetary benefit in the election season
they offer various tactics in front of political parties and assure about influencing voters in the
favour of party.However, media in its varied form has been playing very significant role in
elections of various countries to get desired leaders . Also in this era of digitisation
information is available everywhere that can be accessed from everywhere. Therefore, on the
side of citizen there is need of being vigil about the influences of various form of media.
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