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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bungelung Cargoton woman from Gadighal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Tuesday,

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Speaker 2: the fourth of October.

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Speaker 3: I'm Zara and I am Sam.

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Speaker 2: Finally the prodigal sun has returned to Australia. Sam, how

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Speaker 2: is your holiday?

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Speaker 3: It was an epic trip. It stretched across a couple

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Speaker 3: of continents and I had a good combination of learning

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Speaker 3: a lot and relaxing.

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Speaker 2: Brilliant. Well, you're about to start applying that knowledge to

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Speaker 2: today's topic. Tell us what we're going to hear in

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Speaker 2: the deep dive.

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Speaker 3: Well, last week Independent MP Zoe Daniel moved a motion

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Speaker 3: in Parliament calling for an inquiry into Australia's concentrated media ownership.

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Speaker 3: So in today's dive will interrogate what Australia's media market

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Speaker 3: currently looks like and what that inquiry would mean the

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Speaker 3: first Aurah. What is making headlines.

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Speaker 2: So the federal government has provided further details on the

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Speaker 2: plan to bring about twenty Australian women and forty children

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Speaker 2: currently in Syrian refugee camps back to the country. According

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Speaker 2: to the government, many are the wives, widows and sisters

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Speaker 2: of Islamic state fighters and will quote be closely monitored

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Speaker 2: by national security agencies upon their return.

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Speaker 3: Even though I was overseas, I was still getting some

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Speaker 3: nice text messages from Optus. Now they have announced consultancy

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Speaker 3: firm Deloitte will lead an external review into the cyber

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Speaker 3: attack that exposed the personal data of up to ten

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Speaker 3: million Australians. Opti CEO Kelly Bayo Rosmerin said Optus is

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Speaker 3: quote committed to rebuilding trust with their customers and that

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Speaker 3: this important process will assist those efforts.

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Speaker 2: Neither candidate in Brazil's presidential election has secured a majority

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Speaker 2: of votes, meaning now that a second round election will

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Speaker 2: be held on the thirtieth of October. Former president Louis

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Speaker 2: In Nacio Lula da Silva received forty eight point three

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Speaker 2: percent of the vote, while current president Jaye Bolsonaro got

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Speaker 2: forty three percent.

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Speaker 3: And today's good news, twenty three year old Ethiopian athlete

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Speaker 3: ja lemzaf Yah Hulah has become the youngest person to

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Speaker 3: win the London Marathon. Despite suffering a major four a

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Speaker 3: bit of a face plant with nine kilometers left in

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Speaker 3: the race. Ya Hula ran the third fastest time in

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Speaker 3: the history of the women's race and has only been

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Speaker 3: racing competitively since April of this year.

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Speaker 2: All right, to Sam. You're back from four weeks away,

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Speaker 2: and I thought that the nicest thing that I could

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Speaker 2: do to welcome you back would be to talk about

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Speaker 2: the media. It's our favorite talking point and there's a

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Speaker 2: very good reason to be talking about it. That is

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Speaker 2: because last week Independent MP Zoe Daniel she moved a

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Speaker 2: motion in Parliament calling for an inquiry into Australia's concentrated

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Speaker 2: media ownership. We know this all too well, obviously operating

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Speaker 2: in the Australian market. So I want to start by

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Speaker 2: asking you to elaborate a bit more on what Australia's

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Speaker 2: media landscape actually looks like.

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Speaker 3: Well, interestingly, this is a speech that I gave a

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Speaker 3: couple of times to interesting people in media I met

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Speaker 3: with over in the US, and to everyone else in

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Speaker 3: the world. The Australian media landscape is a little peculiar.

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Speaker 3: It's one of the most concentrated in the world. There's

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Speaker 3: two major companies, NewsCorp and nine Entertainment, and between the

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Speaker 3: two of them they pretty much dominate the newspaper, TV

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Speaker 3: and radio markets. Everyone talks about the World Press Freedom Index,

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Speaker 3: which monitor is media in every country, and according to

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Speaker 3: that body, Australia's ultra concentration makes press freedom quote fragile

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Speaker 3: and endangers public interest journalism.

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Speaker 2: So if you aren't in media, and perhaps are looking

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Speaker 2: from the outside in, it can be difficult to comprehend

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Speaker 2: how there can be a whole market dominated by two

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Speaker 2: key players. How does that actually happen.

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Speaker 3: Well, for a long time it was harder to pull off,

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Speaker 3: but there's been a couple of legal changes that have

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Speaker 3: made it easier four to nine in news Corp to

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Speaker 3: increase their share of control. The first big change to

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Speaker 3: get you across is the removal of a rule that

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Speaker 3: prevented any company from operating TV, radio and newspapers all

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Speaker 3: at once. This was called the two out three rule,

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Speaker 3: and the idea here was that you could pick two

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Speaker 3: areas to plane, but you couldn't have media entities across

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Speaker 3: all three. Now, the second rule was one that prevented

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Speaker 3: a company from owning TV licenses that reached more than

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Speaker 3: seventy five percent of the population. So let's take a

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Speaker 3: closer look at these entities. Firstly, nine now nine own

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Speaker 3: The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review,

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Speaker 3: as well as radio stations two GB and three AW.

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Speaker 3: They also controlled Domain and STAN, and interestingly from a

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Speaker 3: youth media perspective, they also owned Pedestrian. Then if we

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Speaker 3: turned to News Corp, they own newspapers and radio stations

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Speaker 3: in every capital city in the country. There's almost too

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Speaker 3: many to rattle off here. They also own a heap

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Speaker 3: of regional newspapers. They've also got a national newspaper in

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Speaker 3: The Australian, and a range of online news portals such

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Speaker 3: as Foxtel and Sky News. In the youth media market,

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Speaker 3: they have just come out with their own entity, and

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Speaker 3: that one's called The OZ.

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Speaker 2: We'll be back in just a moment, but first a

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Speaker 2: message from our sponsor. So you've identified what the context

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Speaker 2: of the media market is in Australia. We also know

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Speaker 2: that there's been a Senate inquiry looking at this very

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Speaker 2: specific issue, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that one came from a really large petition

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Speaker 3: that was led by Kevin Rudd. It went viral online

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Speaker 3: and the inquiri's report argued australia system of media regulation

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Speaker 3: was not effective and that concentrated media ownership would be

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Speaker 3: inherently corrosive of democratic practice because it places control over

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Speaker 3: the sources of information and opinion in far too few hands.

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Speaker 3: This inquiry recommended a u udicial inquiry with the powers

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Speaker 3: that we see in a Royal Commission, and it also

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Speaker 3: made a series of specific recommendations to improve media diversity.

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Speaker 3: Some of these recommendations included more funding for public broadcasters

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Speaker 3: so the ABC and SBS, some more government funding for

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Speaker 3: the Australian Associated Press, and interestingly, something that would help

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Speaker 3: young media companies raise money by offering a tax incentive.

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Speaker 3: So in the same way that you can offset a

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Speaker 3: charitable donation against your tax return, they're proposing a similar

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Speaker 3: thing for investing in media companies.

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Speaker 2: All right, And so last week, and the reason why

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Speaker 2: we're talking about this is because Independent MP Zoey Daniel,

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Speaker 2: who herself is a former ABC journal said that the

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Speaker 2: concentrated media landscape meant that there was less scrutiny of governments.

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Speaker 2: She called it highly destructive and said that it disconnects

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Speaker 2: people from their government and so on. But that isn't

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Speaker 2: the view that's held across the board, is it.

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Speaker 3: No, and Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg was a member of

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Speaker 3: the Senate Committee into Media diversity and he published a

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Speaker 3: dissenting view now. He called the recommendations reckless and said

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Speaker 3: they would undermine freedom and freedom of the press in Australia.

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Speaker 3: Bragg said that the rise of social and digital media

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Speaker 3: meant measuring concentration based on traditional media ownership was totally inappropriate.

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Speaker 3: He said that the recommendations rest upon a nineteen fifties formula.

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Speaker 2: All right, So, given that there is a spectrum of opinion,

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Speaker 2: are we likely to actually see a judicial inquiry into

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Speaker 2: media diversity in this country. Well.

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Speaker 3: We reached out to Michelle Rowland, she's the Communications Minister,

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Speaker 3: and she told TDA that the government did not support

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Speaker 3: a judicial inquiry. Roland said there have already been multiple

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Speaker 3: reviews and inquiries into the media, such as the Senate

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Speaker 3: inquiry we've talked about today, and that rather than yet

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Speaker 3: another inquiry, we need to be more outcomes focused. So

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Speaker 3: now it's in the government's court to provide a formal

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Speaker 3: response to the Senate inquiri's other recommendations, and we'll see

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Speaker 3: what happens there. Perhaps it'd be helpful for everyone to

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Speaker 3: talk about who we are in this context now, where

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Speaker 3: an independent mass media outlet, and we're not owned in

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Speaker 3: full or in part by any other media company, so

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Speaker 3: we don't fall under the nine on news corp umbrellas.

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Speaker 3: As a result, the findings of this inquiry are particularly

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Speaker 3: interesting for a player like us, where we're kind of

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Speaker 3: in this landscape as a really active part, and there's

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Speaker 3: many independent news outlets like us that will be fascinated

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Speaker 3: to see whether there is indeed a judicial inquiry.

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Speaker 2: Sam, good to have you back after a long break,

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Speaker 2: and good to have you back talking about media. If

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Speaker 2: you learned something from today's podcast, don't forget to hit

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Speaker 2: subscribe so that there is a TDA episode waiting for

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Speaker 2: you every weekday morning. We'll be back again tomorrow, but

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Speaker 2: until then, have a brilliant day.