Licensing Policy Created Cash-for-Comment Climate

Letter to the Editor:

C (Media 10/2).

Not only did the report display an acute sense of media tactics, particularly those of Alan Jones, and of the difficult issues -- such as cash for no comment, or sins of omission -- it also showed an understanding of the genuine difficulties that regulators face.

Legislation encouraging lots of QCs at 20 paces is not the way to go.  Heavy regulation typically discourages entry to industries, and favours large players over small ones, by raising cost thresholds.  There are already too many direct and unnecessary restrictions on entry to broadcasting without adding indirect ones.

As Day points out, the current arrangements have exposed bad practices and provide levers which stand a good chance of stopping them.

The ABA is not, however, guiltless in the affair.  Its "magic number" approach to commercial FM radio licences, where Sydney has the same number as Perth even though it has five times the population, and the failure to add a single commercial radio station in Sydney since 1981, despite a 75 per cent real growth in advertising revenue since 1981, creates a premium value to radio stations in Sydney which is an incitement to abuse.

The ABA's disclosure requirements represent an attempt to empower the consumers by making them more informed.  Giving them wider choice would empower them even more by making it easier to switch to a similar product, so increasing the constraints on media players -- see my forthcoming policy paper Broadcasting Planning and Entrenched Protection of Incumbent Broadcasters to be published by the Canberra University's Communication and Media Policy Institute.

I am not surprised that, as Day points out, there has not been a big drop in ratings for John Laws and Alan Jones.  The effects of these things generally take time to work through, as people discuss it among themselves, and have more time to think about it.  It will indeed be interesting to see how the ratings go.

Given that rather too much Australian journalism and media has a tone that might be best described as "undergraduate", measured good sense in journalism such as Mark Day's is to be particularly respected.

Correction:

Mike Byrne (Media, letters, 24/2) is quite correct, I miswrote when I said that Perth has the same number of commercial FM stations as Sydney.  What I should have said is "The ABA[s] ... 'magic number' approach to wide-coverage FM radio licences, where Sydney is to be allcoated the same number as Perth".  My error.