Mass media in Australia
Mass media in Australia spans traditional and digital formats, and caters mostly to its predominantly English-speaking population.
Varieties include local, regional, state, federal and international sources of media, reporting on Australian news, opinion, policy, issues and culture.
Some rural or regional areas may receive a more limited selection, often with some of the channels available showing programming from more than one of the major networks.
The main provider is Foxtel in both metropolitan, regional and rural areas offering nearly all Australian channels via cable & satellite TV in capital cities, and mostly the same channels are offered by Foxtel via satellite TV (predominantly) in regional areas with the recent merger with Austar in 2012.
[9] In 2020, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission floated a proposal to subject Netflix to local content requirements.
Nine Entertainment acquired Fairfax Media in 2018, making Stan a wholly owned subsidiary of Nine Digital.
The Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) is the broadcasting regulator for radio and television in Australia, and also the co-regulatory Online Content Scheme.
The Council deals with complaints from the public about editorial material in newspapers and magazines published in Australia, and aims to maintain the freedom of the press.
Controls over media ownership in Australia are laid down in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, administered by the ACMA.
Even with laws in place Australia has a high concentration of media ownership compared to other western countries.
Ownership of national and the newspapers of each capital city are dominated by two corporations, News Corp Australia, (which was founded in Adelaide but is now based from the United States) and Nine Entertainment – News Corp-owned titles account for nearly two-thirds (64.2 per cent) of metropolitan circulation[21] and Nine-owned papers account for a further quarter (26.4 per cent).
Rural Press received a takeover offer from Fairfax Media in late 2006, and completed the merger on 8 May 2007.
The law's definition of news is broad,[25] including "content that reports, investigates or explains ... current issues or events of public significance for Australians at a local, regional or national level.
[26][27] On 4 June 2019 the Australian Federal Police conducted a raid on the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst's home, looking for information connected to a story she had written a year earlier about new laws that would give the security forces new powers for surveillance over Australian citizens.
[30] The search warrant allowed the police to "add, copy, delete or alter" any files they found on the computers.
[32] In Australia itself, newspaper outlets normally driven by partisanship and advertising exhibited a surprisingly united show of protest on 21 October as they published front pages with the appearance of documents having been blacked out by government censors.
The demands are, for the ability to contest any search warrant of a journalist or news entity while the search warrant is under request, reform of whistleblower protection, new limitations on which documents may be classified as secret, changes in freedom of information, exemption from national security laws enacted over the previous seven years, and reforms of defamation laws.
