Former communications minister Malcom Turnbull was sworn in as Prime Minister on Tuesday, marking the fifth change in leadership in as many years.
I’ll keep personal politics out of this, but whichever side of the fence you sit, there is no denying that the change in leadership will have a dramatic impact on all levels of the country – economically and culturally. The repercussions of Turnbull’s coup and ascension to the top job this week could be particularly pointy for the media industry. Turnbull previously spoke out about the Luddite regulations drafted in pre-digital times the industry is forced to bear, and chaired the parliamentary committee on reforms in 2013, strongly recommending action.
Admittedly, there is a difference between recommending a policy and actually pushing that policy through when you’re in the hot seat, but there are a number of things that point towards long and hotly debated media reforms actually becoming a reality under Turnbull’s leadership.
One of the stalls has been that Abbott’s government said there couldn’t be a push for media reform unless the industry could reach consensus. It’s the kind of block that there is no way around. Each of the media owners has a strong internal agenda and most proposals are seen to favour one while snubbing another. Even in the name of progress, trying to get all the major media owners to agree on a course of action proved difficult.
PwC’s Megan Brownlow reckons there are no barriers to media reform now while Citi Bank issued a note saying quite the opposite, expecting no major shift on media reform from the new Prime Minister.
Turnbull is at least regarded by most of the industry’s upper echelons as someone that understands the business, and it appears that all are open to getting the debate happening again. Credit Suisse is more optimistic that reforms will be pushed through, and issued a note offering that under Turnbull, reforms including removing the audience reach rule and the two out of three rule, could be enacted fairly swiftly even without consensus.
If that’s the case we could be about to see some of the biggest changes to the structure of the media industry in a long time. And Credit Suisse went as far as forecasting it would be before an election, which is currently slated for a year’s time.
If reforms were to go ahead, there would likely be a flurry of mergers and acquisitions between metro and regional media players that are currently prohibited. Credit Suisse pegs the winners in that scenario to be Nine Entertainment Company and Southern Cross Austereo, with a potentially likely outcome that Nine would merge with SCA.
Reform is absolutely something this industry needs to bring the regulations in line with the realities of digital – and sooner rather than later.
This article orginally appeared in the 18 September issue of AdNews in print. You can subscribe to the magazine here or get it immediately on iPad.