The Turnbull government has "defied media moguls Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes in scrapping Keating-era media ownership laws" but denying News Corp.'s pay-TV venture Foxtel more access to sports rights and "delaying a possible TV licence fee cut until the May budget," according to White & Mason of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. Communications Minister Mitch Fifield announced what he called the "most significant media reform in Australian media in a generation," scrapping two key laws in a move that could "unleash a wave of mergers" and would allow News Corp. to buy Channel Ten or Fairfax Media to merge with Nine Entertainment. The changes "will abolish the reach rule," which prevents mergers between regional TV networks and their metropolitan affiliates, and the two-out-of-three rule, which "stops any proprietor from owning a newspaper, radio station and television network in the same major market." But the "anti-shopping list of sports quarantined for free-to-air television is unchanged." Stokes' Seven West Media, which analysts say "will do worse than rival Nine from the changes," dismissed the Bill pointedly for failing to "address the 4.5 percent gross revenue licence fee that is crippling our ability to invest in local news, live sport, drama and other programming." Seven CEO Tim Worner said, "Media ownership changes might be great for the deal junkies out there but they are not going to ensure a strong future for Australian film and television production. You won't see one more minute of local content as a result of these changes, in fact you will probably see a lot less, especially in regional Australia" (SMH, 2/2).
