Landscape gardening, scorched earth style
by Robert on Nov.06, 2006, under Nothing in particular
The media landscape in Australia has just changed, and to be honest I am not quite sure what it means yet. My gut is that its not going to be good for diversity of voices or the local industry.
One thing I am fairly certain about is that power will be concentrated - the media barons are going to be spending the next year or so carving up the available pot of outlets into ever decreasing bundles of "impartiality".
I know its probably cynical of me, and not at all in keeping with my recent resurgence of pollyannaism, but I really feel like Helen Coonan is a bit of a melon head†. Or she is sleeping with the ghost of Kerry Packer. Or something. I am not entirely sure how anyone could have looked at the changes she has rammed through and thought it was going to result in anything other than a merger frenzy.
So its something else the next generation is going to have to struggle with, but at least we have Canada to compare ourselves to. It appears that given the same pressures, population size and problems, Canada has come up with the EXACT OPPOSITE solution. So we are going to get to see who is right - although not in a time frame that will mean that La Coonan will have to face the (DRM protected) music if she is wrong.
Meanwhile all of this kuffuffle reminds me of an appearance that Jon Stewart, host of the wonderful "Daily Show", made on Crossfire. An appearance that apparently resulted in Crossfire being taken off the air.
Maybe there is hope of reclaiming the media landscape.
Enjoy.
† No offence to Helen. Her head really doesnt look at all like a Melon.
