Australia

Like Canada and Finland (but less so than Italy, where publishing and broadcasting are dominated by Berlusconi interests), the Australian mass media are concentrated in a few groups and their affiliates.

     radio and television broadcasting

Australia has two national (government-funded) noncommercial television and radio broadcasters - the ABC and SBS. Both have a small share of the national market.

Commercial free-to-air television involves three networks (ie stations that owned by the network or by an affiliate). These include the Packer Nine Network, the Seven and Ten networks and affiliates such as Southern Cross.

Pay-tv is dominated by Foxtel, a partnership between Packer (25%), Murdoch-controlled News (25%) and local telecommunications giant Telstra.

Commercial radio has a similar concentration, dominated by the DMG, APN and Village-owned Austereo groups.

'Community radio' has a derisory market share.

     newspapers

Newspaper ownership is highly concentrated, with four groups accounting for over 80% of titles and 96% of readership. The major groups are the Murdoch-controlled News, the Fairfax group, the O'Reilly-controlled APN and the Rural Press group (controlled by a wing of the Fairfax family).

     magazines and journals

General magazine publishing is even more concentrated, with most circulation attributable to titles owned by the Packer and News groups or licensed from overseas groups such as Hearst, Hachette, Advance and AOL Time Warner.

Specialist journal publishing is characterised by a large number of small groups and the offshore giants such as Thomson and Elsevier.

     book publishing

As with book publishing in most English-speaking counties, most sales accrue to a handful of offshore giants (whether directly or through local subsidiaries). These include Pearson, Viacom, AOL Time Warner, Wolters Kluwer, Elsevier, Thomson, Holtzbrinck and News.

     music

The same concentration is evident in recording and music publishing, where a handful of independents (usually affiliated with industry majors) compete with global giants such as Sony, AOL Time Warner, News and Bertelsmann.

     film production and distribution

Australia continues to create new films but global distribution is in the hands of a few companies. Most sales relate to product from what used to be called 'Hollywood', ie Vivendi Universal, Viacom, Disney, AOL Time Warner and Sony. Cinema operations are dominated by the Packer-controlled Hoyts, AHL and Village Roadshow.

     advocacy groups

We've provided a brief list of major industry and consumer advocacy bodies here.

     statistics

As at 2000 there were

48 commercial television station licenses, organised into three networks - the Seven, Nine and Ten networks

two national public broadcasters - the ABC and SBS.

three major subscription television operators (Foxtel, Optus and Austar), with no more than two major subscription television operators in any one area

220 commercial AM and FM radio licenses

228 community radio broadcasting licenses, including 80 Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme (BRACS) licenses concerned with delivery of television and radio to remote indigenous communities

six community television stations, broadcasting on channel 31 in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Lismore

126 AM and FM radio open narrowcast licenses, catering for ethnic or other minority interests and providing education services or tourist radio services;

In 1996-7 television program production was valued at $1,140 million, with advertisement production valued at $234 million. In 1997-98 royalties from television program exports were estimated at around $100 million.

Commercial television licenses were valued at over $3 billion. For radio the figure was $800 million. During 1999-2000 Pay-TV operators had revenue of $758 million on a subscriber base of around 1.2 million (around 16%) of households.

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