Communications Minister Mitch Fifield has requested the ACCC to rethink its strategy to media mergers as the federal government intends to abolish Keating-period possession restrictions.
Mr Fifield wrote to Australian Competitors and Shopper Fee chairman Rod Sims on March 29, noting the federal government launched the Broadcasting Laws Modification (Media Reform) Invoice 2016 into Parliament on March 2.
Explainer: Australia’s media possession legal guidelines
Australia’s media possession legal guidelines are due for an replace, and the media barons are set to profit.
“In mild of those reforms and the numerous and ongoing modifications happening within the media setting, I request that the ACCC contemplate updating its public steerage on its strategy to media mergers,” says the letter, seen by Fairfax Media.
“As business members think about the proposed reforms and any related potential acquisition and merger exercise, I consider it might be well timed for the ACCC to evaluate and replace its present steerage on the remedy of media mergers, together with its strategy to defining media markets.”
Mr Fifield has referred to as his proposals the “most vital media reform in Australian media in a era”. He plans to scrap two key legal guidelines in a transfer that would unleash a wave of mergers and would make it authorized for Information Corp to purchase Channel Ten or Fairfax Media to merge with 9 Leisure.
Mr Sims is scheduled to seem at a Senate committee debating the invoice in Canberra on Thursday.
The modifications would would abolish the attain rule, which prevents mergers between regional tv networks and their metropolitan associates, and the 2-out-of-three rule, which stops any proprietor from proudly owning a newspaper, radio station and tv community in the identical main market.
The ACCC undertook an analogous train 10 years in the past on the request of the Howard authorities, previous to the introduction and passage of the Broadcasting Providers Modification (Media Possession) Act 2006.
The federal government indicated a evaluate of the prevailing steerage would additionally permit the ACCC to replace the market on its strategy to the evaluation of media mergers after vital business modifications over the last decade.