An intro some ideas and some info

Okay,
SO, I did some research to try and track down the range of companies involved in media ownership in Australia and it is indeed a complicated web of bastards! But I managed to track down a fair bit and I have found some pretty helpful websites, which I'll try and post. If we do choose to focus on media in the first episode I thought a good format might be to have a newsdesk style intro followed by a couple of reports (roving style reports where we just slap together footage of different buildings and stuff with voiceover) into more in depth stuff. Particularly with this case looking at the two questions at the end of the intro thing would be good. That is; A report on existing legislation and its various inadeqacies as well as an account of the continuing push by the media companies for further deregulation, and a report on the way in which this concentration of ownership effects coverage (a good way to look at this might be to look at how a particular issue was covered by Sky news as it is part owned by News Corp, CMH and 7. An issue relating to any number of their various other commercial holdings ((newscorps promotion of NRL, 7's promotionof Yahoo)) Or better yet if we can find a Sky report relating to cross media partnerships) Also, we probably don't have time for half of this, but I would be interested to know who sme of these bastards are, KKR (investors known for a partcularly malicious investment style known as 'bootstrap' there'sa book about how they engineered the collapse of some company) Can West (also have a book about them and their global agenda) and CVC Capital Investment partners are all companies that hide behind other more public companies. It would be interesting to learn why, so I am definitely going to try and look nto that as well. Also after a few mini reports an interview withsomeone would be best (to back up our own craziness, preferably) so in our research we should keep an eye out for any organisations or individuals we can contact to get some interview footage (even if we don't have a whole interview segment but have the voice overlayed or something) Anyway, I'll keep working towards that format and tryand get an episode together. If you want to help out with this one that would be great, or you can start working on another topic as well (I think the military contracts is pretty interesting and should maybe be a split story from the KBR story which is interesting in it's own right) I also have suggestions for a couple of new episodes. I'd like to look at Australia at war, what exactly our 'non-combat' role is in Iraq, Our continued (and largely unquestioned) occupation of Afghanistan as well as other regions in which we are involved (finding a list of current deployments would be paramount) Also if the republic has returned to the agenda we need to keep track and ensure it's not the abortion we were preseneted with in 98. It is an official platform of the Labor Party so they are supposedly enacting it at some point but we need to ensure its not the sham we were delivered last time, so some kind of report on movements in that direction might be interesting. ANy other ideas??? Open to anything, anyway below is some of the work I have done for the Media episode.

In Australia, the concentration of media ownership is some of the greatest in the world. A small number of businesses have complete control of print, television and radio across Australia. With cross-media partnerships this small number of businesses appears even smaller. Not only are the media outlets of Australia dominated by a few business interests but these business interests are some of the largest consortiums in the world. Rupert Murdoch’s media giant News Corporation controls the lion’s share of print publications as well as substantial interest in the cable network Foxtel and Sky News Australia. Consolidated Media Holdings, formerly PBL, alongside CVC Capital Investment Partners also has substantial investments in both Foxtel and Sky News Australia as well as ownership of over 70 publications and, of course, the flagship Nine Network including aspects of its affiliates. John Fairfax Holdings’ recent acquisition of Rural Press Limited grants them control of nearly 200 Newspapers across Australia including major dailies in Sydney and Melbourne, whilst their holdings in radio give them control over what was once the Southern Cross Radio Network, and ownership of Satellite Music Australia makes them a provider to both Foxtel and Austar. Seven Media Group along with their silent investment partners Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. control the National Seven Network and Pacific Magazines they also complete the triumvirate of ownership involved in Sky News Australia, as well as holding small shares in both Consolidated Media Holdings and John Fairfax Holdings. The Macquarie Media Group, through control of Macquarie Southern Cross Media has affiliations and partnership projects with each of the major networks and companies, as do the smaller WIN corporation and Prime Television with each of these companies possessing stakes in Australian radio as well. APN News and Media, publisher of over 50 papers and magazines also control over 50% of Australian radio programming with film giant Village Roadshow controlling a large portion of remaining airtime through their acquisition of Austereo. Network Ten is owned by the Canadian Multinational Media giant Can West, a multi billion dollar media and advertising firm. While the telecommunications company Telstra possesses 50% of the Foxtel cable network, sharing the rest with News Corporation and Consolidated Media Holdings. Recent developments in digital media have failed to halt this trend of media concentration with the major companies having large investments in digital media as well. Consolidated Media Holdings possess a 50% stake in ninemsn partnering with Microsoft, while the Seven Media Group controls 50% of the popular search engine Yahoo. Fairfax Digital is the provider of various websites and News Corporation’s vast range of interactive media even includes the personalised website myspace. This small number of enormous conglomerates has control to the access of information across an entire continent, through cross media partnerships it appears as if each of these media groups is in some way affiliated with one another and as such only one voice is being heard in print, television, radio and digital media across all of Australia.
We would like to look at how this build up of media ownership has been able to occur, looking at the various flaws in existing legislation and the ongoing push towards further deregulation. Also, in what ways does this concentration of ownership affect our access to information as Australians, are we getting the full story?





Major Media Networks in Australia: News Corporation, PBL(CMH), Fairfax, Seven Network, Nine Network, WIN Corporation, Macquarie Media Group, APN News and Media, Prime Television Limited.
Government Owned: ABC, SBS

Important areas of cross over ownership:
 Sky News Australia (Newscorp/bSky 33%, PBL 33%, Seven Media Group 33%)
 WIN Network (VIC, QLD, NSW, ACT = Nine Network, SA = Seven Network, WA= Nine and Ten)
 Foxtel (25% News Corp, 25% CMH/PBL, 50% Telstra)
 Macquarie Media Group (affiliated with Ten, Seven, WIN and PBL)

News Corporation (in Aust.):
20th Century Fox (film and television), Foxtel (national cable network 25%), The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), The Sunday Telegraph (Sydney), The Australian (national), The Advertiser (Adelaide), Sunday Mail (Adelaide), The Sunday Times (Perth), Herald Sun (Melbourne), mX (Melbourne), The Courier Mail (Brisbane), Geelong Advertiser, The Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian (Hobart), Northen Territory News (Darwin) , The Sunday Territorian (Darwin), Fox Interactive Media (Internet assets including mySpace) bSky is also the holder 33% of Sky News Australia and is run by James Murdoch.
PBL (Now named Consolidated Media Holdings, CVC Capital Partners own 50%, Seven Network owns 4.8%):
Australian Consolidated Press (Over 70 magazines including Foxtel magazine) Ninemsn (50% owned by Microsoft) Foxtel (25% owned via CMH), Sky News Australia (33% stake), Nine Network and affiliates.
Seven Media Group (50% owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co):
Seven Network, Pacific Magazines, Yahoo (50%), Sky News Australia (33%), Teletext, West Australian Newspaper Holdings ltd. (17.3 %), Tivo, and a small stake in Fairfax Media.
Fairfax Media:
The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, Numerous regional and community newspapers (40+), Rural Press Limited (150 Regional papers and magazines) Fairfax digital (Numerous websites), Fairfax Radio Network (includes Southern Cross ((Radio)) Broadcasting and Satellite Music Australia, a provider to Foxtel and Austar)
Macquarie Media Group:
Macquarie Southern Cross Media (including Southern Cross Television a dual affiliate of Network Ten and Seven), Tasmanian Digital Television (50% share with WIN) Darwin Digital Television (50% share with PBL) Hit Music Network and Local Works (former DMG owned radio stations) and Sky radio
Canwest Mediaworks
Ten Network Holdings Ltd, (10% owned by WIN) Includes national Network and a range of advertising companies, Canwest is a global company based in Canada
Telstra
50% ownership of Foxtel, Big Pond Network
WIN corporation
Numerous rural stations, Sunraysia Television (40%) 2 FM stations, SelecTV, Throughout Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania it is a Nine Network affiliate. In South Australia it is a Seven Network affiliate and in Western Australia it is an affiliate of both the Nine Network and Network Ten.
APN News and Media:
Over 50 publications and owner of 50% of Australian Radio Network
Prime Television:
Eight regional television networks (potential audience of 26% of population) as well
as radio. Affiliated with WIN and PBL.
Village Roadshow:
Austereo,

Radio in Australia sees various joint ventures between Austereo, ARN and Macquarie Radio Network.