N ew media ownership laws in Australia, enacted as the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Owner- ship) Act 2006, took effect from April 4, 2007. Proclamation of Schedule 2 of the Act repealed foreign control rules and amended cross-media rules. Schedule 1 of the Act came into force on the earlier date of February 1, 2007. It introduced a number of key concepts relating to media ownership including prohibi- tions and specific tests for ‘unacceptable media diversity situations’ and ‘unacceptable three-way control situa- tions’. Other amendments were made in Schedule 3, relating to the allocation of new datacasting channels, which have since been abandoned, and new digital free- to-air TV rules concerning multi-channeling commence on January 1, 2009. This date is intended to coincide with the commencement of Schedule 3 of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Digital Television) Act 2006, which lifts an existing general prohibition on free-to-air multi-channeling. In the Australian context, ‘multi- channeling’ simply refers to commercial free-to-air licensees offering additional streams of digital program- ming. There has been some commentary in the broadsheet press to the effect that the dismantling of cross and foreign ownership rules will undoubtedly, over time, lead to industry consolidation through mergers and acquisitions, and that this does not augur well for media diversity in Australia. But media ownership is yet to strike the kind of popular chord in Australia that it did in the US in 2004/2005 (when the repeal of cross media rules was attempted unsuccessfully by the FCC). The strong support by civil society groups at the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, organised by the Free Press, is testament to the vitality of a more grassroots media ownership debate in the US. With the 20-year-old cross-media limits now lifted, Australia is in a context of contracting media diversity. It can be seen as being consistent with an international neoliberal trend to relax ownership rules, and Australia now has gone further than other comparable nations. For example, in the UK cross-sector limits remain at the local and national level; while in the US, new FCC rules (from December 2007) allow newspaper/broadcast combina- tions in the 20 biggest markets only, subject to certain con- ditions, and there has been considerable ongoing opposition to these, notably in the US Senate. The Rudd government, in coming to power after the new rules were introduced, has indicated that it will not repeal them. However the Communications Minister, Senator Conroy, has said that the government, who were opposed to the changes, would work on ‘additional media ownership safeguards’ during its first term. 1 The first impacts in the wake of the changes to the cross and foreign media reforms in Australia were not the awaited media merger and acquisition feeding frenzy. Instead the key moves were characterised by opportunistic debt refinancing based on the share price bubble, courtesy of the previous (Howard) government’s ‘telegraphed’ legislative package. Predictably, when the share prices rose in the wake of the passage of the new laws, Australia’s largest media corporations were able to take advantage of the situation, and go ahead with their busi- ness strategies based on cash windfalls, allowing them to make new acquisitions – for both media and non-media assets. In essence the new laws removed the main cross- media ownership restrictions, now allowing TV/ newspaper/radio mergers with a ‘2 out of 3’ media sector limit, and introducing metro and rural/regional voice limits – under the so-called ‘5/4 voices test’. Under the new media ownership laws a ‘voice’ refers to a ‘media group’, or a group of two or more traditional media operations (a com- mercial radio broadcasting licence, an associated news- paper or a commercial television broadcasting licence). By virtue of clause 3, provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA) are amended as set out in the Schedules of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Act 2006; with Schedule 1 amending the previous cross- media ownership restrictions subject to there remaining a minimum number of separately controlled media groups in city (5) or rural/regional areas (4). New section 61AB of the BSA establishes the concept of an ‘unacceptable media diversity situation.’ Where transactions occur in breach of these limits so-called ‘unacceptable media diversity situa- tions’ are said to exist. In fact, there have been a number of media asset transactions which all amount to a significant reduction in the diversity in Australia’s media ownership, and that signal important implications as test-beds for cross- owned, digital media corporations. Merger events triggered by the changes So what have been the impacts to date? In short, the com- ing into force of amendments to media ownership laws triggered a major private equity refinancing of free-to-air television, effectively taking much of the network owner- ship offshore into private institutional ownership. This was the dramatic and largely unanticipated impact of removing foreign ownership restrictions. At the same 164 Communications Law, Vol. 13, No. 5, 2008 First impacts: dismantling frameworks for cross-owned media in Australia Tim Dwyer