Lecture Six

The Australian Media Landscape can be effectively broken into two divisions – Commercial Media and Public Media. Lecture Six focused on Commercial Media, its purpose and the “major players” within Australia.

So let’s begin firstly by looking at the question of why does commercial media exist? Well, according to Dr. Redman, commercial media provides advertisers with the “eyeballs and ears” of viewers. Thus, it can be argued, as was shown on a slide in the lecture, that “advertisers are the real customers of a commercial media organisation, not its readers, viewers or listeners.” A somewhat depressing thought.

Essentially, commercial media is a profit-drive media production. It is not government funded and creates audiences to generate profit through the selling of advertising to them. The success of commercial media is intrinsically linked to its business success, being its ability to generate audiences.

In Australia there are several “major players” within the Commercial Media Scene. There are News Limited, Fairfax Media, APN news and media, WIN Corporation, Southern Cross Broadcasting, Nine entertainment company, Seven West Media, and the Ten network holdings. Further, the “minor players” include Telstra, Optus, Macquarie and Austar.

The form of commercial media is commercial and as such is either subscription (e.g. Foxtel), sponsored (e.g. Channel 9) or subsidised (e.g. Government funding). Interestingly, in this lecture I learnt that in Australia, the government subsidises Free to Air Television. In 2010 Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy, gave government money to Commercial Television to allow them to initiate the digital Channels scheme. Further, the function of commercial media is commercial, propaganda and social. An example of the social function of commercial media can be seen from reference to hyper-localised newspapers such as Quest, in which local businesses are able to advertise and target a specific audience. 

An issue of great importance is the social responsibility of the media in a democracy. An important question in a democratic society is: Can commercial media deliver on both commercial (profit) and social (‘public trust’) functions (or is it just about the money)?

The Hutchins Commission 1947, outlines the social responsibility of the Media in a Democracy, Though this Commission is 65 years old, what it says still remains relevant.

As Dr. Redman noted to keep the commercial media “under control,” mechanisms have been put in place such as formal state requirements, legal prescription, state oversight, statutes and voluntary Councils such as the Australian Press Council.

So as to guarantee these commercial-social functions, there exists an "Ethical Wall." 

 

C.P. Scott, Editor and Owner of the highly-revered The Guradian, sees the style of commercial media as being corrupt, lacking in quality and preoccupied more with profit that its social responsibilities. Such a fact is emphasised by his remark that, "The firsty duty [of the media] is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary officie is the gatherthing of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred." As this quotation indicates, C.P. Scott's clearly believes that when gathering news, it is the social responsibility of the media to gather news without worry about the ramifications for advertisers. I completely agree with what C.P. Scott is saying as I believe to preserve the integrity of journalism it must remain dettached from the pressures of advertising sales. 

There now exist new social controls on commercial media, such as regulations created by the government, state press subsidies and the notion of licensed journalism (being the idea that journalists much have a license to operate as journalists). 

A challenge faced by commercial media is that advertising revenue for broadcast media is down and continues to slide. As such this raises questions for the future of commercial media: How will commercial media continue to make profits if advertising revenue is declining and how will it continue to serve the advertiser, audience and the public good?