As the federal
government readies itself to deliver National Party MPs the changes to
regional media ownership regulation that will ensure Helen Coonan’s media reforms pass through parliament, the three big media owners are preparing themselves for a world without cross-media shackles.

Specifically, a world with fewer daily newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne. Two fewer.

Sydney
and Melbourne are the only Australian cities with more than one daily
newspaper, and among only a handful of comparable cities in the world
which offer a choice in newspapers.

One day, probably soon, that duopoly will end, and the abolition of the cross-media restrictions will hasten that day.

If
the Coonan “reforms” become law, there will be a much greater
opportunity for News, PBL and Fairfax to carve up the Sydney and
Melbourne newspaper marketplaces in a way that will be highly
profitable to all parties. “Mergers” which would be facilitated by the
abolition of cross-media restrictions and under the pretext of “decline
of the old media”. A win-win deal for all concerned.

With the
kind of cooperation that hasn’t been possible while Fairfax has been
independently owned, the three companies will be able to construct a
mutually beneficial marketplace in each city which has one tabloid
Monday-Friday masthead, a classified-driven powerhouse on Saturday, and
a mass-circulation Sunday popular paper. In other words, no more pesky
competitors, monopoly papers produced in two (rather than four)
printing plants, owned by two companies (News and a PBL-Fairfax
spin-off) – and therefore immensely profitable.

If this becomes
the Howard government’s lasting contribution to “media reform”, it will
be warmly appreciated by three sets of shareholders. If not readers.