Tell ACMA what you think. Now here’s a big chance for Crikey readers to have a chance to influence TV and radio in Australia. The Australian Communications and Media Authority, the main media regulator, wants public input. ACMA oversees 11 separate codes of practice and regulation for the commercial and national broadcast media, as well as the internet and telecommunications.

ACMA is calling for public input into what is the biggest minefield of all: issues that include community values, accuracy, ethics and the like. Facebook privacy and redress (and Twitter) are two major current issues that fall into this review. Should there be a code of practice (self-regulation) for social media in this country, for example? Should there be a right of redress for comments made online in social media or to blogs and stories on the various websites and forums the broadcast media control? 

ACMA points to the most obvious reason for a look at these principles — the rapid growth of the online world in the last two decades and the way language and context has changed in TV comedies, dramas and sitcoms in that time. Much of what goes to air now in Home and Away would have struggled to get to air on the same program at 7pm 20 years ago. Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell on ABC1 had language and skits that would have triggered comment 20 years ago. Now they both pass without much notice, but the audience data suggests viewers were not offended in the least.

Here’s the issues paper (PDF).  ACMA is also holding a series of citizen conversations throughout June on topics related to the issues paper. These are free events and will be held at the ACMA’s Sydney office, and will be webcast nationally. Facilitators and panellists will include media commentators, representatives from most of the TV and radio networks, as well as industry and academia. And submissions details can be obtained from here ccsinquiry@acma.gov.au. — Glenn Dyer

Crikey, cricket costs a bit. It was smiles all round at the celebrations of the looting of the Nine and Ten TV networks by Cricket Australia and its advisers late yesterday. Forced grins on the faces of Nine boss David Gyngell, Ten head Hamish McLennan and Cricket Australia’s James Sutherland hid the real story — how the networks will cut deeper into costs, staff and services such as news to pay for these silly amounts of money.

The Nine/WIN/Cricket Australia deal was touted as a win-win for everyone — but no one mentioned regional TV viewers in South Australia, who continue to get no local news (after WIN axed its regional news service in February). Their service will not improve — in fact it will go backwards because Nine will cut costs in Adelaide to turn the station into a virtual slave rebroadcaster of its Sydney signal — with only the local 6pm news (and understaffed newsroom) and some ad sales people left on board. The same will be done in Perth, if it is ever sold to Nine (if the new federal government lifts the 75% audience reach rule).

But no one mentioned that to do the deal Gyngell has to leverage the Nine Network even higher — by an extra $100 million (to more than $800 million in debt) — at a time when media companies are reducing debt. To pay for this eventually, Nine’s owners, two US hedge funds, will expect Australian investors to stump up money in the expected float of Nine sometime in the next year.

Nine is cutting deeply into its sports operation at a time when it has paid record amounts for the cricket, and before that, the NRL. The staff to be used on the coverage will be part-timers and freelancers — from directors to producers, camerapeople and assistants.

According to Sydney media consultant Steve Allen, Nine’s costs will rise with this deal (and so will WIN’s). He wrote to clients yesterday saying Nine’s renewal cost works out around “$300,000 an hour (which) is expensive, but short of the major football codes, and compares roughly with $380,000 per hour AFL, and $635,000 per hour NRL.” Nine is the free-to-air broadcaster for the NRL, Seven (and Foxtel) share the AFL.

He also pointed out that Ten got the best part of the deal: “The Network 10 deal for Big Bash of $20 million PA ($85 million + $15 million contra) is a really good deal it seems, rights costing around $140,000 per hour — clever”. — Glenn Dyer

Front page of the day. Well, it’s actually a front page of several years ago, but Science Blogs has done a nice job of debunking a faked  photo going around Facebook. It claims to show Time magazine reporting in the 1970s on the supposed impending Ice Age (therefore encouraging sceptisim over the authenticity of current climate science and global warming).

But as David Kirtley explains, that image on the left is actually from a 2007 edition of Time, with a rather different headline.

Video of the Day. What would Wikipedia have looked like in the 1980s? Let’s examine mullets, Walkmans and Paris Hilton with the power of dodgy MS DOS systems …