OWNERSHIP Australia debates market restrictions

It's still at the discussion stage, so it'd be no great surprise if pressure from the Murdoch or Packer empires killed the move, BUT ... at least Australia is discussing what should be the most urgent task for Media regulators, namely tackling concentration of ownership and monopolistic practices.

Full article here.

They are rather modest proposals, but as Murdoch has already stated his opposition, expect the flak to fly in a country which had a notorious history of press influence over government - look up the shady history of Gough-Whittam, viewed as too left-wing by the US, being forced out as Australian PM.

We get quite the opposite in the UK. The ITC began the great deregulatory shift, while the 2003 Communications Act makes deregulation a legal duty of the super-regulator OfCom, and a right-wing government with a friendly press behind it is hardly likely to tighten ownership laws. Indeed, C4 faces forced privatization and some feel the BBC is being run down to prepare public opinion for its eventual sale too, in the manner of the Post Office.

See: Changes to Australia's media ownership laws to be introduced within six months (Guardian)

TV WATERSHED Australia dilutes regulations citing digitisation

Could this point the way to the UK's future direction? The Aussie regulator ACMA, facing down objections from 'children's' groups (a misnomer really for these conservative, often religious, pressure groups who seek to dictate what kids can/not see), has diluted the restrictions and time blocks of their version of the watershed.

For all the free market rhetoric of the Tory government, who seek now to privatise C4 and whose undermining of the BBC points the same way, the moral guardian stance continues here. The UK has recently seen a tightening of watershed regulations, with the Beeb effectively extending it! 

Regulation suits a deregulatory party just fine when it provides positive headlines in the Mail and other absurdly hypocritical right-wing papers.

The logic of the Australian regulator chief, Chapman, is hard to argue with, but logic won't determine UK policy at least until after the 2015 election!

Chapman said the changing media landscape meant “responsibility will be increasingly shared”.“The digital era has brought many challenges for broadcasters, and there were aspects of the previous code which made it difficult for them to respond and innovate,” Chapman said.“Since the previous code was registered in late 2009, there have been tremendous shifts in the media landscape,” Chapman said. “Many of the provisions in the earlier code had been around for 20 years or so – from an analog era where viewers could only source content from three commercial free-to-air channels and two national broadcasting channels.“The digital era has also brought challenges for viewers, and the new code is designed to assist them to better manage their own viewing in an environment in which responsibility will be increasingly shared between government, industry and, importantly, viewers (citizens).

M-rated shows to be broadcast an hour earlier under new commercial TV code. 

ADS AUSTRALIA Fanta app targeting tweens banned

Australia has a voluntary self-regulation code on marketing junk food to under 12s, part of its response to the obesity crisis sweeping the Western world.

The contrast with the UK is stark: the Tory-led coalition government rather preposterously set up an advisory panel on food health regulation dominated by the food industry. Naturally enough, this has seen little movement on marketing or producing junk food.

So to see major corporations pull an expensive TV ad and app campaign is an intriguing example of seemingly robust self-regulation.

Fanta ad and app pulled for breaching guidelines on advertising to children.

A TV commercial and an iPhone app for the soft drink Fanta has been pulled after the Advertising Standards Board deemed its cartoon-style “Fanta Crew” characters were directed at children as young as nine. 

Under the self-regulation of advertising rules, junk food may not be advertised directly to children under 12. One 450ml bottle of Fanta has about 14 teaspoons of sugar. 

The commercial featured animated characters known as the Fanta Crew at the beach and riding rollercoasters while talking about the great taste of Fanta which to them is like an “awesome ride”, a “bubble explosion” and makes them feel like “busting out to my favourite beats”. 

The Fanta Fruit Slam 2 app and the Fanta “Tastes Like” TV ad were designed to sell an unhealthy product which “should not be promoted to children,” Jane Martin from the public health advocacy group, Obesity Policy Coalition, said on Wednesday.