the ABC has missed the point here that Murdoch controls how the narrative is framed around most news and current affairs stories.
Regardless of whether or not he holds a stake in them, nearly every Australian news entity from online publications to talkback radio exists downstream from The Australian (Murdoch's flagship paper). The stories they choose to report on are the focus of the news cycle, and the points they raise on each story serve to plot out the battleground.
In political journalism this is even more prevalent, as journalists unwilling to toe the party line aren't given access to government press releases and must rely on content filtered down through News Corp and its contemporaries.
It's also worth noting that the ABC is increasingly beholden to the coalition government, who it depends on for its funding, and the coalition government is in turn beholden to Murdoch, whose power over the press keeps them in power.
Note, also, that the major competition mentioned in the linked article (Nine/Fairfax) is chaired by Peter Costello, former Liberal party treasurer under the Howard government. Balanced competition indeed.
It doesn't matter how many eyes/ears you reach out to. You can have 5%, but if you can twist the arm of the advertisers (the ones who really keep your media company alive), to force them to advertise less on others and more to you (or cut them off completely), then you can slow & steady change the game by controlling the funding of your competition.
Yes this is a very simplistic approach, but throw enough 'junk food' out there, lower the level (gossip, reality shows)(trash tv a la Berlusconni) and presto!
Edit: I just remembered watching the movie Bombshell (2019), and if the depiction of the Murdoch family is anywhere near the truth, they are utterly disgusting (and complicit).
It's not that easy. It's a two way street. Advertisers have enormous power over the viability of media. If you start putting out stuff advertisers don't like, they'll pull out and your paper fails. Subscriptions and reader payment is hardly enough to keep these things afloat. So the idea that you can "just" twist the arms of advertisers is assuming a great deal about the power you have or how media is embedded in society. You would at the very least need to be in a position where not advertising with your newspaper would be foolish from a business perspective.
Anyway, all of this sounds like inter-oligarchic squabbling. Each oligarch has his own newspaper or is associated with some newspaper working to shore up interests and entrench power.
[+] [-] 24t|4 years ago|reply
Regardless of whether or not he holds a stake in them, nearly every Australian news entity from online publications to talkback radio exists downstream from The Australian (Murdoch's flagship paper). The stories they choose to report on are the focus of the news cycle, and the points they raise on each story serve to plot out the battleground. In political journalism this is even more prevalent, as journalists unwilling to toe the party line aren't given access to government press releases and must rely on content filtered down through News Corp and its contemporaries.
It's also worth noting that the ABC is increasingly beholden to the coalition government, who it depends on for its funding, and the coalition government is in turn beholden to Murdoch, whose power over the press keeps them in power.
Note, also, that the major competition mentioned in the linked article (Nine/Fairfax) is chaired by Peter Costello, former Liberal party treasurer under the Howard government. Balanced competition indeed.
edit: formatting
[+] [-] atat7024|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HenryBemis|4 years ago|reply
It doesn't matter how many eyes/ears you reach out to. You can have 5%, but if you can twist the arm of the advertisers (the ones who really keep your media company alive), to force them to advertise less on others and more to you (or cut them off completely), then you can slow & steady change the game by controlling the funding of your competition.
Yes this is a very simplistic approach, but throw enough 'junk food' out there, lower the level (gossip, reality shows)(trash tv a la Berlusconni) and presto!
Edit: I just remembered watching the movie Bombshell (2019), and if the depiction of the Murdoch family is anywhere near the truth, they are utterly disgusting (and complicit).
[+] [-] bobthechef|4 years ago|reply
Anyway, all of this sounds like inter-oligarchic squabbling. Each oligarch has his own newspaper or is associated with some newspaper working to shore up interests and entrench power.