Australia is about to sweep away 20 years of laws that encouraged media diversity by preventing media proprietors getting their hands on both newspapers and TV stations in the same city,
Rupert Murdoch, Sir Anthony O'Reilly and Lord Rothermere, get ready to rumble!
A round of merger mania is set to hit Australia after the federal government indicated that it would relax cross media restrictions that ban newspaper, radio and television companies in the same city from holding more than 15 percent of each other's shares.
It will also eliminate restrictions that bar foreign companies from controlling more than 15 percent of a television company and more than 25 percent of a newspaper publisher.
The proposed new laws, which will be confirmed in a month, will allow Rupert Murdoch, who owns many major newspapers including the Australian, free to buy a commercial television network, or Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail and General Trust, which owns the Nova radio network, free to buy into the Fairfax newspaper group, which owns the Age and Australian Financial review, should they so wish.
And Sir Anthony O'Reilly's Independent News and Media, which owns a string of regional newspapers, could also expand.
Foreign investment in Australia's media sector will require government approval.
"There is a compelling case for change, and if the government does not act, then there is a genuine risk that Australia will become a dinosaur of the analogue age," Communications Minister Helen Coonan said in a speech at a business lunch in Sydney after releasing the discussion paper.
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