Digital challenges for regulators, media proprietors

The rapid rise of alternative media outlets was a challenge for media regulators and 'traditional' media organisations, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today.*

Some of the standard assumptions about users trusting known brands "are starting to look a little shaky", he said.

"Audiences are less and less likely to distinguish a 'blog' from, say, nytimes.com or other mainstream media sites. For a growing base of users, these are all equally valid sources of news, information, entertainment, and gossip, and users are not necessarily discriminating between traditional and new sources.

"Where once media companies could reassure themselves that audiences would always default back to traditional houses of journalism, this is becoming less and less the case, although it must be said old media companies do still dominate many of the most visited sites," he said.

"So what does that mean for those of us today? Quite a lot actually. For the media it means finding new ways of remaining relevant to an increasingly fragmented and disloyal audience. For regulators like the ACCC, it means ensuring regulation relied on during the last century does not become an irrelevant fallback position that fails to serve the public's best interests."

He highlighted proprietors' responses to the digital age which included blogs moderated by journalists sitting alongside traditional articles and commentary on websites, television stations making content available online and radio finding a new lifeline through podcasting and streaming on demand content.

The regulator's role was to ensure that content did not become locked "in the hands of the few, to the detriment of consumers or advertisers."

"Despite the apparent increase in diversity that the digital age promises, there are still very real risks that we may end up the poorer if we do not keep our eye on just where control lies for the material we want to receive. As I've mentioned before, with the actual distribution models constantly changing, second-guessing and trying to control the dominant platforms isn't likely to be a successful strategy.

"What remains important is access to eyeballs, and the content those eyeballs are seeking is becoming increasingly important to our considerations when assessing media mergers."

Mr Samuel said that "coping with change will require flexibility from both the media and regulators and that change will only continue to accelerate. But the legacy of that change is that technology and the growing swell of community input is placing the future of the industry in the hands of the public.

"I for one can't wait to see what they do with it."

Background

* Mr Samuel was addressing the Walkley Business Lunch in Sydney. A copy of the speech will be available from the ACCC website under News Centre, Speeches.