News media ownership in New Zealand

Bill Rosenberg's excellent article on media ownership was published in the latest issue of Foreign Control Watchdog, the magazine of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA). Download the full article here. (PDF 956KB) | Whose News? (30 min documentary)

"Four companies, all overseas owned, dominate the New Zealand news media. There is a near duopoly in two of the three main media – print and radio – a monopoly in pay television, and only three significant competitors in free-to-air television including the state-owned channels. Each daily newspaper has a near monopoly in its main circulation areas."

"It is clear that the government sees its only options in achieving its social objectives in broadcasting as being either to plead with the few huge and aggressive media companies that dominate our media landscape and which are self-avowedly motivated almost solely by the financial returns on their investments; or by pouring money into publicly owned (and sometimes privately owned) networks in the hope that this will raise public broadcasting objectives above that of their survival in a cut-throat competitive commercial environment. Because of commitments made in 1994 under the GATS agreement in the WTO, we are prevented from mandating a sensible level of local content and from controlling either the level or nature of foreign ownership of our media, and we are constrained in the cross-media ownership regulations we may use; yet these are paths we should be taking."

"The evidence presented in this paper shows that in New Zealand, the need for changes in the ownership, regulation and commercialisation of our media is exceptional. In the public interest, change is long overdue."

Related

http://cafca.org.nz