Mangled Thoughts

Posted by D
The two arguments against disentangling the tentacles from government are false.The first is, major commercial t.v. ops. would be vulnerable to competition, viz advertising revenues, as well as suffering automatic write-down on capital value viz elimination of broadcasting licences.The second `is diversity’ of opinion, but this is wrong, on two counts also.

If the licences fees and band constrictions were not in force, along with payroll taxes, capital gains tax, content restrictions and so forth, it would remain, the capital scale required to run the ops of channels 7,9, and 10 are such, it would be a fool who rushes in with the billions or so to set up another T.V. station on that scale.One can imagine an entrpeneur setting up soemthing of sectioanl appeal, but that would be contingent upon whether that potential market would face demand sufficient to yield profit.Of course, it might well be the case, an entrepeneur might discover a direct challenge to the existing majors is feasible, by offering something better than the majors currently do. And, even if the last is true, govts. have no business in saving any company from such a possibility, in any sector.And not least because of the costs protectionism involves: it may be there are too amny TV stations inview of the market,so capital has been malinvested; and the elimination of alternative uses of bandwidths, ditto radio band width.

As for media diversity, simply put, the major revenue base is advertising, but journalism is required to advertise and sell a newspaper: after all, the object is to have as many consumers as possible to read the rag and thus read the advertising as well as the columns.On that count, journos are hired for what they write, irrespective of whether magnates and their C.E.O.s agree with the content or not.

The cry of `diversity’ however, coming from Fat Aunty Bolshevik Collective, SMH, The Maos’ Age and so forth, rings hallow. The great bogeyman is Rupert Murdoch.Not to worry, NCP rags like The Australian, Fin Review, don’t diverge much at all from the leftoid view of many things, and not the Keynesian fake money printing beliefs of the likes of Davidson and others.The Fin Review is as equally a pile of rotting vegetables economic as the Age is.

Brookes News has covered in detail the malevolent reportage carried by The Australian.And points out, given a choice between profits or dismissing lying leftoid journos, Murdoch retains them, as capitulated in this article: Murdoch’s hyprocrisy and Beijing’s Tyrants.