CANBERRA: Plans to relax media ownership laws in Australia could be delayed after News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch urged Australian Prime Minister John Howard to dump the idea, analysts said.
Australia is considering relaxing foreign ownership and cross-media ownership rules for Australian media, while ruling out allocating new free-to-air television licences.
But Murdoch, Australia's biggest newspaper publisher, has urged Howard to dump the reforms or do more to open TV networks to competition, raising speculation the reform package would languish.
"It appears to be getting pushed further back and certainly seems unlikely before the end of this calendar year," UBS Warburg analyst Nola Hodgson said.
News Corp. publishes a raft of newspapers in Australia, but has no free-to-air TV station. Its only Australian TV interest is a 25 per cent stake in the Foxtel pay TV service.
The Murdoch-owned national newspaper, The Australian, said on Tuesday Murdoch gave his direct assessment of the media reforms to Howard over lunch at the prime minister's residence in Sydney over the weekend.
The Australian said the comments reinforced News Corp.'s submission to the government on the media reforms, which claimed the changes were discriminatory against newspapers and too protective of TV networks.
Other media companies broadly support the media changes, although the Seven Network Ltd has reportedly told the government it opposed the new cross-media ownership rules and restrictions on new digital services. The changes have also prompted concerns from the National Party, whose constituents are mostly farmers and which governs in coalition with the Liberal Party. Howard has said he wants media companies to broadly agree on the changes if they are to go ahead.
Howard said he was not concerned with Murdoch's stand and would not be held to an end of year deadline.
"Nothing especially concerns me on this issue. It is not something on which I intend to spend an enormous amount of time or political capital," Howard told Sky TV from Indonesia.
"Cabinet will be considering the matter again and take everybody's views into account, including Mr Murdoch's. In the end, the government will make a sensible decision based on both principle and common sense."
Media analyst Craig Shepherd of Comsec said Murdoch's criticisms came as no surprise and should not upset the government's plans to have new media laws in parliament by the end of the year.
"I would hope the government isn't surprised by anything he is saying," Shepherd said, adding that it would be better for the reform package to continue to address ownership changes along with the planned new rules for digital broadcasting.
