Dealing with changes in the Australian media landscape is not simply about who owns what but much broader policy issues, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher says.
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Mr Fletcher on Wednesday met with rural and regional media leaders at a symposium in Wagga Wagga, in western NSW, amid concerns about shrinking news outlets outside the major cities, a growing concentration of media ownership and digital platforms soaking up traditional revenue streams.
The meeting came as Australian Community Media executive chairman Antony Catalano increased his stake in the Prime Media Group to 12.9 per cent, ahead of the regional broadcaster's planned merger with Seven West Media.
Mr Fletcher told reporters outside the forum he was aware of the machinations around Prime, but they weren't his main focus.
"What they intend to do is to merge with Seven through a scheme of arrangement, subject to shareholder approval, subject to regulatory approval," he said.
"But certainly the point I make is that there have been major changes to media regulation, we are seeing media organisations respond and what we need to do is look at the totality of the policy issues that this raises."
Labor communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland told AAP the government had sat and watched the decline of regional media over the past six years in office and failed to deliver a plan to address it.
She said the government had taken a "suck it and see" approach to Australian media law.
"Now we see the current minister continue on this course, despite the closure of yet more regional newsrooms. It simply isn't good enough," she said.
Media reforms in 2017 had been "late, piecemeal and inadequate" and the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund represented a "poorly-conceived, eleventh-hour deal with the now-departed cross bench senator Nick Xenophon".
It was time for a coherent plan to support a diverse and long-term regional media market, she said.
Mr Fletcher said the 2017 reforms were designed to allow Australian media organisations to build scale and to be competitive against global platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
The changes saw Nine acquire Fairfax newspapers and opened the opportunity for the Prime-Seven talks.
"Labor ... had its head stuck in the sand, and seemed to think that 1950s business models continued to be viable," Mr Fletcher said.
One of the key issues discussed at the forum was the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's digital platforms review.
Mr Fletcher said the government would respond to all 23 recommendations, including the reshaping of the publishers fund, by the end of the year.
Charles Sturt University, which hosted the event on Wednesday, is advocating for a new student-staffed regional news service.
Under the proposal, the university would establish a regional media centre in Bathurst which would act as a hub for a network of communications students across regional NSW who would gather, package and distribute news to other media outlets.
Australian Associated Press
