It is ironic and unfortunate the rules once intended to protect and preserve media diversity in rural and regional Australia now threaten it.
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Regional media companies such as ACM - the publisher of The Canberra Times - the Prime Media Group, the WIN Network, and Southern Cross Austereo are at the crossroads. The emergence of the internet in the 1990s, facilitated by the roll out of the NBN in the last decade, has disrupted business models by introducing new competitors, including Facebook and Google, into their markets.
The same technology has also allowed the ABC, never intended to be a competitor to the print media, to evolve into a tax-payer subsidised online publisher with a national footprint.
This has resulted in declining television and radio audiences for regional broadcasters and a precipitate slump in the circulation of many regional and country newspapers. It has also put a massive dent into advertising revenues.
Unless regional publishers and broadcasters are allowed to restructure their businesses through mergers and acquisitions in the same way the metropolitan media has been able to, their days will be numbered.
That is where the existing laws intended to protect media diversity come in. Under the rules as they stand the one proprietor cannot own a television station, a radio station, and a newspaper in the same regional market. This is to ensure a minimum number of "voices". While that was arguably a defensible policy almost 40 years ago when the Hawke government was in power, and what is now referred to as "legacy media" was the only game in town, it is now an anachronism.
The restrictions make about as much sense as legislating to have a man with a red flag walk in front of an electric vehicle on the basis somebody might not hear it coming.
The difference between the regional players and the "out-of-towners" is that the former, who have a long association with the areas they serve, drive local jobs and training opportunities, and are genuinely committed to their communities.
Prime Media Group chief executive Ian Audsley made the point on Tuesday that media diversity is no longer an issue. There are more "voices" in regional markets than ever before.
"In Prime's markets, as we see it, the contemporary number of voices is, at the very least, 12: three regional commercial TV stations broadcast over the air; three metropolitan commercial TV stations, including their respective catch-up TV services broadcast via the NBN; a local radio network; a local newspaper, and at least four metropolitan newspapers via the NBN/internet," he said.
"All of these media platforms now compete directly with regional Australia's own local media for audience and advertising revenue."
The difference between the regional players and the "out-of-towners" is that the former, who have a long association with the areas they serve, drive local jobs and training opportunities, and are genuinely committed to their communities.
Community media advocacy is woven into the heart and soul of regional Australia. Local radio and television stations, and newspapers, have long stood up for better services, exposed corruption and injustice, and championed the underdog.
Henry Seekamp, the founder and editor of The Ballarat Times, who supported the diggers in a string of fiery editorials in 1854, was the only person to be jailed in the wake of the Eureka uprising.
Given the new players have neither the ability or the inclination to engage with communities in this way, these are voices regional and rural Australia can ill afford to lose.
All Australia's regional media operators are asking for are legislative changes to allow them to reshape their businesses to compete against operators who are not bound by the same outdated constraints.
