The Federal government plans to extend taxpayer assistance for regional newspapers but refused to water down media ownership rules of cut down licence fees for regional TV.
Communications minister, Paul Fletcher says the license fees are ‘very low and media companies are profiting from 2017 changes that diluted cross-media ownership laws.
Mr Fletcher says the one-to-a-market rule had been in place for almost 40 years and despite “some advocacy” for its abolition from Prime Media, the company had already submitted a plan to merge with Seven.
“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,” Mr Fletcher said.