Australia: Government to relax media ownership laws
Posted by Lindsay Berrigan on March 30, 2007 at 11:37 AM
The Australian government announced yesterday that they will relax ownership laws April 4, months earlier than expected.
The new laws will abolish 20-year-old rules stopping overseas investors from owning more than 25 percent of a city newspaper publisher and 15 percent of a TV network. One company will also be able to own two forms of media - newspapers, television and radio - in a market, rather than just one.
These changes should push forward takeovers and mergers and have already caused a huge surge in Australian media investment.
Source: Bloomberg.com
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But does it help the nation of Australia in terms of it's own economy in this area? In other words, isn't too much foreign a bad idea? I think it is. This policy helped to ensure local talent was being groomed and that Australia could own it's own enterprises. Too much foreign investment makes a country weak as soon as another country falls. While not EVERYTHING can be local, I think that these laws were actually wiser in the long run. I say this because here, in South Africa, I think we have too much foreign investment etc. and it is not allowing the country to grow locally. Less local business will in fact have more detrimental effects, if you ask me. Especially when the foreign owned company's country goes through issues. We're immediately affected by this.
Perhaps they could have relaxed the laws, but to abolish them-- i'm not sure this was the best idea.