Last week, the shareholders of popular Australian news and media outlet Fairfax agreed to a merger deal with Nine Entertainment. The agreement was reached with “overwhelming support” from both parties, and is expected to be a multi billion dollar merger. While it will most likely to bring lower media prices to Australian residents, it is unclear on how much it will benefit them. Nine Entertainment awaits their hearing on December 7th to attain the go ahead from the courts. This merger draws another comparison between Australia, the U.S, and much of the Western realm.
Last year, the Walt Disney Company made plans to merge with Fox Entertainment group, a deal costing roughly 70 billion dollars. While both companies have agreed to the terms, the merger has still not taken full effect, and the conclusion still seems a ways down the road. Since the U.S and Australia are relatively synonymous in terms of culture, the Disney-Fox merger could be foreshadowing an extensive and drawn out process of merging the two Australian media outlets. Society has a tendency to frown upon large corporations combining with other large corporations due to the tremendous amount of power that company may have on an industry, or even the potential to create a monopoly. While companies looking to merge almost always responsibly litigate their case, the potential threat does create the extensive process that both of these mergers are going through. The Fairfax-Nine merger could even span out several years due to their continental outreach in Australia, whereas Disney-Fox keep their reach within one country.
Another thing to point out that made this merger possible is the repeal and relaxation of certain media laws in Australia, laws that would have otherwise made this merger legally impossible. Before this media reform, proprietors were unable to host multiple different media outlets (newspaper, TV, radio, etc.) within the same region. Much of this media reform was adopted from the U.S and other western culture, another reason why Australia lies in the same cultural realm that we do. While it unclear yet on what type of media landscape will be created as a result, the legal reform and similar modeling will create a landscape similar to that of the U.S.