Murdoch takeover bid helped media diversity: Keating

NEWS Limited's takeover bid for the Herald & Weekly Times broke up the concentration of Australia's media assets, says Paul Keating.

News Corporation executive Rupert Murdoch, left, with Ken Cowley outside HWT boardroom on 3 December, 1986.

NEWS Limited's $1.8 billion takeover bid for the Herald & Weekly Times in 1986 broke up the concentration of media assets in Australia and new forms of media continue to provide diversity, says Paul Keating.

"The people who complain about media concentration in Australia following the News Limited acquisition are always handy and ready apologists for the massive aggregation of assets that existed in the old Herald & Weekly Times group," the former prime minister said in an exclusive interview.

Mr Keating, who as treasurer played a key role in overhauling cross-media ownership laws, said the industry continued to diversify and new media such as pay-TV, online and social media were further breaking down concentration.

"The mediums of dissemination are growing," Mr Keating said.

"So whatever concentration we have now is going to be less concentrated in a year from now, or two years from now, or three years from now."

Mr Keating's views are at odds with those repeatedly expressed by former prime minister Julia Gillard and her communications minister Stephen Conroy. They also differ from the conclusions of the 2012 inquiry into the media led by Ray Finkelstein QC and the convergence review. In an interview to coincide with the release of the 1986-87 cabinet papers, Mr Keating said the Labor government agreed to the HWT acquisition "with some very large changes", which is often forgotten in the highly charged debate about media ownership and diversity. These changes included the requirement that HWT divest itself of several television, radio and newspaper assets.

"The old established Herald & Weekly Times group had a vast array of assets," Mr Keating said. "Apart from the key capital-city newspapers, it owned HSV7 in Melbourne. With Fairfax, it co-ran the Seven Network. It owned a great phalanx of radio stations across NSW and Victoria.

"It owned what is now the APN, formerly the O'Reilly group of newspapers up in northern Queensland. And it owned The West Australian.

"After the acquisition of the Herald & Weekly Times, under our policies, News Limited had to sell the Ten Network because Rupert Murdoch, through Ansett, owned Channel 0 in Melbourne and they operated it with 10 in Sydney. We wouldn't allow them to buy HSV7 in Sydney, so they sold out of HSV7 in Melbourne.

"So you've now got News Limited out of Channel 10 and out of Channel 7."

Mr Keating also noted the change in newspaper ownership.

"News Limited already owned The Daily Telegraph in Sydney before 1986-87," he said. "So they picked up the Melbourne Herald and The Sun News-Pictorial, which had to merge to become the Herald Sun. They picked up the Adelaide Advertiser. They picked up the Hobart Mercury.

"But they were not able to hang on to The West Australian under the counter-bidding for the Herald & Weekly Times assets by interests associated with Robert Holmes a Court."

In December 1986, the Hawke government endorsed the takeover bid by News Limited, as it was then, publisher of The Australian.

The cabinet papers released by the National Archives of Australia yesterday include a minute of December 8, noting that cabinet had discussed the bid and "the implications for media ownership".

"Divestment by Mr (Rupert) Murdoch of certain television stations and of print media already owned in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth had already been foreshadowed publicly and was under discussion with the Trade Practices Commission," it said.

The minute concluded by noting that the government would "monitor the situation".