Media law plans may be trimmed

CANBERRA - Australia may proceed with only some of a package of proposed changes to the nation's media laws, Communications Minister Helen Coonan says.

The proposals, announced in March, include undoing a 19-year-old ban on media mergers and allowing overseas companies to control the nation's newspapers and television networks.

Prime Minister John Howard's Government has said it wants agreement among media companies before proceeding with any changes. The Government is considering about 200 industry and public submissions as it completes its media policy, Coonan says.

"If we can get a reasonable position out of this consultation process, we'll be proceeding," Coonan said in an interview in Canberra. "It will really be a matter of how comprehensive the package is but there will certainly be some elements that proceed."

Howard, who first proposed changes to media laws in 1996, said last week the reforms were "not the most important thing in front of the Government".

The changes to media ownership laws could be delayed should they "prove to be too politically sensitive", ABN Amro analysts said in a March 14 note to clients.

Media ownership laws have stopped Rupert Murdoch's News Corp from buying a television network and the Packer family from taking over newspaper publisher John Fairfax Holdings.

One of the proposals most likely to proceed is the plan requiring television stations to switch to digital transmission.

The so-called Digital Action Plan "seems to have very broad support", Coonan said.

- BLOOMBERG