Future tense: Australia’s contested rule-making for media diversity

The final report of the Convergence Review put more flesh on the bones of the interim report released last December. The majority reaction of key stakeholders has been primarily one of open hostility. It is argued that in a time of deregulated rule-making for media diversity the CR authors have not taken an entirely expedient approach to critical issues of media ownership and control. The suggestion is that final report is in fact a curious mixture of innovative and lower risk measures calculated to progress the convergence policy agenda up to a certain point. Yet, media commentators, including the author, have expressed their doubts about the ability of these proposed measures to provide the kind of certainty required, let alone the promised diversity of owners, in Australia's already highly concentrated media.