AANZCA 2025 Conference – Day 2

*Image generated by WordPress AI – I guess it makes sense?

Tidal Forces – Risk of Drowning: Aotearoa/New Zealand’s network media economy 2019-2022

Peter A Thompson¹, Cameron McTernan², 1: Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand; 2: The University of South Australia, Australia

• Have media industries become more or less concentrated overtime?
• Media concentration matters because share of voices, new entries into markets, revenue matter: this is how operators control markets
• Method: HHI – sum of the share of market concentration (unconcentrated, moderately concentrated, highly concentrated)
• Q: expand on how the data was collected?
• mobile players highlight the impact that Google, Meta, etc. has across media concentration
• NZ Aotearoa, mergers and takeovers: five significant mergers (refer slides)
• Siloing in sectors, i.e. radio and newspapers, intense competiton across the value chain (TV, FTA)
• Stuff LTD and Mediaworks sale

The Digital Demise of National Television Drama: A New Policy Paradigm?

Marion McCutcheon¹, Anna Potter², 1: University of Canberra, Australia; 2: Queensland University of Technology, Australia

• Broadcasting Services Act 1992 – analogue broadcasting, different local content rules, the n digitisation meant unlimited bandwidth (multichanneling – increased costs with no additional revenue)
• PSM has no quota for local content but instead has its Charters
• Subscription TV has dramatically dropped in drama delivery in recent years (’23, ’24)
• Streaming services have surpassed the commercial and public broadcasters
• Streaming are behind paywalls – to access all Oz dramas would require 8 service subscriptions
• [insert picture here of offset slide – amazingly and astonishingly informative]

Re-Discovering Australian Screen Audiences

Maura Edmond, Olivia Khoo, Verity Trott, Claire Perkins, Monash University, Australia

• Embedded in the ‘cultures of use’ of watching television
• Case study: mum with two autistic children, issues with the body corporate removing access to FTA TV, needs to go through local ISP which also brings issues,
• Case study 2: primary school child, high school child, can relate to the kids viewing habits :), children have pins to log into whatever,
• Case study 3: mother of two young children, Netflix is default, she uses the kids accounts because if she’s watching TV its with the kids, or with husband and then they use his account, Netflix knows her history which is her kids history,

From Digital Originals to Skip Ahead: Online Content and Web Series Policy Rationales in Australia

Mark Ryan, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

• Web series, grass roots and independent online series AND short online series associated with anchor TV series commissioned by the network
• Screen Australia continue to fund multiplatform production (web series)
• Tensions between cultural and economic support within Australia, tensions around the production of international movies, currently less around ‘Australian stories’
• Multiplatform fund launched in 2012, changes in 2015 if you had produced, you could apply (established TV producers to creators working outside of the industry, ‘Fresh Blood’ ABC
• 2023, specific development fund was created, content creation and games,
• Now focus is on talent development – creators looking to crossover, and those who want to stay in the online space

Two Sides of the Exchange: Researching Trauma, Journalists and Communities

Fay Anderson¹, Deb Anderson¹, Stephanie Brookes¹, Alexandra Wake², 1: Monash University, Australia; 2: RMIT

Fay Anderson

• From Gemini: “the query likely refers to Jean Lee, the last woman to be executed in Australia, who was hanged in 1951 in Melbourne. While she was not in Perth, her execution is a significant event in Australian legal history, and her case is often confused with others”
• Journalistic coverage of Jean Lee included single mum, yet the men of this same murder crime, have disappeared (in the media) murder of bookie, William George Kent
• Ronald Ryan was also implicated, set for capital punishment, Holte was pro his death, Pentridge prison, Coburg
• The coverage of these two cases highlight significant gaps in the reporting approach
• Journalists were invited to observe the death in the gallows of these three convicted individuals
• Brian Morley SMH
• Contemporary material (podcasts) continue to use this material, such as the interviews with journalist and other historical artefacts

Stephanie Brooks – “We might as well face up to it” Youth gangs…

• Cronulla Riots: the ways in which we find our way into these stories through journalism/how do we (Steph) go into these stories with journalists?
• This, I guess we use the word, human
• Bob Carr’s incredibly deaf response “…support police”
• Western Sydney and moral panics (Noble and Poynting, 2010) I think this is the article
• “Streets to avoid in Bankstown – Mean Street” – WTAF?
• Moral Panics – Cohen work here
• Voices of journalists is missing in scholarly representations

Alexandra Wake, “Trauma at Home”