Cross Media Ownership And `Your' ABC

At the end of last year, when the Howard Government has completed its earthshattering blitzkrieg of reforms, courtesy of its Senate majority, one long-cherished aim remained unachieved: changes to cross-media ownership laws. Well, get ready, kids ... - at last, you can be prince of the pint and queen of the screen, as Paul Keating put it when he enshrined the laws which have stood for the past twenty years, famously putting him in Kerry Packer's bad books for the rest of his life.

I will leave a more comprehensive post on this very big and complex issue for another time, but suffice to say, the place that will cop the biggest pounding will be Your ABC. Amongst the initial announcements:

• Commercial advertisements for the ABC are under consideration


• Current ABC Chairman Donald McDonald is likely to be ousted after two terms at the helm of the broadcaster after losing support of Federal Cabinet for `defending the culture of the ABC', with recently dumped Channel 9 CEO Sam Chisholm tipped to be his successor

Communications Minister Helen Coonan discussed the changes with, appropriately enough, the ABC's Kerry O'Brien on tonight's 7:30 Report. Which, no doubt will soon be cut to a fifteen minute humorous skit show in which celebrities from the ABC's other shows act out the big current affairs stories of the day.

Sigh ....