Pay v Free fight: “juvenile”
Outgoing ASTRA chairman Nick Greiner says public stoushes between free to air and pay broadcasters demeaned them all.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Subscription
Exiting chairman of ASTRA, Nick Greiner, says he now realised he had been “deluded” when he joined the association five years ago into thinking the quality of the media debate could be improved.
Speaking at the annual meeting of the Australian Subscription TV and Radio Association, the former NSW Liberal premier said, “Stupidly, I thought the name of the game might be to expand the overall TV market; for free-to-air and subscription TV to concentrate on what each did best and to co-operate in ways that provided win-win opportunities for viewers and all the other stakeholders.”
Instead, “more than any industry in which I have been involved in the last 25 years, the zero-sum-game mentality prevailed.
“Unfortunately, the mentality among the free-to-air channels that the name of the game was primarily to defend the status quo … leads quite often to juvenile, vituperative public exchanges which do no credit to anyone and frankly denigrate the professionalism of everyone.”
Mr Greiner said he is “yet to meet the first politician, bureaucrat or advertiser who takes any notice of the periodic slanging matches between us”.
Greiner is to be replaced by former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, who is sure to cross swords with his former Queensland Labor Premier, Wayne Goss, who represents the free to air body, Free TV Australia.
Can we possibly hope for the two will get their organisations to lift their game?
Source: The Australian
One Response
I think FTA’s biggest gripe is the “spin” that Pay puts on its numbers by trying to add up 100 channels and say that it has a 23% commercial share.