Howard Coonan DTV Cop -Out
Media Oligarchs Pig-out
Massive Insider Trading?

So what’s new in the land of OZ? Another lesson in how to perpetuate the status quo and make it look and sound like its egalitarian nation building leadership! Fooled again by the propaganda apparatus! Now you know why they maintain the old ready for the junk heap increasingly worthless analog media monopoly. At your expense and counting, including impeding digital convergence at every opportunity. It’s past time folks you started doing a little bit of thinking about what this is costing you! Muy rapido and MUCHO!The Minister for Communications Senator Coonan announced the Howard government has a media solution. The solution is to continue to deny universal free or near free multi-channel iDTV to all Australians and to support the old media oligarchs and their business priorities, which are to protect their old heading for the scrap heap analog media assets, and their market values. This includes (our very own ha! ha!)$15 billion to $20 billion –down- the - drain Telstra and together it is costing all Aussies billions and billions. Old media dominates a large part of the media world not because it has credibility and authority in reporting, which is clearly what it believes and wants to believe, but because it has established entrenched access to the capital markets –and the relevant market news- and also control of dividend collecting coupon clipping shareholders. AND IT’S AN ENTRENCHED MONOPOLY that uses its content delivery system to manipulate the public into believing it has “credibility and authority in reporting”! How convenient! As the media monopoly we make you – the majority- believe this is democratic because you are free to pick any model and colour you like but will only end up with our model and it only comes in one colour. And because the political status quo needs a convenient spineless propaganda apparatus we can always count on them to give us the laws and licenses to do this. We make bags of money and the pollies make propaganda and you vote for them less than fully informed. Objective achieved!
In the same way the old political status quo has control thru abuse of voters etc, so they have a lot in common. For example they say Coonan is arm wrestling with the media moguls, which is self serving propaganda. They need to throw up some of this bunk to make it look like they are independent and keeping the cake eating nodding public fully informed. Government and the media moguls have always been in bed together sharing the spoils from power and control over the masses etc. Pulling them apart is not easy when the pleasure is so cheap but so valuable. Besides if it ain’t broke it shouldn’t really need fixing, which is pretty much what the majority has been reliably getting. Convergence is like one or more of this cosy bunch caught a socially undesirable nasty disease. It therefore can’t be allowed to happen.
But who wants multichannel digital TV from the media oligarchy anyway? It’s a dictatorship! They have had hold of free spectrum worth billions of dollars (and a public asset only licensed) for a decade for that purpose which is why they were given this multibillion dollar free spectrum in the first place. They need to pay for abusing it for 10 years not to be rewarded in any way. And that means competition and that means new players. Howard and Coonan think they are doing us all a big favour by “freeing” the media oligarchs to give us multichannel digital TV. BULLSHIT! It’s giving them what they want which is more of the same. FUCK all for the anonymous public interest maximization. They are only the suckers who vote to put these mediocre conveyancing clerks and assorted mealy-mouthed networkers into government and power!We want our free or near free 4iDTV and now and without the media oligarchs involved.
Coonan can arm wrestle and mud wrestle with them but we demand OUR 4iDTV and NOW!
But Howard’s cabinet is full of card carrying Aussie lawyers and after decades Aussies should by now understand that Aussie lawyers know stuff all about the economics of wealth creation. Only wealth transfer and to them! Appeasing the media oligarchs to maintain the propaganda apparatus is the easiest solution and history shows they are always reliable on this score. That is, perpetuating the tyranny of the status quo but at the expense of the majority. (Over decades the majority of Aussies have badly underestimated the power a bunch of organized mediocre conveyancing clerks as politicians can have.)In addition notice the share prices of the handful of old media companies as the media monopoly (those with short backbones refer to it as an oligopoly which is their cop-out of course), have all increased on Howard/Coonan’s public announcement. This yet again has enriched the media oligarchs and in fact because they have been dealing with the Howard cabinet out of sight of the public and in private to make sure they get their preferred business model made law (again), it is a case of massive insider trading as the public (the market) has not been kept fully informed. (It’s called asymmetric information -or, keep the fools in the dark-. Is a conflict of interest and unethical!) Notice WIN TV Australia’s biggest privately owned –and therefore can avoid a lot of public scrutiny etc- regional TV network (which for business and monopoly purposes was originally created as an extension of Packers network but must be legally held in someone else’s name so the government can claim they are really separate, which is an aspect of Aussie TV the majority have been kept ignorant of for at least 20 years and of course is another reason why so-called Free TV is not free), has been buying large chunks of metro Channel Ten before the governments announcement, because they new it would fully support the old media monopoly owners.
The owner of Win TV Mr. Bruce Gordon has not lived in Australia for decades and has most of his analog licensed media assets protected in tax havens offshore, and he has little knowledge of the economics of digital and convergence and the cost to SME’s, the majority and the nation, of continuing to be a member of the media monopoly oligarchy that stifles convergence to protect their individual and combined old media assets. Coonan like her predecessor Alston also has little idea of the economics of convergence except what the rich media lobby and their in-the-pocket-mandarins tell them. And they are only there to give Howard numbers to control government and for long enough to get lifetime indexed pensions and other retirement benefits. But of course they are card carrying Aussie lawyers so this is understandable. Win TV owner Bruce Gordon says that there is not enough content anywhere in the world to fill the potential digital channels. Well he would say this of course! This is absurd of course but his experience of media has always only been analog so it is understandable his analog assets, with government protection, must remain a license to print money, which digital convergence and multi-channel digital will undermine and eventually destroy unless he and his monopoly oligarch mates can own and control everything digital. To do this they must rely on government to manipulate the laws and the public, to ensure they can achieve this as their necessary objective. Howard’s coalition and the labor party comply of course because they get funds from the license - to - print - money -network to fund their dominance of power and control over the majority. And of course a convenient propaganda apparatus to keep the masses…Blah! Blah…! They have been doing this as a team for decades now and in terms of digital, at least about 10 years and so far it is working just fine so why fix something that they view is not broken. But also notice the media status quo will comment on WIN TV, among others, as a cross media player, they do not have the guts to analyse the implications in any way because in the final analysis whether electronic or print the old media monopoly oligarchy (not an oligopoly as they sometimes admit they are) is a member of the old deeply entrenched media monopoly. (This cost Fairfax shareholders at least $150 million some years ago before the management figured this out and quietly slipped into singing the old oligarchs tune!)If there is not enough content for these potential denied digital channels (at least 75 and see some previous blogs) then it shows 2 things. 1. The Internet would not be what it is because it is if nothing else all about information content and its economically efficient delivery. Wait until its all pure photons folks! Which again is what the old status quo dreads with nightmares and must impede.2. Win TV either does not understand convergence and its economic potential AND economic inevitability. Or does understand it (and its threat) and must impede it until they can get ownership and or control of it or as much of the most potentially valuable parts as possible before the public can have it. (That’s YOU!) It is probably a case of both. How about you? Well fuck you says the status quo because you are just a pair of remote clicking powerless brainwashed eyeballs mate. (For some unprecedented empowerment see http://economicbillofrights.blogspot.com )
But then we are delivered words of wisdom from the 30 year old chairman of WIN TV, locally based Mr. Andrew Gordon, who says the same thing as the owner, his father, but of course he knows less about digital convergence and the economics of all things digital, and of course he is the heir of WIN TV and its license to print money. What he does know about is that he does not want to inherit a dying dinosaur so Win TV might be expected to get sold shortly. Once again the whole spectrum (75 channels plus) needs to be economically efficiently divided and sold and the old media oligarchy dismantled to protect the public interest benefits and the economic value of digital convergence which has already cost Aussies too much from the interfering vested interest media oligarchy and their spineless waffling prevaricating mates the Aussie political status quo and their nameless faceless mandarins. But so long as Aussies rely on vested interest entrenched self serving governments and their oh so convenient propaganda machine to protect their interest they will continue to get what they give them.
In addition out of all the old analog bandwidth one channel needs to be a public broadcast channel but this does not mean exclusively ABC and SBS and in fact they should be avoided. (With digital you would get 10 ABC’s and 10 SBS’s?). There has been no mention of the potential for some digital public broadcast channels with new stakeholders allowed access and not the usual vested interest ABC/SBS bureaucrats.
Frankly after Alston’s old media supporting, public interest cop-out over many years, Coonan needs her arrogant ignorant arse kicked for maintaining the status quo but making it look like some sort of managed delayed convergence government initiative and solution. Selling the public a recycled version of the same thing Howard/Alston did. Fooling all …. All the time is worth the effort at least as a starting point. But relying on a bunch of Howard national party convergence illiterate hillbillies to push convergence is stretching it a bit. After all and despite the propaganda they will remain loyal to their liberal mates who can protect and enrich them from such corruption as the wheat /AWB, SMA’s. Curious how the AWB is an SMA and no-one in government or anywhere can be made responsible. Even the communist Chinese (and Putin in Russia among others) are probably trying to figure out how they can implement something as shifty and clever. Why reinvent the wheel when the political status quo in a “democracy” has already figured it out.
Furthermore and back on 4iDTV, the investment banking firm Macquarie Bank has manipulated its way into the equation while the majority of Aussies have been fed the usual ongoing propaganda from the usual suspects, and this investment banking mafia, with its ex - politicians and mandarins on board is not doing anything for the majority except serving their own get rich quick interests. It is not, around the CBD’s at least, referred to as the millionaire’s factory for nothing. Their unofficial motto is probably something like, Fuck the majority and the nation and get rich quick in the process. Something the old analog media oligarchs can relate to for sure. (Their idea of economically efficient nation building is the Sydney metro private toll road system! You’ve been warned! You can see a roadway network, you can’t see digital or analog spectrum or the infinite bandwidth carrying buried photonic fibres! Imagine what plans they might have for it and it’s a lot more valuable than a strip of bitumen and some toll – gate booths.)
The old political status quo maintains its loyalties to the old media status quo which is the government’s propaganda apparatus! At enormous ongoing cost to the nation and the majority! So once again the government is manipulating the market and as it has done in the case of Telstra T2 and now T3, among others, and this is the very same government that claims it believes the market forces of competition should be left to sort out business. What absolute BULLSHIT as usual but typical of mediocre Aussie lawyers turned politicians hungry and greedy for power. We could get on the subject of the useless rubber stamping ACCC ( another sink hole for too many Aussie lawyers?) but for another time perhaps. (If only we could afford a full time website! How about some Australia Research Council funding? Sorry, mate this is only a $600 million a year slush fund for the university bureaucracy and their mates to prop them up and keep them in the lifestyles they reckon they deserve. For their track record of failing to create wealth – no eBays, Googles and so on from this lot – and building a $650 billion foreign debt, not to mention a long list of other failures and squandered resources and opportunities we will get around to publishing about eventually. For a small investment it could save the nation millions and even billions. And even democracy! )Nor is the government’s iDTV solution the best solution to maximise the public interest benefit. Never has been and never will be! It’s an oxymoron! FUCK the majority Aussie public is business as usual! Is ASIC or anyone else going to investigate this unprecedented insider trading? (Sure thing mate we’re on it right now!) But ASIC’s 1400 expensive bureaucrats only chases small fish, which also funnily enough better fulfills optimizing Parkinson’s Law (work expands with the numbers of bureaucrats allocated to it etc… another Aussie tradition), in addition to producing the best PR value. Perhaps and given the always reliable government backing of the media oligarchs to protect their license- to -print -money -monopoly (and kickback to the political status quo to keep them in power so they can protect the media monopoly), there should be a Royal Commission, and which should include exposing ACCC as in on this protection racket as consistently avoiding the lack of competition and 4iDTV as the solution. (But of course we should all know the value of Australia’s make -a -bunch -of -lawyers- rich-royal commissions by now. Forgotten the AWB/wheat corruption already have we? HIH Ltd? With the help of the media monopoly of course!).
The switch to digital has again been changed to appease the media oligarchs. It was supposed to be by law, in 2006, but it is now 2010/2012, but come 2010/2012 it will be changed again to appease the media status quo. Meanwhile of course Coonan and mealy-mouthed Howard will be gone and grazing on greener pastures with indexed pensions and the usual stuff. This is Aussie nation building leadership! (Good thing China and India among a few others across Asia, cam along at the right time and need more stuff out of big holes for their wealth creating economies.) Coonan’s predecessor Richard Alston got rewarded with the Ambassadors job in London for maintaining the media monopoly. Coonan will be equally rewarded when she shortly retires, “For personal reasons!” And Aussies think this is democracy and they control it! The power of sustained propaganda!
Once again notice how the oligarchs will never break ranks and vigorously pursue 4iDTV independently? Not even Rupert Murdoch who claims to want a 4th network made law. (But with him as the owner and not purely digital, which he forgot to mention. WHY? That’s easy!) So it’s up to the manipulated brainwashed majority to do it (that’s us), because once there is a wild card introduced such as 4iDTV they will all have to perform and compete for a change. And all Aussies will benefit enormously and in fact the rest of the world will. Because…(we will be back shortly)
WAKE up folks! For a solution email bsqwatch@yahoo.comOr, join EBR and the http://economicbillofrights.blogspot.com solution. Why not do both? And before we are declared a terrorist organization! At least when your children ask what did you do during the time the tyranny of the status quo made war on digital convergence, you can prove you at least did something, instead of copping-out.
PS. Have you ever asked yourself where these politicians get so much of these opinionated nation building solutions from? You think Coonan cooked it up? Maybe the fullstops at most! Read our title intro, Watching the watchers.