A JOURNALISM educator is "welcoming with caution" proposed media ownership laws to replace decades-old regulations that prohibit significant media mergers - and warning that viewers at Dubbo and other regional areas may not see any increase to local content as a result.
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Dr Margaret Van Heekeren, a senior lecturer in journalism with Charles Sturt University, said the package before the Parliament was positive but she did not expect there would be a flood of new media jobs in regional areas.
It would all come down to the priorities and financial decisions of companies, she said.
"It is positive but whether or not it is really beneficial to regional television news will depend on the commitment of regional media companies to the region," she said.
The legislation includes scrapping the two-out-of three rule that prevents a company controlling more than two of three radio, television and newspapers in an area, and the rule that prohibits a proprietor from controlling a TV licence that reaches more than 75 per cent of the population.
It also beefs up local content obligations, with a new points system that will apply six months after a so-called trigger event.
Instead of meeting 720 points over six weeks, regional broadcasters would have to meet 900 points but with an incentive for local news to be filmed in a local area.
Dr Van Heekeren, a Bathurst-based academic who formerly worked as a journalist in the Central West, said the provision was good but its effectiveness would depend on how the Australian Communications and Media Authority policed the requirements.
"As we know in the Central West of the southern aggregate market we have three commercial television stations that meet the current regulations and yet their provision of local news is markedly different," she said.
"Just increasing the number of points which these stations have to achieve in a six-week period does not mean much if networks can still meet the requirements but not have any journalists employed in the region."
The lecturer said that at best if there was a trigger event there may be one extra journalist employed per newsroom to complete the stories to meet the target, but she warned that companies would not necessarily have to do that to make up the points.
"If any owner can meet the local content requirements without employing journalists on the ground and they don't see there's a financial benefit to them to having local journalists employed then they won't," she said.
