[The Age | Text-only index]     Media put committee through spin
cycle on audience reach  Date: March 19 2013  Elizabeth Knight
The average citizen of, say, Wagga Wagga, would give a very
different answer to the question of whether large metropolitan
networks should be able to buy their regional counterparts than
would the US hedge funds that own a large chunk of the Nine
Network.  But make no mistake, for those media groups providing
evidence before the joint parliamentary committee in Canberra,
their views reflect their financial positions ahead of any
ideological stance or community concerns.  The nation's capital
was awash with media moguls on Monday, arguing their cases about
whether mergers were good or bad.  Their spin on whether 75 per
cent audience-reach rules should be relaxed was centred on the
needs of regional Australians, their access to local news and
the concept of media diversity. That was the rhetoric.  One
national network operator, Nine, is gasping to get the 75 per
cent reach rules relax