To name Western Australia’s media market concentrated is an understatement — there are possible North Korean shoppers with broader media diets. In a lot the identical means that Queensland is owned by Information Corp, the newspaper market in WA is dominated by billionaire Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media.
A reminder: The West Australian is the one main native newspaper in Perth. As a voter seeking to get knowledgeable forward of strolling into the poll field for the state election on March 8, your choices past which are restricted. There’s The Nightly, additionally owned by Seven West. The night tv information, with a one-in-five likelihood of being Seven West. After which the native paper in your city or citizens, however — you guessed it — you’ll be fortunate in the event that they’re not owned by Seven West too.
This useful map care of Seven West’s advertisers webpage says all of it.
So how has the media fared overlaying the election to this point, with voting day looming?
Zempilas protection
A latest ABC Media Watch phase, “Seven boosts Basil” — in reference to Liberal candidate for the super-marginal seat of Churchlands, Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas — serves as an excellent style of how media rolls in WA. The high-profile Zempilas has labored for Seven as a reporter and presenter for nearly three a long time and was a cult determine as a part of its soccer protection.
When Zempilas first introduced his political ambitions, the tight relationship between himself and the dominant media entity in WA was criticised on the time, together with in Crikey. In late February, Media Watch went deep on Seven’s protection of Zempilas, accusing it of being hostile to his opponents and tender on Zempilas himself.
The ABC program cited an Unbiased Media Council ruling that upheld three complaints made by Zempilas’ opponent for lord mayor in 2023, Sandy Anghie, towards the West Australian’s protection of her. Notably, the Unbiased Media Council is made up fully of Seven West Media-owned entities.
One other reminder: Seven West resigned its membership of the Press Council in 2012, with the West Australian’s then editor-in-chief Bob Cronin calling it a “cudgel with which zealots, bigots, teachers and despotic politicians are capable of beat newspapers which dare to depart from their view of the world”.
The response to Media Watch from Christopher Dore, editor-in-chief of The West Australian and The Nightly, was equally as vibrant as his predecessor’s descriptions of the Press Council, describing the ABC program as “gullibly” taking on “shameless native political and private agendas”, and the claims as an “undergraduate speculation”. Dore described Media Watch’s sources as “troublemaking informants” and the suggestion of beneficial remedy as “naive, intentionally deceptive and mistaken”.
Value hikes
Extra choices might need been out there to media shoppers in Western Australia had Seven West not made sure enterprise choices final 12 months, specifically doubling the printing prices for The Australian Monetary Assessment, which is printed by Seven-owned Colourpress in WA.
Colourpress, the one printer of main papers in Western Australia, made the transfer following crucial protection of, let’s name them Seven’s company practices, within the Monetary Assessment’s pages. Seven maintains it was merely a enterprise resolution. That stated, the identical phrases weren’t pressured on Information Corp, for which Colourpress additionally prints The Australian in WA.
The ensuing fallout resulted in every week of inside-baseball protection over roughly 2,000 papers, with headlines like “Paper tigers rip and snarl over $3,000 a day”.
Crikey founder Stephen Mayne has argued that Stokes ought to be made to dump the corporate with its more and more declining monetary outcomes and outsized affect on Western Australian democracy.
Cosy with McGowan and falling financials
Stokes has all the time had a Murdoch-like relationship with whomever beneficial properties energy in Western Australia. Certainly, Stokes had a really shut relationship with Mark McGowan, who gained the final state election in such a landslide that the Liberal Occasion in WA virtually ceased to exist in any respect at a parliamentary stage. It’s reported that the WA Liberals stay acutely aware of the significance of Kerry’s blessing, and each events will take heed to his affect heading into Saturday.
In the meantime, Seven has been floundering (as have a lot of media corporations) within the wake of a number of challenges over the previous 12 to 18 months.
In contrast to its opponents, Seven doesn’t have subscription streaming providers to fall again on throughout an promoting downturn. It lately reported its worst-ever half-yearly revenue figures, and the corporate slashed $100 million value of jobs in June 2024, which CEO Jeff Howard foreshadowed following the withdrawal of Meta from its information publishing offers. Nevertheless, Seven has seen some success on-screen with a bumper 2024 AFL season and aggressive rankings for cricket.
On March 8, a minimum of in terms of Basil, we’ll have a solution as to what sort of return on funding Kerry Stokes will get lately.
