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Analysis

Parliament resumes this weekwhich means media ownership laws are back on the Senate's agenda, although with a little less urgency now Channel Ten's administrators have found a buyer in US broadcasting giant CBS.

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Ten Network's receivers, managers and voluntary administrators have confirmed that CBS has entered into a binding agreement to buy the broadcasters business and assets.

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With earnings behind us, and US politics and geo-politics still at the heart of the conversation, this week central banks also come into the mix with the RBA and ECB taking central focus. (This video was produced in commercial partnership between Fairfax Media and IG Markets.)

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Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says he has a positive outlook for global economic growth, and comments on media law reforms.

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Ten Network's receivers, managers and voluntary administrators have confirmed that CBS has entered into a binding agreement to buy the broadcasters business and assets.

Details of the CBS offer for Ten are likely to emerge on Monday.

The Senate did not get around to discussing media reformlast sitting week, despite the government brokering a deal with Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. And it is unlikely to get to the chamber unless the government can secure the support of Nick Xenophon's team, or somehow get the Greens on board.

But while the existing media laws remain in place, the question remains of what-on-earth-happened-at-Network-Ten.

It still isn't clear how twoshareholders holding a combined 22 per cent of equitymanaged to leave the board with "no choicebut to appoint administrators".

Both these shareholders, Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon, were guarantors for Ten's debt. However, both men cannot"control"Network Ten due to ownership restrictions inthe Broadcasting Services Act.

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority gets final say on what is considered controland one would think it should be analysing whether Murdoch and Gordonbreached these rules when they played their trump card overTen's debt facility.

Keen to see whether the ACMA is in fact keeping tabs on what happened at Network Ten, Fairfax Media submitted a Freedom of Information request for emails, internal investigations and file notes written the week Ten went into administration.

In return for a fee, the ACMA agreed to release Ten's stock market announcements (which are publicly available anyway) and 14 heavily redacted emails, including 14 totally blank pages. It founda further 24documents related to the search, but is keeping these secret because they contain 'deliberative matters', legal advice, and personal information.

The emails and schedule of documents provethere was a flurry of activity on Tuesday, June 13 when Ten went into a trading halt and again when it wentinto administration on Wednesday, June 14.

For example, at 11.46 am on June 14 acting chairman Richard Bean sent an email to the manager of the ACMA's Diversity branch, Jenny Brigg.

"Hi Jenny, you may have seen that Ten has announced the appointment of an administrator.". The rest of Mr Bean's email has been redacted, but Ms Brigg replies "I'll call him now".

By lunchtime Ms Brigg advises she has been in touch with the in-houselegal department and by 5pm she has emailed KordaMentha's Jennifer Nettleton to "make sure you are aware of your obligations as a controller of commercial television broadcasting service licences".

The ACMA reminds KordaMentha it has ten business days to lodge of any change in control for all five commercial television broadcasting licences controlled by Ten.

The regulator was also in touch with the Communications Minister's office and its four authority members. But it remains secret whether the regulator raised concerns about ownership breaches, or was simply sending a memo in case the Minister or authority members missed the biggest news story of the day.

While releasing this internal correspondence could "promote transparency...in relation to issues that are a matter of public debate", Ms Briggtold Fairfax Media it could also compromise future law enforcement.

"In my view, if material of this nature were released prematurely, it would prejudice the ACMA's ability to act in this matter by disclosing the ACMA's approach to certain issues," she wrote as justification for the opacity.

The regulator also refused to revealwhat information it received from outsiders because this "would demonstrate how the ACMA gathers intelligence and information for the purpose of actively monitoring potential breaches of media ownership rules," Ms Brigg said.

An email received from one outsider was withheld because it contained commercially sensitive information about several businesses that "may cause significant harm to the ongoing operations of Ten" if it were released.

In short, the ACMA may be working behind the scenes to uphold existing laws, or it might not be. It might have found a breach, or not.

"The ACMA has been actively monitoring, and continues to monitor, the activities and developments in relation to Network TEN," a spokeswoman said on Friday, adding it has been making "all of the inquiries necessary to satisfy itself" media rules are complied with.

The subtext being silence equals compliance.

"Where the ACMA is of the view that a regulatory breach has occurred, it will take regulatory action commensurate with the seriousness of the breach and the level of harm," the letter reads.

The ACMA uses "the minimum power or intervention necessary to achieve compliance", she added.

Seven yearsago Mr Murdoch did breach mediaownership rules when he became thedirector of too many radio stations in the Brisbane-Nambour area between October and November 2010. And his business advisor, Siobhan McKenna, made a similar breach from December 2009 to November 2010.

The ACMA revealed these breaches two months later in January 2011 and took no further action noting their "resignations and co-operation in the matters". Thebreach was easily fixed.

But given the irreversible nature of what is happening at Ten, shareholders and employees might wish theACMAhadeither stepped in earlier or announcedthe all-clear.

It is now 12 weeks since administrators were appointed at Tenand nearlythree years since Murdoch, Gordon, and fellow shareholder James Packer took personal responsibility for the company's debt.

Given the public interest in this matterand the potential damagedone to a struggling but functioning business, surely theACMAshould atleast explain itself.

Read more here:
In Ten takeover, the media regulator is refusing to prove itself useful - The Sydney Morning Herald