Australia: Broadcasting Directors Want More Money
In a victory for shareholders, the board of Southern Cross Broadcasting (SCB) were forced into a withdrawal of a very generous retirement scheme after shareholders threatened to vote it down. The new retirement package would have seen chairman Geoffrey Crawford-Fish and company founder John Dahlsen, both of whom are in their late 60s and approaching retirement, pick up lump sums equivalent to 5-times their annual fees because they had both served more than eight years on the board. A proposal to increase the maximum payable to non-executive directors from $400,000 to $600,000, which got through relatively comfortably.
The company has been a spectacular financial success and is forecasting record profits of $37 million this year. SCB bought 2UE complete with Cash for Comments offenders Alan Jones and John Laws earlier this year in a $90 million deal. Stephen Mayne of Crikey Media claims that SCB should "not delude himself that cash for comment has been stamped out. And he asks, "How the hell does SCB think the two most powerful radio shock jocks in the country can properly cover the Ansett debacle when they are both on the Qantas payroll?
http://www.crikey.com.au

Kenya: Dangerous Media Bill
A proposed Media Bill is set to irreparably curtail the development of investigative journalism in Kenya, according to the National Council of NGOs in a statement released earlier this month. If passed, the new law will make it an offence to sell or distribute any book or newspaper without presenting copies of the same to the registrar of societies. Offenders would be fined Sh20,000 or a maximum of six months in jail, or both. The bill also proposes to increase the bond required of publishers by the registrar from 10,000 to Sh1 Million. It also seeks to prohibit the screening of films, television programs and advertisements without a license.
The proposed amendments directly contradict demands for the enactment of a Kenyan Freedom of Information Act. The proposed amendments seek to deny the average members of society a chance to own the media. Council chairman, Mr Oduor Ong'wen, said "the proposed amendments do not only threaten to encroach brutally into the limited democratic space that the media and the public have won in the recent past but also seek to make media ownership an exclusive domain of the extremely rich."
The East African Standard (Nairobi)

Sydney: Community Radio
Sydney’s new community broadcasters, Free Broadcast Incorporated (FBI), Gadigal Information Service Aboriginal Corporation (Gadigal) and Muslim Community Radio (MCR) are set to have stricter regulations imposed on them from the Australian Broadcasting Authority.
The conditions would require each licensee to provide the broadcasting service for community purposes and not to operate the service for profit or as part of a profit-making enterprise. The decision to push these regulations comes from a recent ABA's investigation, which found Sydney Youth Radio Inc to be an integral part of an enterprise relating to the production and sale of compact discs bearing the WILD name and logo and was therefore considered to have been operated as part of a profit-making enterprise.
Australian Broadcasting Authority

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