About time: Believe it or not, our corporate plodders have bought a stockmarket surveillance system designed to identify suspicious trading activity and raise alerts. Golly gosh, Batman, that’s a radical new idea. Yes. Robin it is. The caped crusaders at ASIC are finally entering the big time. Fancy having a system that can monitor the market and analyse activities and trends in market data. It might start a trend. So, perhaps, it starts July 1, so make hay until then. Buy before the bid or deal is announced, sell before the bad news is released and, of course, don’t forget the options market. Even though there’s a logical reason for the “late” purchase in that ASIC will now be the main market surveiller, you would have thought the regulator would have had something running to keep the former surveiller, the ASX, on its toes, wouldn’t you? By the way the plodders in the UK have now arrested and charged seven people in an insider-trading case that broke yesterday.

Dawn Airey is a UK broadcast executive. She has worked for Rupert Murdoch’s Sky, ITV, Channel 4 Granada in the US and Channel 5 (twice) where she is now chairman and CEO. Five is owned by RTL, which is part of the Bertelsmann media empire. She is not afraid of anyone. This week she was in Australia to speak at the two-day broadcasting summit in Sydney. At a similar conference about six years ago she had a run in with David Gyngell in his first go at being Nine CEO … the relationship has been a bit fraught ever since … as she explained.

On David Gyngell: “It’s also great to be able to catch up with old friends. Is David Gyngell here? David and I have a funny relationship. Last time I was here I was at broadcasting conference in Canberra and I threw out the crazy idea that maybe the commercial networks would benefit if they had a bit of competition. I didn’t realise quite how badly I’d violated social etiquette until, at the end of the speech, I found myself on the receiving end of a tirade against the suggestions I made. I will say this about David though. He’s nothing if not consistent. A couple of years ago, when he was working in America, I was appointed to a position at the same company and, for about five minutes, I became David Gyngell’s boss. I say for about five minutes. That’s because never has a resignation letter arrived on my desk faster than that one did.”

Wake Up Australia: “We are in the content business and the business of building brands — the business of creating them, funding them, marketing them, distributing them, but most importantly of all — monetising them in a sustainable fashion.That can be on broadcast TV, pay TV, IPTV, the web, mobile devices, Apple tablets, you name it. Mark Scott and the ABC understand this, even if you don’t agree with the way he’s going about it, as do the Hollywood studios. People there don’t work in TV. They work in the entertainment industry.” (The best bit of advice in the whole speech, will our local TV types understand it?).

A word of warning: “If the once mighty newspaper industry can be rent asunder by dial-up internet, you only have to imagine the havoc that can be wreaked upon the broadcasting industry when super-fast broadband is finally a reality. Unless we fully take account of how these changes are reshaping the world around us and we can come up with new ways to reach out to audiences and diversify revenues, then we queens of the screen probably deserve the same nightmarish fate as the princes of print.” Local media groups are wringing their hands over an 8% fall in ad spending in 2009. As Airey pointed out, the UK had a 30% fall! Australian media executives are complacent and don’t know when they are well off.

Be interested in competing: “We also mustn’t be scared of open-access environments. Build critical mass and invite everyone to play. The best content will win, as viewers increasingly require an arbiter of the tremendous choice on offer. What we should fear are gatekeepers erecting barriers between viewers and our programs, and who are looking to take a slice of the returns without investing in the content. Competition, as I may have said before, is a good thing.” (That’s aimed equally at the free-to-air networks as it is at Foxtel)

Don’t’ be a technophobe: “What we mustn’t do is rail against advances in technology. There’s no point. Why expend energy taking Google to court for displaying your content without your permission? Work with them. Upload your own content onto YouTube with your advertising wrapped around it, which you sell, so users of the most popular video site in the world can discover your content, become advocates for it and make your channel and program brands even more famous. It’s what we did at Five at the end of last year. Even better, it is to the commercial benefit of us both.” ( That one was aimed at corporate trogs of the News Corp empire.)

And who said that? In Sydney not so long ago, a very wise man stood on a similar stage and said these words:

“Whingeing about technology will get you nowhere. The only way to deal with new technology which up-ends your job or your business model is to get out in front because otherwise it will get out in front of you.

Leaving aside the fact that he doesn’t seem to have been taking his own advice much recently, the point Rupert Murdoch was making in his 2008 Boyer Lectures still holds true today. If only the Rupe, James and their News Corp muppets had listened to these sage words. It only emphasises that when Rupe sounds interesting and sensible, you know he’s got self-interest and another agenda up his sleeve.

New policy or the same old carrot? Has the Senator Stephen Conroy produced a new “bribe” for our media sector? Support us and there could be goodies after the election? After all, senator Conroy and the ALP went to the 2007 election promising to produce a media policy and we are still waiting. The minister’s speech to the same conference yesterday. The AFR rose to the bait this morning and trumpeted “Labor plans media shake-up” on the top of page one. Thanks, said the minister. It was in all reality an offer to hold a review after an election. The minister has form on these offers in the past. He has to get the NBN agreement done, the sports anti-siphoning laws settled in a way that keeps the attack dogs at News Ltd quiet and feeds the FTA TV groups what they want. At this rate the minister will be offering a new media landscape after the 2013 poll! Well, he has to because that’s when the analogue world, as we know it, dies.

News Ltd, The Australian and Foxtel take note: In his speech, there was a rather direct set of remarks supporting the ABC, which will of course fall on deaf ears at News Ltd, The Australian and Foxtel and should be heeded by Kim Williams, the Foxtel boss who has become the most strident critic of the ABC’s push. Senator Conroy said: “Supporting industry to enable creativity and responsiveness, sustaining Australian content and prioritising the needs of the audience, is at the centre of the government’s approach to media policy. It is why we have unashamedly thrown our support behind Australia’s national broadcasters, the ABC and SBS. While I recognise that some of you here have concerns about the growth of the ABC in particular, let me repeat that the Rudd government is absolutely committed to the strength and independence of the ABC, and of SBS. I do not share the view that the correct response to the pressures facing commercial media is to weaken the national broadcasters. A healthy and diverse media needs both commercial and national broadcasters to play strong roles, engaging in creative pursuits and fostering competitive tension.” Fairly up-front and supportive of the ABC, will the News Ltd empire (including Foxtel), listen?