Terry Television assesses the Sunday morning business journalist and concludes that Michael Pascoe won the day ahead of a lacklustre Business Sunday and a shortened Inside Business before of the cricket that wasn’t.

It was a bit of a quiet day on Sunday for the television business programs. Nine’s Business Sunday was forgettable, a series of lightish pieces, especially the look at the attempt by the bumbling NSW Rugby Union to hire Andrew Johns away from Rugby League. The story was a week late and weak as well, not even mentioning in passing the much greater salaries paid to AFL players of the ilk of Hird, Lloyd, Voss, Akermanis and Hall, at least as a comparison.

The attempt to lure Andrew John’s wasn’t a coup, because it was unsuccessful. What Greenwood didn’t point out in his story (it was left to Ali Moore to say at the end of the piece), that it was the money of PBL and News Ltd, the two corporates with direct interest in Andrew Johns remaining in Rugby League, who put up the deals to to stop him going to League). That meant the story was incomplete and lopsided. Getting one or both of PBL and News to talk would have made it a coup!.

For a program that has aspired to be national, the Andrew Johns story was a good peg to look at the sort of money going to players in the various codes, and the influence of the Mr ‘Six Per Centers” the managers and the way they manipulate things. And as we saw in the Business Sunday story Andrew Johns manager, John Fordham popped up on screen and and received some valuable publicity for himself, while a good wider story went begging.

Inside Business on the ABC was shortened slightly, as was the Insiders earlier. Alan Kohler’s program started at 9.30am, all for the coverage of the fourth day of the first cricket test against Sri Lanka from Darwin, which finished a day earlier.

Kohler had a reasonably interesting interview with noted bearish US fund manager and fixed interest specialist, Bill Gross of Pimco, which at least was on the pace talking about the move higher in US interest rates. Our Reserve Bank board meets this week, a fact noted by both Kohler and McCrann on Nine.

But the highlight was Michael Pascoe’s commentary on the approval this week by Treasurer peter Costello, of the News Corp moving its domicile to the US.
Pascoe obviously spoke repeatedly to Costello’s office to get clarification (FIRB doesn’t speak to the media). His commentary was illuminating. (https://www.seven.com.au/sundaysunrise)

Effectively, News Corp and Queensland Press were grandfathered at 39 per cent foreign by the Keating Government back in 1993, meaning a 39 per cent “controlling” foreign interest, hence Rupert’s family interest of 30% and John Malone’s interest of 9%, which add up to the ‘grandfathered” bit.

FIRB, according to Pascoe, doesn’t worry about portfolio style investments, it just looks at shareholdings of ‘substance’. Obviously in the case of News and Queensland Press, Murdoch and Malone are the two shareholders of ‘substance’.

That means Murdoch and Malone cannot move beyond that level without removing the ‘grandfathering’. It could mean FIRB can block any other holder of interest from buying more News Corp shares. It doesn’t stop Murdoch from buying out Malone, or the other way round.

It could mean that even when Murdoch moves domicile, those holdings will have to remain at 39% in the News Corp Australian papers ( a float of News Ltd, do I hear any one saying?) But from what Pascoe says it could mean all Australia’s newspapers are takeover meat for any foreign entity who cares to structure their vehicle properly.

It’s a totally different definition of “foreign” than applies in any other case (eg Qantas or broadcasting), which no doubt upsets the Canadian Aspers in Ten and the Qantas board who have long protested at the way the foreign shareholding cap of 49 per cent has prevented them from doing ‘a really big’ strategic deal.

This is what the FIRB 2001 annual report said about Newspapers:

“35. Foreign investment in mass circulation national, metropolitan, suburban and provincial newspapers is restricted. All proposals by foreign interests to acquire an interest of 5 per cent or more in an existing newspaper or to establish a new newspaper in Australia are subject to case-by-case examination. The maximum permitted aggregate foreign interest (non-portfolio) investment/involvement in national and metropolitan newspapers is 30 per cent with any single foreign shareholder limited to a maximum interest of 25 per cent (and in that instance unrelated foreign interests would be allowed to have aggregate (non-portfolio) shareholdings of a further five per cent). Aggregate foreign interest direct involvement in provincial and suburban newspapers is limited to less than 50 per cent
for non-portfolio shareholdings.”

Interesting stuff indeed.

Meanwhile, Pascoe found it hard to get anyone to talk about the Woolies/Bruce Matheson move on ALH and its many pubs, liquor outlets and poker machines.

Business Sunday, apart from a small mention by Terry McCrann, just didn’t attempt any sort of examination of the issue. They are not really trying, when of all the programs, they have the time available to examine late breaking big business stories. It’s a program going through the motions and the contrast with its stablemate, Sunday, is telling.

Besides the Mark Latham piece, there was the scoop interview with Dick Cheney, the US Vice President (and quite a Strangelovian figure, full of dark menace) and an interview with Bill Gates, his only one. It was by Jana Wendt. Given the links between Microsoft, Gates and the Packers, that an interview popped up on a Nine program was not surprising.

But the fact it went to Sunday ahead of Business Sunday, 60 Minutes and A Current Affair was interesting.