Are we seeing the changing landscape of media in Australia as the seeming smaller media companies try to solidify their place in the market as new media providers?

Lets face it - when it comes to media, Australia is oft left behind. We may be a country that is statistically one of the fastest on the uptake of new technology but access to media is limited.

The rest of the developed world deals with media (internet access, paytv etc) very differently to Australia. In places like the US - customers are usually tied to the big nasty corporation to get all their paytv and internet access in the one place. However in Australia - we go the buffet idea - getting pay ty with one place (usually the terrible and pricey Foxtel) and paying another bundle for Internet (again more metered, capped and pricey stuff)

Mostly that has to do with our relatively small population that serves a larger country, and thus it hasn’t been as lucrative for media companies to invest heavily in the sort of infrastructure needed to deliver the content, and thus create a competitive market where there is a bit more hustle for the dollar of the willing user. However the changing way media is delivered has meant that somewhat minor media outlets in Australia  (mostly ISP’s) stand to be major players in the media market given some vision.

I have noted that TPG now offers as part of their ‘bundle’ IPTV. Nothing really standout about that (i.e. IPTV), apart from the simple reality that they see it as a distinctive to promote this in the Australian market.  The ABC announced a few weeks ago that it was aiming to have three online IPTV channels live by mid-year, so there is some genuine willingness to back this frequently trashed technology.

The big questions are:

1. Can one of these small ISP contenders step up ( in the face of expensive data charges from big brother Telstra) and compete with Foxtel in terms of offering a quality internet service and quality tv service?  or
2. Will Foxtel/Telstra see their massive dominance /market position and rollup their internet/paytv service into one massive package…(Foxpond perhaps…?)

I think the time is right to see some of these lesser ISP develop more so into fully fledged media companies, much like Comcast, Verizon have done in the states.  It seems iiNet and Internode are leading the charge with their naked DSL push(plus CEO Simon Hackett has been pretty vocal about the crappy payTV market in Australia and Internode’s opportunities thus..), Optus has a large mobile network, but piggybacks Foxtel for Paytv. I wonder if Soul Communications will be the genuine contender in five years. It is an interesting landscape that is for sure.