10 July 2012 Last updated at 07:28 ET

Australia profile

Rupert Murdoch Australian Rupert Murdoch heads up News Corporation, one of the world's biggest media conglomerates

Australia's media scene is creatively, technologically and economically advanced. There is a tradition of public broadcasting, but privately-owned TV and radio enjoy the lion's share of listening and viewing.

Ownership of print and broadcast media is highly-concentrated. Four major media groups own 80% of newspaper titles.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) runs national and local public radio and TV. The other main public broadcaster is the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), whose radio and TV networks broadcast in many languages. Australia Network is an external TV service for the Asia-Pacific region.

National commercial TV is dominated by three large networks. Commercial broadcasters have to carry a minimum percentage of Australian-made programming. Pay-TV services have gained a substantial foothold. Digital TV is available via satellite, cable and terrestrially.

Sport, news, game shows, imported and home-made dramas top the TV ratings in Australia. The industry has successfully exported some of its productions to English-speaking markets overseas.

More than 19.5 million Australians are online (InternetWorldStats, December 2011). Controversial proposed legislation would introduce mandatory filtering of material which does not meet film and literature classification rules.

The press

Television

Radio

  • ABC - public, operates speech-cultural network Radio National, ABC NewsRadio, youth network Triple J, ABC Classic FM and local services
  • Radio Australia - ABC's external service, targeted at Asia-Pacific
  • SBS Radio - public, multilingual

News agency/internet

  • AAP - Australian Associated Press
  • ABC News - public broadcaster's news site

More Asia stories

RSS

Features & Analysis

Elsewhere on the BBC

Programmes

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    Lichtenstein’s paintings imitated popular culture but do they also reveal more than we think?

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