Media bosses to meet with Turnbull

This Friday Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet with key media executives, to discuss ways the government can reduce regulation and red-tape that is impacting their businesses.

The Sydney meeting will be a forum for the media executives to present their 'wishlist' for reform to the government for consideration. 

Friday's discussions will contribute to a second 'deregulation day' in which the government will look to abolish a number of redundant federal laws.

The first deregulation day will be March 19, during which a number of 'out of date' laws are expected to be relaxed.

Whilst there will be much discussion this Friday around repealing the 75% reach law; which would have allowed SCA and Nine to merge for example, or Seven and Prime to join, this appears to be a change that is some time away.

Another discussion point will be the relaxing of the 'two out of three' rule, which prevents a media company from owning more than two licenses across television and radio in one market; although this is not formally on the agenda for discussion and appears not to be a priority for reform at this time.

It appears likely that any reduction of 'redundant laws' will be at the 'low-hanging fruit' end of the spectrum rather than any major reform for now.