Papua New Guinea
| Author | David Robie |
| Pages | 489-518 |
PAPUA
NEW
GUINEA
BY
DAVID
ROBIE
A.
OWNERSHIP
AND
REGULATION
OF
THE
MASS MEDIA
i)
Locally
Owned
Mass
Media
apua
New
Guinea
is the
eastern half
of New
Guinea island,
a
bridge
between
the
Pacific
and
Asia.
Its
territory
is
461,691 square kilome-
tres
and the
country
has a
population
of
4.1
million,
more
than
the
combined populations
of all
other member nations
of the
regional political
grouping,
South
Pacific
Forum.
It has
two
national daily newspapers;
two
national weekly newspapers;
one
provincial biweekly newspaper;
one
national
television
station
broadcasting
via
satellite
to the
rest
of the
nation (and twelve
other
stations
from
the
Asia-Pacific
region received
through satellite-cable);
a
national radio network, which includes
a
shortwave service,
FM
sta-
tion,
and a
network
of
nineteen provincial stations;
and
an FM
private radio
system.1
The
major print media
in the
South Pacific's
four
key
mass communica-
tion
countries
or
territories
—
Fiji,
French Polynesia,
New
Caledonia,
and
Papua
New
Guinea
—
have been "largely dominated
by
foreign owner-
ship."2
Global media magnate Rupert Murdoch,
of
course,
has
been
the
best-known
player. Less known,
but
also very powerful
and
influential,
is
D.
Robie, "Country Profiles" section
in
Nius
Bilong
Pasifik:
Mass
Media
in the
Pacific
(Port
Moresby: University
of
Papua
New
Guinea Press, 1995)
at
246.
D.
Robie, "The South
Pacific
Media: Politics, Ownership
and
Control"
(1995)
27:1
Bulletin
of
Concerned
Asian
Scholars^.
32.
489
1.
2.
P
the
French media baron Robert Hersant. Owner
of the
conservative
French
national daily
Le
Figaro
and
several
big
regional French newspa-
pers,
the
Hersant group expanded
its
empire
into
the
French overseas ter-
ritories
and
departments:
in the
Caribbean,
first
with Martinique, Guade-
loupe,
and
French Guyana,
and
then
into
the
Pacific,
with
New
Caledonia
and
French Polynesia. Hersant's California-based
Pacific
Presse
Commu-
nication group owns television
and
press interests
in the
American West
Coast,
and all the
French-language dailies
in the
Pacific.
The
group
is
also
said
to
have come close
to
publishing
an
English-language daily
in
Fiji
after
the
1987 military coups, when
an
associated company made
a bid for the
publishing press
and
plant
abandoned
by the
closed
Fiji
Sun.
a)
Electronic
Media
The
state-owned National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC)
has two AM
networks,
Karai
(national)
and
Kundu (provincial),
and one FM
commer-
cial
station, Kalang.
The NBC
broadcasts
in
English,
Tok
Pisin,
and
other
languages.
NauFM, operated
by PNG FM
Pty
Ltd.,
is 80 per
cent PNG-
owned,
with
the 20 per
cent balance being owned
by a
Fiji-based
broad-
caster,
Communications
Fiji
Ltd., which also manages
the
station.3
The
pro-
vincial network normally comprises nineteen stations,
one for
each prov-
ince,
but NBC has
been plagued
in
recent years
by
severe
funding
shortages
and
administrative problems. Consequently, several
of the
provincial sta-
tions
are
currently
not
operating.
Until
1995,
the NBC
enjoyed
a
broadcasting monopoly
in
Papua
New
Guinea. However, that year
the
private broadcaster NauFM began broad-
casting
with
an
emphasis
on a
commercial format
aimed
at
younger,
upwardly mobile Papua
New
Guineans.
In
1997,
it
began broadcasting
with
a
second vernacular station,
the Tok
Pisin language YumiFM.
A
second departure
from
the
state radio broadcasting monopoly
is
about
to
happen with 98.5
FM
Campus Radio,
a
community-based radio
station
operating
out of the
University
of
Papua
New
Guinea.
It has a
lim-
ited licence
to
broadcast
for a
radius
of 10 km in the
capital
of
Port
Moresby.
The
station will
be
broadcasting
on a
frequency
not
being used
by
the
NBC.
3.
Ibid,
at 25.
490
COUNTRY
REPORTS
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