Undoubtedly, the deterioration in quality has been obvious for years in eastern metropolitan dailies and continues.
However, it is important to note that the drivers of the decline have changed marginally.
A few months ago, the parent company of the papers sold Domain to the American Costar Group.
This raises the question of why Nine remains an unrepentant cheerleader for the mass immigration economic model.
Arguably, the ex-Domain Nine is damaging its own profits by doing so.
I can only assume that management is too stupid to realise this, and the legacy property parasite journalists carry on untouched, destroying their parent company.
Media profits have been under pressure ever since the Albanese government was elected. This is down to two major forces.
First, the economy has been in a virtual recession throughout. Marketing budgets are always the first to go in lean times.
Second, the economic growth that has occurred has been dominated by the public sector, which rarely engages in advertising. The private sector accounts for over 95% of the spending shown in the chart above.
Albo manic immigration-led economy suppresses private-sector activity on several fronts.
- Public-sector investment crowds out private investment via inflation as infrastructure crushing loading intensifies.
- Mass immigration suppresses wage growth, curtailing consumption growth.
- Indian migrants are a poor offset as new consumers, given the scale of remittances back home.
- Crashed productivity limits both profits and income growth.
The immigration-led economic model is thus highly damaging to the media sector once property is removed as an offsetting profit centre.
So, why does Nine continue to inflate the property bubble rhetorically via immigration flunkies like Shane Wright, Millie Muroi, Ross Gittins etc?
The counterfactual makes the case for Nine management.
Imagine immigration is frozen for five years.
- Rents tumble, freeing disposable income from the highest-marginal-propensity-to-consume youth cohort.
- Interest rates tumble, freeing up disposable income for mortgagees.
- Wage growth strengthens, leading to ditto.
- The Aussie dollar tumbles, bringing more tourism dollars.
- Mining profits rise on a lower AUD, flooding the economy with national income.
- Productivity jumps, spreading disposable income throughout households.
I don’t think house prices would fall, either, as rates did, so the wealth effect would be fine.
Sure, we’d build a few fewer houses and roads, but the private sector would fill the gap with advertising-rich activity, and media profits would follow.
