PARENT STARVES CHILD AFTER YEARS OF NEGLECT: NEWSPAPER CALLS NEWSAGENT SUPPLY CHAIN ANACHRONISTIC
The Australian newsagency channel was created by publishers in the 1800s. It would seem from the June 7 2005 editorial in the Australian Financial Review, that at least one parent may want to to divorce and even suffocate the child.
The business model which emerged from the 1800s was finely balanced. The various pieces brought together then and enhanced with time created a successful small business channel with each part relying on the other to create viability. It ensured easy and on time access to newspapers and magazines across this vast country.
Then, in the 1990s, responding to the needs of competition policy and to appease some who would compete with newsagents, the channel was deregulated. However, the deregulation failed to address business practices which, while acceptable in an era of regulation, became inequitable in the era of deregulation.
Deregulation broke a more than century old operational convention between publisher/Magazine distributors and newsagents, replacing it with fixed contracts, some of which are soon to expire. No compensation was provided by publishers and or government for the valuable asset they stripped from newsagents.
The ACCC watched over the deregulation process at the request of the Federal Government.
Deregulation has left the newsagent channel half pregnant. There is open competition for what newsagents sell yet supply arrangements have not changed from the regulated era.