The people of Port Lincoln and the Spencer Gulf should get busy. They have just four more days to stop the Australian Communications and Media Authority handing over all their commercial electronic media outlets to just one company.

In what is probably an Australian first, all of the commercial electronic media in the two South Australian areas will be owned by just one company – the Macquarie Media Group – if it wins temporary approval from ACMA after the close of submissions on Friday.

ACMA acknowledges that both regions already have an “unacceptable media diversity situation” because they currently have just half of the required media owners. Nevertheless the Authority looks set to allow the number to be halved again to just one owner in each region.

The Macquarie Media Group already owns around 80 radio stations across Australia and has become known as the “serial hubber,” due to its fondness for consolidating broadcasters in central locations, at the expense of local content. It wants to acquire the Star Broadcasting Network, which owns two radio stations in both the Port Lincoln and Spencer Gulf North markets. It already owns television stations in both markets.

Macquarie has sought prior approval from ACMA for the transaction. ACMA can grant Macquarie the right to own the stations for a period of between one month and two years, after which it needs to sell just one of the radio stations to comply with the rules.

So rather than having the four media owners the Government considers acceptable for diversity in regional markets, this can be reduced to just one when needs demand. Despite the obvious implications, it is an inevitable consequence of Communication Minister Helen Coonan’s cross media laws which allow companies to own two of the three major media types of radio, TV and newspapers in the same market. Generally this is only meant to happen when there are four different owners in regional markets and five in capital cities.

Although newspapers operate in each of the South Australian markets they don’t count in the media diversity equation because they are not dailies.

This bizarre situation follows the divvying up of regional media which will see Macquarie Media acquire Southern Cross Broadcasting’s regional TV network and on-selling both the Southern Cross capital city radio network and its TV production company to Fairfax Media.

Surprisingly ACMA’s deliberations over the South Australian markets have escaped attention because the media has focused on the ACCC’s comments about the broader deal instead. ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel says the deal raises concerns about competition in advertising in eleven TV markets as well as three radio markets, including Port Lincoln and Spencer Gulf North.