The Difference Between Aussie and UK Media

When I made the decision to bid farewell to Australia and move to London I knew I would be diving head first into a much bigger media pond.

As a Sydney radio journalist one of the most exciting things about moving to the UK was the international approach to news over here. Back home media powerhouses like the BBC and CNN that work on such a vast global scale and have what feels like endless branches, contacts and offices are a foreign concept. We have major media brands of course that deliver and create international coverage, and we have correspondents dotted around the world….but quite frankly the Australian media bubble is a lot more localised and introverted.

Farmer Freddy and his drought stricken sugar-cane crop? We are all over it. The ever changing nature of our federal parliament? We have a killer Canberra press gallery and major national stations to saturate the market. But internationally, we rely on you a lot of the time!

One of the things I find fascinating and exhilarating about the UK is just how much the media world is still alive and pulsating. The enormity of the industry is mind boggling for little ol’ Aussie me. In Australia it feels like the industry is shrinking, even dying. Newsrooms are closing, or combining forces and it feels like everyone is starting to get syndicated news, instead of specialised bulletins. I love that in Britain there is a journalist or a news desk for every topic imaginable. There are just so many specific fields, shows and programs – travel, motoring, education – there is literally a place for everything! For a media junkie like myself, it is so exciting to be in a country still living and breathing news and news output at such an enormous scale.

To give you an idea in Sydney, Australia’s biggest city – we have three major national newspapers. One is more right-wing, one left-wing and one sits around about in the middle. Yeah I know, I can hear you giggling through the inter-webs. There is so much more competition here in London, and the media is kept on their toes. And the bottom line is, competition leads to more investigative and better quality news.

The Australian media market is still very much alive don’t get me wrong. But as a starry eyed ‘fresh off the boat’ Aussie, London, the UK and your never ending rabbit holes of media and news niches’ is a refreshing and exciting change of pace.

Gemma Bath, Consultant at ON