Australian media chiefs have appealed to the government to overhaul longstanding regulations in place since well before the internet and pay TV.
Seven boss Tim Worner and Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood complained that Netflix, Facebook and Google were eating into the local advertising market, and restricting the ability of local players to invest in quality journalism and TV shows.
Similarly, the heads of Prime, WIN and Southern Cross Austereo said what was at stake was the sustainability of independent regional free-to-air television and the viability of local regional content.
The Senate's environment and communications legislation committee is conducting hearings into proposed legislation to dump two media rules created in the pre-internet era, including one that prevents a company controlling commercial TV licences that reach more than 75 per cent of the population.
The other is scrapping the two-out-of-three rule preventing a proprietor from controlling more than two of three radio, TV and newspapers in one area.
Mr Worner demanded the government broaden its planned media ownership reforms to include another cut to free-to-air TV licence fees, which he said were the highest in the world.
Australia's TV industry was "in peril", he said, because hefty licence fees were limiting how much broadcasters could invest in local TV shows.
Netflix spent nearly $US5 billion ($A6.6 billion) on original programming last year - twice as much as the entire Australian TV market - but isn't bound by local regulations.
"We want to be able to invest in Australian production. It's going to become more and more important as our viewing landscape changes and at the moment we can't do it," Mr Worner said.
On top of the ownership reforms, the government announced in the May budget plans to cut the TV licence fee by 25 per cent to help ease pressure on free-to-air broadcasters.
However, Seven, Nine and Ten all complained it wasn't enough.
For Fairfax, owner of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, the key to its future is the abolition of the two-out-of-three ownership rule so local players can explore potential mergers.
Mr Hywood said that would create a level playing field, allowing Australian media companies to snatch back ad revenue.
Prime Media Group chief executive Ian Audsley, who appeared before the committee with Southern Cross Austereo chief executive Grant Blackley and WIN Network chief executive Andrew Lancaster, said local media and regional programming had been falling over the past three decades.
Mr Audsley blamed that on unregulated competition from giants like Google and Facebook, decreasing viewer numbers, high infrastructure costs and an affiliation model which saw escalating programming fees paid to city networks who streamed the same programming to regional audiences.
"There is greater threat to media diversity if the media reform bill is not passed because the risk is that more journalists will lose their jobs in regional Australia, more newsrooms will be faced with scaling down and the worst case scenario is some businesses may close," he said.
