THE federal government has dumped the final four media reform bills after it failed to get the backing of enough cross bench MPs to save them.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy stood by his promise last week to shelve the legislation if he could not get backing by today.

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"If it can't be agreed on by the end of this week then ... we will not proceed with the bills and we will move on,'' Senator Conroy said today before the bills were withdrawn.

The dumped bills covered controversial proposals for a body to oversee the policing of news media by the Press Council which powers to withdraw privacy exemptions from council members should it not safeguard consumer rights. It would have also looked at diversity of media.

The Government could not get a deal on the appointment of a Public Interest Media Advocate -- either as a single person or a panel.

The final hope was a cumbersome mechanism suggested by cross bench MP Bob Katter with a three-person commission selected by a 12-member community and industry panel.

The Government did get passage of two of the six reform bills. The successful legislation covered a cut in fees charged to TV networks and a package affecting the charters of the ABC and SBS.

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott put out a statement this morning asking for an extra five weeks to consider the bills and the amendments put forward by other crossbench MPs.

The Senate has already passed the first two bills - the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Convergence Review and Other Measures) Bill 2013 and the Television Licence Fees Amendment Bill 2013 - with both backed by the government and opposition.



These set Australian contents quotas on commercial TV, limit the number of commercial networks to three and allow a 50 per cent reduction in licence fees.

But Opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne said the coalition regarded the outcome of the media reforms as a vote of confidence in the prime minister.

"If the government loses that vote, we expect them to call an election," he told reporters.

Labor backbencher Rob Mitchell denied it would be embarrassing for the government if the bills did not pass, saying in a hung parliament it had managed to clear more than 400 pieces of legislation.

"There's bound to be one in a hung parliament that's probably not going to get there. That's just life; you just move onto the next one," he said.

-with wires