EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: The boss of the pay TV network Austar has warned the industry could suffer dramatically if piracy explodes under the high-speed National Broadband Network. John Porter says damage done to the music industry through file sharing is a lesson for all TV networks heading into the NBN era. Amy Bainbridge reports.

AMY BAINBRIDGE, REPORTER: File sharing has revolutionised the music industry. An entire generation of tech-savvy music lovers has turned to digital music, swapping CDs for computer files and stripping large chunks of value from the industry.

Now with the rollout of the National Broadband Network television chiefs have told a Sydney media forum of their fears about mass downloads of television programs.

JOHN PORTER, AUSTAR CEO: It's increasingly a problem and we actually have to solve it by getting the stuff real time. The other element of piracy that I think people need to consider is the piracy in relation to the NBN. I mean, driving a superhighway into everyone's living room is gonna just totally enable peer-to-peer piracy. So, if we in the television industry don't go to school on the failings of the music industry in relationship to piracy and creating really user-friendly ways of acquiring media through micro payments and very simple user interfaces, we're gonna end up with the same kind of statistics that someone quoted earlier, which is half our business is gonna be gone.

MARK SCOTT, ABC MANAGING DIRECTOR: Look, I think we gotta be very careful. I mean, 10 years ago the music industry globally was worth double what it's worth today. And as you sat there at the beginning of Napster in 1999, I don't think anyone would have imagined that a computer manufacturer like Apple could sweep in and transform that industry in a way that audiences loved, but to destroy a whole lot of the investment that existed in that industry.

AMY BAINBRIDGE: And the fallout from the Finkelstein report on the Australian media continues. Both the ABC and Fairfax told the forum they're unhappy with the recommendation for a new government-funded regulator.

It recommends a news media council to oversee, print, broadcast and online.

GREG HYWOOD, FAIRFAX MEDIA CEO: You would get a statutory authority which over time would grow and grow and grow and its ambit for investigation would grow, and you would then have, over time, inevitably, a very large body in government trying to define what should and shouldn't be said in the media.

MARK SCOTT: We have a very rigorous system of review of audience complaints. It's praised by the inquiry. And that process is overseen by the ABC board, and the power actually lies with the ABC board. And so we would be concerned if the recommendation that saw us taken out of that process and put into a broader industry process. We just don't think that that is consistent with the praise for the system that we've got operating now.

AMY BAINBRIDGE: The Federal Government will respond to the Finkelstein report when it releases its convergence review later this month.

Amy Bainbridge, Lateline.