Bills Digest No. 8, 2017-18
PDF version [1,373KB]
Dr Rhonda Jolly
Social Policy Section
8
August 2017
Contents
The Bills Digest at a glance
Purpose of the Bill
Structure of the Bill
History of the Bill
Background
Ownership and reach rules
Hawke Government
Howard Government
Box 1: current media rules
Rudd-Gillard Government
Abbott and Turnbull Governments
Anti-siphoning
Committee consideration
Selection of Bills Committee
Senate Standing Committee for the
Scrutiny of Bills
Senate Environment and Communications
Legislation Committee
Policy position of non-government
parties/independents
Australian Labor Party
The Australian
Greens
One Nation, Nick Xenophon Team and
Independents
Position of major interest groups
Industry
Previous comment
Re-introduction of reform proposal
The 2017 Bill
Media and other commentators
Audiences
Financial implications
Statement of Compatibility with Human
Rights
Parliamentary Joint Committee on
Human Rights
Key issues and provisions
Schedule 1
Schedule 2
Schedule 3: Part 1
Schedule 3: Part 2
Schedule 4
Schedule 5
Schedule 6
Broadcasting Services Act 1992
Radiocommunications Act 1992
Schedule 7
Comment
Appendix A: major media interests
snapshot: June 2017
Date introduced: 15
June 2017
House: House of
Representatives
Portfolio: Communications
and the Arts
Commencement: the day
after the Act receives Royal Assent with the following exceptions:
- Schedule
3, Part 2: six months after Royal Assent
- Schedule
5, items 2 and7: 1 July 2016
- Schedule
5, items 3 to 5 and 8 to 10: 1 January 2017
- Schedule
6, Part 2: 1 July 2017
Links: The links to the Bill,
its Explanatory Memorandum and second reading speech can be found on the
Bill’s home page, or through the Australian
Parliament website.
When Bills have been passed and have received Royal Assent,
they become Acts, which can be found at the Federal Register of Legislation
website.
All hyperlinks in this Bills Digest are correct as
at August 2017.
The Bills Digest at a glance
Purpose
The purpose of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment
(Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017 (the Bill) is to amend the Broadcasting
Services Act 1992 to:
- repeal
the ‘75 per cent audience reach rule’ and the ‘2 out of 3 cross-media control
rule’
- amend
local programming obligations and introduce additional obligations for a regional
commercial television broadcaster which undergoes a change of control of its
licence and as a result, the licence is absorbed into a group of commercial
television licences whose combined licence area populations exceeds 75 per cent
of the Australian population
- amend
the anti-siphoning scheme and the anti-siphoning notice
- abolish
television and radio licence fees and datacasting charges
- establish
tax collection and assessment arrangements for an interim transmitter licence
tax and establish a statutory review of the tax arrangements in 2021
- establish
a transitional support payment scheme for commercial broadcasters which will
operate for five years during the transition to the interim transmitter licence
tax arrangements.
Background
- Since
the advent of new media technology—which has brought the Internet and its
promises of greater diversity of sources, multiple news and information voices
and innovative practices—some media operators have become alarmed by what they
maintain are the adverse effects of over-regulation of the traditional media.
Consequently, they have intensified their long-standing advocacy for removal of
certain rules, such as those targeted in this Bill, arguing that this is vital
for their survival.
- The
Turnbull Government has attempted to respond to the concerns of free-to-air
broadcasters by introducing legislation to remove two important media
regulations—the audience reach rule and the rule which prevents the ownership
of radio, television and newspaper outlets in any one licence area (the two out
of three rule).
- Two
previous attempts to remove these rules have been unsuccessful. This Bill
represents a third attempt at removing the rules noted above. It also contains
additional provisions which have the support of the industry. The Government
considers the package in this Bill and the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill
2017 will give free-to-air broadcasters ‘flexibility to grow and adapt in the
changing media landscape, invest in their businesses and in Australian content,
and better compete with online providers’.
Key issues
- On
the one hand this Bill is not controversial as there is general agreement that some
media rules, such as the audience reach rule, are outdated. There is also
agreement that licence fee relief will assist the traditional media to cope
with the changing media environment.
- One
aspect of the changes outlined in this Bill has proven controversial, however.
This is the proposal to remove the cross-ownership rule. A number of sources,
citing the considerable concentration of television, radio and newspaper
ownership in Australia, consider that this rule needs to be preserved to help
to limit further concentration. Labor and the Australian Greens have taken this
stance.
- The
industry supports the changes proposed in this Bill, but only if it is passed
in total.
Purpose of
the Bill
The purpose of the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment
(Broadcasting Reform) Bill 2017 (the Bill) is to amend the Broadcasting
Services Act 1992 to:
- repeal
the ‘75 per cent audience reach rule’ and the ‘2 out of 3 cross-media control
rule’
- amend
local programming obligations and introduce additional programming obligations for
a regional commercial television broadcaster which experiences a change of
control of its licence and as a result of that change of control, the licence is
absorbed into a group of commercial television licences whose combined licence
area populations exceeds 75 per cent of the Australian population
- amend
the anti-siphoning scheme and the anti-siphoning notice
- abolish
television and radio licence fees and datacasting charges payable by commercial
broadcasters
- remove
apparatus taxes payable by commercial broadcasters
- establish
tax collection and assessment arrangements for an interim transmitter licence
tax and establish a statutory review of the tax arrangements in 2021
- establish
a transitional support payment scheme for commercial broadcasters which will
operate for five years during the transition from revenue-based licence fee and
charge arrangements to the interim transmitter licence tax arrangements.
Structure
of the Bill
The Bill consists of seven Schedules:
- Schedules
1 and 2 to the Bill proposes to repeal the ‘75 per cent audience reach rule’
and the ‘2 out of 3 cross-media control rule’
- Schedule
3 will increase local programming obligations that currently apply in
aggregated markets (and Tasmania) and introduce local programming obligations
in non-aggregated markets, for regional commercial television broadcasting
licences affected by a ‘trigger event’
- Schedule
4 will extend the anti-siphoning automatic delisting period, remove
multi-channelling restrictions which currently apply to free-to-air
broadcasters and repeal and replace the Schedule to the anti-siphoning notice
to reduce the list of anti-siphoning events
- Schedule
5 will abolish broadcasting licence fees and datacasting charges currently
imposed on commercial broadcasters
- Schedule
6 deals with administrative arrangements for the transmitter licence tax it is
intended will be imposed on commercial broadcasters under the Commercial
Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017 (the Tax Bill).[1]
Schedule 6 also sets out transitional support payments to regional broadcasters
that may be disadvantaged by the new tax arrangements for a period of five years
and
- Schedule
7 requires the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to conduct
a review after five years into the new taxation arrangements implemented by
this Bill and the Tax Bill.
History of the Bill
The first of the media reform Bills proposed by the
Turnbull Government was the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016 (the March 2016 Bill), which was introduced into the 44th Parliament
on 2 March 2016.[2]
This Bill had not passed the House of Representatives when Parliament was
prorogued on 15 April 2016. Hence, the Bill lapsed at that time. A second
Bill, with the same title and content, was introduced into the 45th Parliament
in September 2016.[3]
This Bill was passed by the House of Representatives in November 2016 and
introduced into the Senate in December 2016. It was not debated in that chamber
prior to the introduction of this Bill.
Schedules 1 to 3 of the current Bill replicate the
September 2016 Bill. Schedules 4 to 7 are new.
A considerable amount of the information in the background
section of this Digest relating to the ownership and reach rules is taken from
the Bills Digest to the second media reform Bill, the September 2016 Bill.[4]
Background
Ownership
and reach rules
The federal government became concerned in the 1930s that
a trend towards media concentration in Australia would be detrimental to the public
interest if it was allowed to continue without restraint.[5]
To counter the trend the Government introduced media ownership and control
regulations which restricted the number of commercial broadcasting stations
that could be owned by an individual or company—four in any one state and eight
throughout the country and only one metropolitan station per state.[6]
The 1930s regulations were not successful and from that
time to the present, various governments have continued to address what has
become an ongoing trend towards media concentration. This has resulted in the
strengthening of regulations by some governments and the relaxation of rules by
other administrations. However, despite the various strategies employed to curb
media concentration, Australia now has one of the most concentrated media
environments in the world.[7]
What have now come to be called traditional media operators—television
and radio broadcasters and the press—have protested that the majority of
regulations governments have imposed have been onerous. Not only have
restrictions been onerous, according to the media operators, regulation has
stifled the development of their businesses.
Since the advent of new media technology—which has brought
the Internet and its promises of greater diversity of sources, multiple news
and information voices and innovative practices—traditional media operators
have become so alarmed by what they maintain are the adverse effects of
regulation that they have intensified advocacy for the removal of what they
argue are outdated rules. Their message has been that removal of rules, such as
those targeted in this Bill, is vital for their survival.
The current media ownership and control regulations are
the result of legislation introduced by a Labor Government under Bob Hawke and
a Coalition Government led by John Howard.
Hawke
Government
One report commissioned by the Hawke Government into the
broadcasting media recommended that the government encourage local ownership,
control and presence and prohibit the ‘buying and selling of licences for
purely investments purposes’.[8]
Another report suggested that there was a need to strengthen the position of
regional media owners in relation to their metropolitan counterparts, and that
this could occur if a market reach limit was imposed and supplemented with a
minimum number of owners rule.[9]
These reports were partly responsible for the introduction
of legislation which changed media ownership rules in 1987. An ownership rule
which prevented broadcasters from owning more than two television stations
(introduced by the Menzies Coalition Government in 1956) was replaced by the
audience reach rule.[10]
This rule stated that a person was not to control commercial television
licences reaching more than 60 per cent of the population; more than one
commercial licence in the same licence area; more than two commercial radio
licences in the same area and in any area a combination of any two of the
following—a commercial television licence, a commercial radio licence or a
major newspaper.[11]
The broadcasting reach rule was later amended to allow for an audience reach of
75 per cent of the population.[12]
Treasurer Paul Keating is often quoted as proclaiming that
the cross-media changes in the Hawke Government’s legislation would mean that
media proprietors would have to choose whether they wanted to be ‘queens of the
screen or princes of print’.[13]
According to a number of commentators, rather than this being what the
legislation is remembered for, it is often cited as producing ‘the greatest
media carve-up’ in Australia’s history. That is, the regulatory change which
delivered more media concentration than any other.[14]
Howard
Government
When the Howard Government was elected in 1996 it
announced that it was committed to abolishing what it saw as anachronistic
limitations on the media.[15]
To this end, it directed the Productivity Commission (PC or the Commission) to
inquire into broadcasting regulation and to provide advice ‘on practical
courses of action to improve competition, efficiency and the interests of
consumers in broadcasting services’.[16]
In so doing, the PC was to keep in mind that legislation which restricted competition
should be retained only if the benefits to the community as a whole outweighed
the costs and if the objectives could be met only through restricting
competition.[17]
In its report published in 2000, the Commission
recommended that certain media regulations should be removed.[18]
The PC added one critical proviso that reform should only occur once a more
competitive Australian media environment had been established.[19]
It also recommended that the media landscape should be structured so that
broadcasters delivered services that took into account the public interest.[20]
The Howard Government did not accept the PC’s
recommendation, arguing that subjective judgement by an individual or
organisation would inevitably occur in deciding what constitutes the public interest
and that this would create uncertainty for the media industry.[21]
Nonetheless, the Government included public interest concessions in its media
reform legislation which passed into law in 2006.[22]
These were the result of negotiations with some of its own backbenchers who
were concerned that changes to regulations would have adverse effects for
regional media. The changes resulted in the four/five rule that permits
transactions involving commercial radio licensees, commercial television
licensees and associated newspapers, including cross-media transactions, to
occur subject to conditions under which there needs to remain a minimum number
of separately controlled commercial media groups or operations—sometimes
referred to as voices—in a relevant radio licence area following such
transactions.[23]
The minimum number of commercial media groups which must
remain in a mainland metropolitan radio licence areas is five, and in regional
areas it is four. If the number of media groups drops below these stipulated levels
then an ‘unacceptable media diversity situation’ is said to exist.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
has established a Register of Controlled Media Groups (RCMG), the job of which
is to identify who owns and controls the media groups in each licence area in
order that compliance with the rules can be monitored and breaches of the rules
investigated by the regulator.[24]
The full list of media ownership and reach regulations is
summarised in Box 1.
Box 1:
current media rules
75 per cent rule (audience reach rule)
A person, either in his or her own right or as a director
of one or more companies, must not be in a position to exercise control (see
below) of commercial television broadcasting licences which have a combined
licence area population that exceeds 75 per cent of the population of
Australia.
Two out of three rule (cross-media ownership rule)
A person can only control two of the regulated media
platforms (commercial television, commercial radio and associated newspapers)
in a commercial radio licence area.
Five/four rule (minimum voices rule)
There must be at least five independent media voices in
metropolitan commercial radio licence areas (the mainland state capital
cities) and at least four in regional commercial radio licence areas.
One to a market rule
A person (either in his or her own right or as a director
of a company) must not exercise control over more than one commercial
television broadcasting licence in a licence area.
Two to a market rule
A person (either in his or her own right or as a director
of a company), must not control more than two commercial radio broadcasting
licences in the same licence area.
Control
A person whose interest in a company exceeds 15 per cent
is regarded under the current rules as being in a position to exercise
control of that company.
The rules also acknowledge that control can be exercised
in other ways, such as through a person being in a position to appoint a
majority of the board of directors of a company.
|
Rudd-Gillard
Government
The Independent Convergence Review Committee (CRC), formed
under the Rudd-Gillard Government, pointed out in 2013 that since the 1990s and
in the short time since the 2006 media changes had come into effect, the media
landscape had experienced major upheavals as a result of media convergence due
to technological advances.[25]
The CRC considered that existing statutory control and media ownership and
diversity rules are based on distinctions between traditional broadcasting and
print media which no longer exist, as media enterprises increasingly operate
across a range of platforms. The CRC recommended the abolition of the current
rules and proposed instead that a public interest test could be used in
conjunction with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC)
media and merger powers to ‘provide sufficient safeguards to maintain diversity
and a competitive market’.[26]
The Rudd-Gillard Government tried to implement media
reforms, some of which were based on the CRC’s recommendations. But most of
Labor’s plans for media reform were subject to intense criticism from within
the media. Indeed some critics labelled some of its proposals ‘reckless and
flawed media reforms’ and ‘a danger to democracy and free speech’.[27]
The Rudd-Gillard Government’s attempt at reform was, in fact, spectacularly
unsuccessful and abandoned by the Government.
Abbott and
Turnbull Governments
Following the election of the Abbott Government, in early
2014 the then Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared that he was
‘fairly sympathetic’ to relaxing media diversity and ownership regulations.[28]
The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, however, was reportedly reluctant
to attempt any reform unless a broad consensus within the industry on the form
it would take could be identified.[29]
In late 2015 regional television networks began a campaign
to allay disquiet that had been expressed by regional Members of Parliament
about the consequences of lifting media restrictions.[30]
The ‘Save Our Voices’ campaign, led by Prime Media, Southern Cross Austereo,
WIN Corp and Imparja, proposed that any changes to regulations should have to
include the proviso that a buyer of a regional television station would be
required to maintain that station's local news services at existing levels.[31]
In addition, the networks suggested that buyers of regional networks should be
required to provide a minimum local news service in markets where no such
requirement currently exists.[32]
Added to this campaign were reports that in effect, both
the 75 per cent reach rule and the two out of three rule were being ignored,
regardless of the directives of the BSA following legal advice that had
led to a Seven Network decision to stream its channels via the Internet to
lap-tops or mobile phones from Melbourne Cup Day in November 2015.[33]
This decision was based on advice that streaming programs was not covered by
the BSA.[34]
In 2016 Mitch Fifield, who became Communications Minister
after Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September 2015,
introduced into the Parliament reform proposals which he labelled the most
significant reforms to media laws in a generation, ‘supporting the viability of
our local organisations as they face increasing competition in a rapidly
changing digital landscape’.[35]
Minister Fifield’s first media reform Bill lapsed with the
dissolution of the 44th Parliament, but following the 2016 election, the
Government made a further attempt to change the media landscape with the
introduction into the 45th Parliament of a revised Broadcasting Legislation
Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016.[36]
This Bill was passed by the House of Representatives on 30 November 2016, but
not debated by the Senate prior to the introduction of the revised reform
package in this Bill.
Anti-siphoning
From 1982 when the Fraser Government asked the Australian
Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) to inquire into the possible social, economic or
technical implications that could accompany the introduction of cable and
subscription television to Australia, free-to-air broadcasters have argued that
siphoning programs would be an inevitable consequence of the introduction of pay
television and that this would have considerable social costs for audiences.[37]
According to the free-to-air broadcasters, the only way to prevent siphoning was
to introduce an anti-siphoning scheme.[38]
In opposition, potential subscription television operators told the ABT that
such a scheme would prevent them from competing with free-to-air broadcasters
to buy programs and some sporting bodies also opposed the introduction of an
anti-siphoning regime.[39]
After a number of investigations into the issue of
siphoning and its consequences, the Fraser Government’s Labor successor decided
to impose the anti-siphoning regime on pay television. There are few who would
deny that powerful free-to-air broadcasters, such as Kerry Packer, had some
considerable influence on this decision which saw the Hawke Government deny pay
television access to a vast amount of sports programming.[40]
Once the list was in place subscription television
providers at times attempted to circumvent its provisions so they could show certain
sports on their channels, while the free-to-air broadcasters were accused of
making arbitrary decisions about showing programs, thereby undermining the stated
intention of the list.[41]
In response, the Government made changes to the list, such as introducing
anti-hoarding provisions.[42]
As part of its major inquiry into broadcasting in 2000,
the Productivity Commission (PC or the Commission) reviewed the anti-siphoning
scheme and concluded that it gave free-to-air broadcasters ‘a competitive
advantage’ over subscription broadcasters and disadvantaged sport organisations
by decreasing their negotiating power in marketing their products.[43]
In 2009 the Commission’s annual review of regulatory burdens on business called
anti-siphoning ‘a blunt, burdensome instrument that is unnecessary to meet the
objective of ensuring wide community access to sporting broadcasts’.[44]
During a major inquiry into the anti-siphoning scheme in the
same year Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA)
labelled it antiquated, anticompetitive and dramatically limiting to Australian
viewers’ choice to watch live sport. Moreover, ASTRA saw the list as
detrimental to sports codes and grass roots sports competitions. [45] In contrast,
Free TV Australia argued that the existence of the list ensured that all Australians
have access to sport on television, not just the minority who can afford to pay
for a subscription television package.[46]
Until recently the views of free-to-air broadcasters and
subscription television providers have remained rigidly opposed. With the
announcement of a revised reform package in May 2017, however, it appeared that
a reluctant compromise had been reached with the representative bodies for both
these media sectors praising the reforms proposed in this Bill.[47]
Committee
consideration
Selection
of Bills Committee
The Selection of Bills Committee referred both the
previous media reform Bills to the Senate Environment and Communications
Legislation Committee for inquiry and report.[48]
The Selection of Bills Committee recommended that this Bill is not referred to a
committee for inquiry.[49]
Senate
Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills
The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills
reported in March and September 2016 that it had no comment on either iteration
of the 2016 media reform Bills.[50]
In June 2017 it reported it had no comment on this Bill.[51]
Senate
Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
The May 2016 report of inquiry into the first of the
previous media reform Bills recommended that the Bill should be passed subject
to a change to a provision relating to trigger events in regional areas.[52]
The second Senate inquiry noted in its report published in November 2016 that
the change previously recommended by the Committee was included in the revised 2016
Bill and that otherwise the proposed legislation was identical to the Bill
examined by the Committee appointed in the previous Parliament.[53]
Policy
position of non-government parties/independents
Australian Labor Party
With reference to the 2016 media reform
Bills Labor’s communications spokesperson at the time, Jason Clare, noted that
in the Opposition’s view removing the 75 per cent reach rule was relatively
uncontroversial.[54]
However, Mr Clare was not convinced that removing the two out of three rule
would be compatible with media diversity.[55]
In their dissenting report to the
November 2016 Senate inquiry report Labor Senators Anne Urquhart and Anthony
Chisholm agreed with Mr Clare’s comments, arguing that removing the two out of
three rule would reduce diversity as it would result in further media
concentration.[56]
They believed it was ‘ill-advised’ to remove the rule when Australia's media is
amongst the most concentrated in the world and when traditional
media—newspapers, commercial television and commercial radio—continue to be the
main source of news and current affairs for Australians, particularly in regional
areas.[57]
The current Shadow Minister for
Communications, Michelle Rowlands, has iterated this view saying:
Labor’s position on the two out of three
rule has been crystal clear since November 2016 and is evidence-based. There is
no gamesmanship in Labor standing up for the public interest, and our
democracy, by limiting the ability of dominant media voices to consolidate even
further in Australia’s already heavily concentrated media market.[58]
In the debates on this Bill in the House
of Representatives Ms Rowland elaborated further on Labor’s concerns for
diversity:
The majority of the top 10 news websites
accessed by Australians are either directly or jointly owned by traditional
media platforms—meaning that they are the same voices on different platforms.
And the digital divide means that access to new media still remains out of
reach for many Australians, given the substandard levels of broadband
connectivity particularly in rural and regional areas.
While Labor acknowledges the increasing
influence of new media in Australia, we do not mistake the entry of new voices
online or the abundance of online content for diversity in terms of diversity
of ownership of Australian media. It is a mistake to confuse the proliferation
of content for diversity of ownership or opinion.[59]
Labor’s Brian Mitchell continued:
Removing the two-out-of-three rule will
concentrate Australia's media assets in even fewer hands. We have existing
owners demanding that they be allowed to buy each other out so that they can
get bigger, which they say is necessary to better compete on the world stage.
We have a scenario where already-massive media companies want to get even
bigger so that they can face-off against similarly giant companies overseas.
Such a scenario only has one outcome: the swallowing up, buying out and merging
of competitors until, ultimately, only two global entities are left facing off
against each other—and, one day, they themselves will ultimately want to merge.
That is not a future that we should look forward to.[60]
At the same time, Mr Mitchell noted that Labor
supports most of the measures in this Bill, ‘because they are Labor's measures’.
He argued that Labor had ‘led the way on reforming broadcast licence fee
relief, gambling advertising restrictions and funding to support the
broadcasting of women's sport’.[61]
The
Australian Greens
With reference to the first of the 2016 media reform Bills,
the Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam was of the view that while the Internet has
changed the way Australians engage with media, it should not be an excuse to
change media regulations ‘to suit some of the most powerful media barons in
Australia, the country with the most concentrated media ownership in the world’.[62]
Senator Ludlam considered that it was too easy for the Government to claim that
the Internet ‘has negated the need for any diversity protections’ as the
dominant players in print and broadcast media ‘have successfully used their
incumbency to cement their place at the top of Australia’s online news media
space as well’.[63]
The Senator considered:
We need to make sure new entrants can compete, that existing
players are not so dominant that new voices are crushed. We need to make sure
local content is still being produced, and that Australian stories are still
being told ... Technological advances in streaming services and the like are
being used as a reason to abolish the reach rule, but this only makes sense if
there is a decent national broadband network to deliver these services.[64]
In a dissenting report to the November 2016 Senate inquiry
Senator Larissa Waters stated that the Greens believed that in presenting the
media reform proposed in the 2016 Bills the Government had missed an important
opportunity ‘to progress meaningful reform of the Australian media landscape,
and ha[d] instead settled on a simplistic deregulatory approach that will do
nothing to improve media diversity’.[65]
In May 2017 Senator Ludlam confirmed that the Greens were
concerned about the removal of the two out of three rule as it represented
‘jumping to
the commercial imperative’ without fully considering the public interest.[66]
One Nation, Nick Xenophon Team
and Independents
In July 2016 Senator Hinch was reported
to have said that he had not given the issue of media reform
‘a tremendous amount of thought, but that he would take it “issue by issue” and
get briefings from the relevant ministers’.[67] Twelve months later media reports indicated that Senator
Hinch had ‘no qualms’ about removing the two out of three rule and had ‘thrown
his weight’ behind the revised package in this Bill.[68]
It was speculated in 2016 that Senator Jacqui Lambie could
be supportive if she could be convinced there would be protection ensured for local
news coverage in Tasmania.[69]
It also had previously been reported that Senator Lambie was interested in
ensuring that any media reform contained safeguards to protect local journalism
jobs.[70]
Senator Hanson’s office commented in July 2016 that media
reform and its impact on regional Australians is an area of interest for One
Nation Senators, but that at the time the party did not have a formal policy
position.[71]
One Nation has now been quoted as saying that the two out of three rule is the
main stumbling block for the party. At one point it appeared it supported a
three out of four compromise rule, which was rejected immediately by the media
industry, and no clear proposal was elaborated upon.[72]
In late June 2017, however, the One Nation Whip, Brian Burston, was reported as
stating that the party was ‘rethinking its stance’ and a deal with the Government
‘was possible’.[73]
As Senator Hanson has previously called for more funding for community
broadcasting and protections for local content in Queensland, reports suggest
that One Nation’s support for media changes may depend on the extent to which the
Government is willing to deliver concessions in these areas.[74]
Senator David Leyonhjelm (Liberal Democratic Party) expressed
his support for the previous media reform proposals and is likely to support this
Bill, as is Senator Cory Bernardi.[75]
With regards to the first 2016 Bill, Independent Senator
from South Australia, Nick Xenophon, commented that he would participate in the
Senate inquiry process before deciding his position on the reforms proposed.
Senator Xenophon added that he would like to see licence fees slashed and local
television producers given more generous tax offsets and the revenue loss that
this would incur could be recovered by ensuring that companies such as Netflix,
Google and Apple ‘were paying their fair share of tax’.[76]
In the 45th Parliament Senator Xenophon leads the Nick
Xenophon Team (NXT) of three senators and the NXT also has one member in the
House of Representatives. In conjunction with debates on the second 2016 Bill Senator
Xenophon agreed with industry advocates that free-to-air regional broadcasters
operate in an environment where they pay high licence fees and where
advertising revenue is declining. [77]
The Senator argued for a more level playing field, suggesting
that companies such as Google, Facebook and Netflix should be ‘taxed on a
turnover basis’ and the revenue gained could be used to offset the
‘disproportionately harsh cuts’ which community radio and community television
have suffered.[78]
In September 2016 there were also reports
that Senator Xenophon had ‘struck a deal’ in relation to aspects of
gambling reform in exchange for his support for the second 2016 Bill and that
he had called for anti-siphoning changes to be include in the Bill, but
Minister Fifield denied that the government had agreed to these concessions.[79]
With regards to this Bill, a
number of reports have indicated that because of the continued opposition from
Labor and the Greens that it will not pass through the Senate without the
support of ten of the 12 remaining senators, and that the support of the NXT is
crucial to its passage.[80]
At the commencement of the Parliament’s winter break Senator Xenophon vowed to
use the break to try to resolve the ‘stalemate’ over the Bill and in early July
he and his colleague, Senator Stirling Griff, presented a package of compromise
to the Government. The package reportedly included ‘a tax on Facebook and
Google and tax breaks for smaller and regional publications’.[81]
Position of major interest
groups
Industry
Previous comment
In 2013, in conjunction with the Labor Government’s
attempt to reform media legislation, a Senate Committee investigated the 75 per
cent reach rule and concluded that it was irrelevant in the modern media
environment. The Committee recommended removal of the rule, but added that this
should be on the condition that either legislation or legally enforceable
undertakings were in place to safeguard the delivery of local content for regional
Australia.[82]
At the time of this investigation most broadcasters argued
that the rule was out of date, and that removing it would mean that regulations
were more consistent with converging media technologies. In addition, if the
rule were removed, regional networks and metropolitan networks would be allowed
to merge and this would increase industry efficiency and economies of scale (see
a snapshot of current major media interests in Appendix A).[83]
The WIN and Ten Networks in particular expressed some doubt that rescinding the
reach rule would be as beneficial as most of their fellow broadcasters
believed. [84]
WIN, for example, voiced concern that the end of the rule could mean the end of
local content on regional stations.[85]
WIN later changed its opinion, and its
submission to the Senate inquiry into the 2016 media reform proposals argued
that not only is it the case that pay television can reach 100 per cent of the
population, but the Seven, Nine and Ten networks are able to do so through
their regional affiliates.[86]
In addition, WIN considered the ABC and SBS, as ‘direct competitors’ for
viewers and SBS a competitor for revenue. WIN therefore:
... question[ed] why a government
broadcaster is free to compete for regional advertising revenue whilst not
being constrained by the 75% audience reach rule and also not being required to
work to the local content obligations that apply to regional broadcasters.[87]
The broadcaster added:
Online broadcasters such as Netflix, Foxtel Go, Stan, Presto,
Quickflix, ABC iView, SBS on Demand, Ten Play, 9 Now, Plus 7, Fetch TV, Hulu,
Google, YouTube and any other online media group in Australia, and for that
matter the world, is able to broadcast their content to 100% of the population
whilst Australian commercial television networks are constrained from gaining
scale by the 75% Reach Rule.
Perhaps the most telling example of the redundancy of the
Reach Rule is the recent action of Seven West Media and more recently Nine
Entertainment Co in streaming their channels into regional Australia,
effectively bypassing the Reach Rule. Regional Broadcasters pay a large
percentage of their gross revenue to these Metropolitan broadcasters for the
right to broadcast the programming and are being forced to compete with their
own product suppliers for viewers and for revenue.
WIN, along with the other independent regional broadcasters
have together argued that the abolition of the 75% audience Reach Rule will
give regional broadcasters the ability to find opportunities through which to
gain scale, either through acquisition, merger, partnering with, in a material
fashion or selling into, a Metro Broadcaster. All of these options lead to the
gaining of scale for television networks and create the opportunity to remove
unnecessary or duplicated costs in non-generating content areas of television
businesses and allowing the regional division of the up scaled business. The
result being a greater opportunity to continue with the current investment into
local content and support in regional communities.[88]
In 2015 Fairfax’s Nick Falloon commented that media
ownership changes, such as are proposed in this Bill, will correct what he
called ‘an imperfect market’ which ‘gives unregulated overseas players a
complete free hand’.[89]
In early 2016 Fairfax Group’s Chief Executive, Greg Hywood, stressed the point
that a level playing field was what Fairfax wanted and he insisted that the
Group was not interested in buying a television network, despite any changes to
regulations as:
... it could produce as much video as it wanted across its
websites and the ‘notion of scale in advertising between print and TV is not remotely
as powerful’, thanks to the digital revolution ...
“We're very supportive of operating in a deregulated,
unregulated environment because it just provide optionality [sic] and we should
have optionality because the major competitors in our advertising are not
having to deal in a regulated environment at all.”[90]
News Corp Australia, was more cautious in
its support, but nevertheless it labelled the proposals as ‘a step towards
media reform.’[91]
It could be argued that at the time News Corp’s caution was prompted by its
failure to convince Minister Fifield to consider including proposals to amend
the anti-siphoning scheme.[92]
Foxtel, which is 50 per cent owned by News Corp, also did not support the
repeal of media ownership and control rules unless that repeal occurred in
conjunction with reform of the anti-siphoning regime.[93]
Re-introduction of reform proposal
The Ten Network welcomed the
re-introduction of the second 2016 media Bill and called on the Parliament to
pass it ‘as a matter of urgency’.[94]
Ten Network chief executive officer Paul Anderson urged Parliament to support Australian
media companies that are investing in local content and local jobs by passing
the legislation. According to Mr Anderson, unless the Bill passed ‘our big tech
competitors [will continue to get] a free ride by strangling local media companies’.[95] In response to concerns
raised about removing the two out of three rule Mr Anderson added that he
had heard no rational argument in favour of its retention; it was ‘illogical
and antiquated and threatens local diversity by constraining Australian media
companies in our efforts to grow and compete’. The Ten Network officer was
‘disappointed’ that there was to be another inquiry into the reform proposals.[96]
News Corp Australia welcomed the introduction
of the second Bill into the Parliament and supported its passage, as did WIN
Network Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Lancaster, who saw the legislation as
‘pivotal’ for ensuring Australian companies are able to compete with
‘foreign-owned tech companies’.[97]
The Chairman of Prime Media Group, John Hartigan, called upon all
Parliamentarians to support the reforms in the Bill and warned that if they
were not passed ‘the Federal parliamentarians who chose to stand in the way of
reform need to be prepared to accept the blame for less diversity, the value erosion
of Australian media companies and the loss of hundreds of jobs’.[98] Grant Blackley, CEO
Southern Cross Austereo, added his support for the legislation and stressed his
view that rules put in place in the days before the Internet, pay TV, Google,
Facebook and YouTube ‘have no place in today’s media landscape and are holding
back regional media businesses’.[99]
These comments supplement those made to
the Senate Committee inquiry into the earlier version of this Bill and
re-stress the arguments that commercial media, in particular regional
commercial media, are undergoing 'significant structural challenges', including
the loss of advertising markets to online platforms.[100]
Prime Media, for example, noted that regional television had suffered falls in
advertising revenue of $65.0 million in the three- year-period prior to 2016.[101]
The 2017
Bill
When Minister Fifield announced prior to the 2017–18 Budget
that broadcasting licence fees would be abolished for commercial free-to-air
broadcasters, and this commitment was confirmed in the Budget, the industry
bodies Commercial Radio Australia and Free TV Australia welcomed the
announcement.[102]
Free TV saw the change as ‘crucial’ for Australian jobs and for the industry’s
‘ability to continue creating great local programming that is watched by
millions of Australians every day’.[103]
At the time the Government noted
that it would set a price on the use of radiofrequency spectrum that it argued
would more accurately reflect its use and that this would give commercial broadcasters
‘flexibility to grow and adapt in the changing media landscape, invest in their
businesses and in Australian content, and better compete with online providers’.[104] In addition, the licence fee relief would make it
possible for the Government to deliver ‘a community dividend’ in the form of
gambling restrictions.[105]
The Broadcasting and Content Reform package announced by Minister Fifield was
also to enhance proposals in the two previous media reform Bills by including changes
to anti-siphoning rules to allow pay television operators more opportunity to
bid for major sporting events.[106]
As the Parliamentary Library’s analysis of the 2017–18 Budget
noted, it appeared significant concessions were made in developing this broadcasting
and content reform package.[107]
For example, as noted earlier in this Digest, free‑to‑air
broadcasters and subscription television operators have for many years taken
uncompromising stances on the anti-siphoning list, with the former opposed to
change. However, the representative bodies for both these media sectors from
the outset praised the 2017 proposals.[108]
According to the ASTRA, such support resulted from the involvement of ‘the
entire media industry in the development reforms that address the broad
concerns of all participants’.[109]
In the last week of May 2017 media industry leaders addressed
a Government-organised summit in Canberra to attempt to persuade crossbench
senators to support the new media package as presented in this Bill. The
leaders included News Corp’s Michael Miller, Seven West Media’s Tim Worner,
Fairfax Media’s Greg Hywood, Foxtel’s Peter Tonagh and Macquarie Media’s Adam
Lang in what was touted as a ‘rare display of pan-industry support’ for change.[110]
Prior to the summit, Michael Miller urged the Senate to pass the entire media
package ‘to ensure the future viability of the sector’. He argued also that
only ‘holistic and complete reform’ would support local media voices.[111]
Following the Bill’s successful passage through the
House of Representatives, industry spokespersons expressed disappointment that
it did not pass in the Senate before the winter break for the Parliament, but
sources noted that it was better to defer the legislation if it meant the
legislation would eventually succeed. Importantly, one spokesperson warned that
unless the whole package was passed, internal industry agreement could not be
guaranteed, stating that if there were ‘any cherry picking or an attempt to
pull [the proposals in the Bill] apart then the deal’s off from the sector’s point
of view’.[112]
Media and other commentators
Criticism of changes to media regulation
In 2014 Ben Eltham in the New Matilda asked what deregulation in general would mean for Australia’s
media and for democracy and concluded that the result would be media
consolidation ‘and a further weakening of diversity in the Australian mediascape’.[113] Mr Eltham’s 2016
assessment was that, while the Government says that local content will continue
to be protected if changes are made to media ownership restrictions, ‘Australian
citizens that rely on journalists to gather and report the news so they can
make informed decisions about our democracy may beg to differ’.[114]
The efficiencies that will be inevitable as media companies merge will mean job
losses and fewer, larger media companies will control fewer media voices. In Mr
Eltham’s view, this will also mean there will be fewer journalists to report
and investigate.[115]
Crikey commentators Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer also
discussed media changes in an article in 2014. In relation to the possible
removal of the two out of three rule, Keane and Dyer considered the only
substantial beneficiary would be News Corp, as this international media giant
would then be able to take control of the Ten Network and have the potential to
increase its influence over Australian audiences. In Keane and Dyer’s opinion,
this was because:
[d]espite a fragmenting media landscape,
there’s still nothing more politically influential in Australia than a TV
network, which is one of the last places where hundreds of thousands of
Australians still gather to be told what’s going on.[116]
Commenting on the announcement of the media package reflected
in the current Bill, Dyer and Keane were sceptical of the extent to which
traditional media can realistically be assisted to cope with the new media
environment. They saw the overall package as ‘aid’ for an industry ‘up against
an unstoppable wave of change’ and argued that licence fee cuts and/or any
media mergers or takeovers that may result from removing legislative
restrictions will not halt that change.[117]
In Dyer and Keane’s opinion, Google and Facebook will continue to undermine
other forms of media and ‘care packages’ will not be able to save ‘media
dinosaurs’.[118]
Keane and Dyer have argued also that media changes should
not proceed while questions remain about the circumstances surrounding Network
TEN being placed in administration. They ask for clarification of a number of
issues, including what was the role of Lachlan Murdoch, 21st Century Fox and
Bruce Gordon and conclude that until there are clear answers:
... any decision by parliamentarians about the media reform
Bill may be undertaken with at best an incomplete understanding of the facts;
possibly, they may have been actively misled. And if the Bill is passed, that
passage will always be clouded by questions of whether the entire political
process was gamed.[119]
In his 2016 commentary on the previous reform proposals academic
Vincent O’Donnell maintained that they did not represent reform; they were
instead:
... a capitulation to the interests of licensees,
shareholders and rent-seekers in the Australian media industries, painted up in
the gaudy raiment of the protection of the public interest.[120]
In relation to local content measures in
previous Bills, and which are also a feature of this Bill, Mr O’Donnell
continued:
[t]he proposed changes to the points system,
which deals with the number of news stories relating to ‘local’ areas, seeks to
support diversity. But like so much government regulation, conscientiously
planned by those with little experience of the industry it will affect, it will
be easy to meet the target without honouring the purpose.
Story selection, buying in copy, sourcing
amateur footage from mobile phones and using uncorroborated eyewitness accounts
are among the many ways of covering the surface of events without providing the
depth that serious news journalism demands.[121]
Others who have expressed similar concern
include Associate Professor Tim Dwyer from the University of Sydney who in
2016 said that, should the two out of three measure become law, there will be
an inevitable reduction in the news sources people need to access a wide range
of points view.[122]
More recently Professor Dwyer has argued that removing the two out of three
rule, ‘the last major remaining bulwark’ is not the solution to media concentration;
removal will only make Australia’s media more concentrated in Rupert Murdoch’s hands.[123]
Professor Dwyer argues:
... Australia needs to have a comprehensive review of how news
is now consumed across online and traditional media. This would serve as a
precursor to media diversity policies that tackle the changing news environment
... The media reform package smacks of the government doing deals with the
incumbent commercial TV networks and News Corp’s Foxtel. It is a short-sighted
political play, and not a serious attempt to tackle structural change in the
media industries by looking at ways to maximise diversity for audiences.[124]
Professor Michael Fraser from the University of Technology
Sydney has also argued that ‘it is important to maintain the media ownership
laws we have to ensure diversity in the mainstream media’.[125]
Denis Muller from the University of Melbourne has contended that while
the two out of three and 75 per cent reach rules this Bill proposes to rescind
are ‘unenforceable’ and ‘mocked’ by digitisation, the underlying rationale for
them remains valid.[126]
Dr Muller believes that it is ‘in the public interest to have a diversity of
voices in the news media and some restraints on the concentration of media
power’. He has maintained that while
[t]heoretically, digital technology enables
everyone with a computer, access to the internet and the skills of basic
literacy to become a publisher. A few new players have emerged as a result,
most notably Crikey and The Guardian Australia, but the
overwhelming majority of people who get their news online get it from the
long-established media organisations – the ABC, News Corp and Fairfax.
The reason is that even with the heavy cuts to
journalists’ jobs, these organisations still have more resources, more access
to newsmakers, a bigger news-making capability and stronger reputations than
most start-ups.
If the mooted rule changes go through, the mergers
already foreshadowed by the media industry will mean less diversity – not more.[127]
Support for change
ACCC Chairman, Rod Sims, has criticised current media
legislation as obsolete and ‘possibly protectionist’. According to Mr Sims, the
reach rule potentially limits competition and efficient investment in the media
industry, while the two out of three rule may be preventing the efficient
delivery of content over multiple platforms.[128]
In addressing the concerns expressed by commentators such as Bernard Keane and Glenn
Dyer about a possible News Corp takeover of the TEN Network as a result of
change, Mr Sims has also commented that section 50 of the Competition and
Consumer Act 2010 prohibits any deal that would have the effect, or likely
effect, of substantially lessening competition.[129]
Senior Lecturer in
Political Science at the University of Canberra, Michael de Percy, has argued
that it is a contentious point whether localism (a term which includes both the
provision of local content by regional broadcasters and the local ownership of
those broadcasters) has ever existed in Australia in the first place. Dr de
Percy sees localism as ‘much more than simply requiring
commercial television stations to provide local news services’.[130] In his opinion, the broadband services that now
exist enable greater consumer participation in news media production and social
networks transform ‘traditional top-down localism of television programming to
a more participatory localism driven by consumers’.[131]
Dr de Percy is of the view that this has eroded the relevance of
Australia’s cross-ownership laws. In such an environment:
... [continuing to place] restrictions on
cross-media ownership where the distinction no longer exists is hardly the
recipe for a commercially viable and internationally competitive communications
industry. Ideas about localism need to change too if the advantages of
reconvergence are to be realised by Australian media companies. Indeed,
regulating for localism may well benefit overseas competitors rather than the
people it was designed to serve.[132]
An editorial in The Australian argued in 2014 that
the removal of cross-media ownership law may be the way that local content
offerings can be improved for regional areas because a proprietor who owns television,
radio, print and Internet assets in an area ‘could deepen and expand local
content and news’.[133]
In a similar vein Chris Berg from the Institute of Public Affairs argued that ‘it
is possible that local content requirements are crowding out alternative
entrepreneurs’ who may be better able to produce local content.[134]
In his critique of the first media reform
Bill, Dr Derek Wilding from the University of Technology Sydney considered
the media changes suggested represented ‘a media landscape that is worth
supporting’.[135]
Dr Wilding was in favour of repealing the 75 per cent rule and the
two out of three rule if it helped ‘support the transition of print media
companies into converged news gathering organisations in a landscape where we
have at least three strong local commercial players’.[136]
His proviso for supporting this situation was, however, that there needed to be
an assurance of ‘reasonable standards of practice’ such as accuracy, fairness,
transparency and respect for privacy.[137]
He concluded:
If the number of independent sources of information is
reduced, whether through market forces or legislative change, then in my view
it becomes more important that those players are committed to appropriate
industry based standards of accuracy and fairness in reporting. It is also
appropriate that, in a regulatory environment permitting cross-media ownership,
those standards apply across media platforms.[138]
Audiences
Audience views of changes to media regulation can reflect
the types of questions asked in surveys. For example, in 2013 Essential Report
research found that most voters were not overly enthusiastic about removing
media regulation. The majority of those surveyed by Essential believed that
media regulation was either ‘about right’ or that there needed to be more
regulation (see Figure 2 below).[139]
A later survey of regional audiences by JWS
Research for the Australian Financial Review in 2015 concluded that
there was almost equal support for retention of the media regulation and
changing the rules (see Figure 3 below). The interesting finding from this
latter survey was that people were very supportive of rule changes if they
thought that these would ensure they continued to receive local news.[140]
Figure 2: 2013: satisfaction with media regulation
Source: Essential Report[141]
Figure
3: 2015: audience opinion of media reform
Source: Australian
Financial Review[142]
Financial
implications
As noted in the Explanatory Memorandum to this Bill, the
provisions in Schedule 5 of this Bill will result in an estimated revenue loss
of $417.7 million in the period 2017–18 to 2020–21.[143]
Some of this revenue will be recovered through the proposed new tax imposed
under the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017. This is expected to
deliver an estimated $43.5 million per annum.[144]
However, payments to assist broadcasters affected by the
transitional transmitter licence arrangements will also cost the Government.
These payments are estimated at approximately $18.4 million for the period to 2020– 21.[145]
Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights
As required under Part 3 of the Human Rights
(Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth), the Government has assessed the
Bill’s compatibility with the human rights and freedoms recognised or declared
in the international instruments listed in section 3 of that Act. The
Government considers that the Bill is compatible.[146]
With regards to the local content obligations proposed,
there may be some question about the extent to which broadcasters would be able
to deliver local content to the satisfaction of all constituencies within each
area within the limited time frames that will be introduced under this Bill—albeit
arguably, they are an improvement on the existing local content.
On Line Opinion commentator David Vadori made the
following observations with regards to how the rights of audiences may be
affected by the proposals in the September 2016 Bill and similar arguments
would apply with regards to this Bill:
The democratic ideal of a media which is impartial, and
designed to inform citizens, is inevitably compromised as media ownership
becomes more concentrated. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights unequivocally states that everyone has the inalienable right ‘to
hold opinions without interference...’ However this right is undermined as
media ownership becomes more concentrated and the number of proprietors is
reduced.
Concentration of media ownership is frequently seen as a
problem of contemporary media and society. The fundamental threat that
concentrated media poses to any society is that, as the influence of privately
funded media increases, the democratic capacity of the media as an instrument
to inform and educate citizens is diminished. This is due to a reduction in the
number of perspectives that are available to citizens on any given issue, at
any given time; and this interferes with an individual's ability to formulate
an opinion, as access to information presented in an unbiased and balanced
fashion becomes more and more restricted. In Australia, this problem is
markedly more acute than elsewhere in the world and thus governments should
strive to ensure that the Australian media is impartial and informative.[147]
Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human rights did not
consider that either of the previous Bills raised human rights concerns.[148]
At the time of writing, it has not commented on this Bill, which on 21 June it
deferred for consideration at a later date.[149]
Key issues and provisions
Schedule 1
Schedule 1 of the Bill proposes to repeal the sections of
the BSA which set out the conditions of the 75 per cent reach rule.
Subsections 53(1) and 55(1) and (2) of the BSA set out this rule which prevents
a person, either as an individual or as a director of one or more companies,
from being in a position to exercise control over commercial television
broadcasting licences whose combined licence area populations exceed 75 per
cent of the population of Australia.[150]
Schedule 2
Schedule 2 of the Bill proposes to repeal the two out of
three cross-media control rule which is set out in section 61AEA and
subdivision BA of Division 5A of Part 5 of the BSA. The two out of three
rule prohibits a person controlling more than two out of three regulated media
platforms (that is, a commercial television broadcasting licence, a commercial
radio broadcasting licence and an associated newspaper) in any one commercial
radio licence area.
Items 1 to 3 of this Schedule propose to
repeal the definition of unacceptable three-way control situation and the
prohibition on media business transactions which may lead to a
three-way-control situation. The other items in this Schedule are either
consequential to the repeal of the two out of three rule or are technical
amendments.
Schedule 3: Part 1
Box 2: definitions
Aggregated markets:
aggregated markets came into being in the 1980s. Aggregation involved creating
larger regional television markets by combining certain existing licence areas
in the well-populated eastern states so that the combined areas could be served
by three commercial services. The rationale for aggregation was that larger
service areas would provide an opportunity for licensees to expand and develop
regional content and that the preferences of viewers would provide an incentive
for regional licensees to produce local programs.[151] The current aggregated markets are listed in the definitions at proposed section
61CU of the BSA, at item 1 of Schedule 3 to the Bill.
These are: Northern New South Wales, Southern New South Wales, Regional
Victoria, Eastern Victoria, Western Victoria, Regional Queensland and Tasmania.
Non-aggregated markets:
non-aggregated markets are those that have been considered to be too widespread geographically and which do not have the population
to support three competing commercial television services.[152] These are listed
in proposed section 61CU. They are: Broken Hill, Darwin,
Geraldton, Griffith and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Kalgoorlie,
Mildura/Sunraysia, Mount Gambier/South East, Mt Isa, Remote and Regional
Western Australia, Riverland, South West and Great Southern and Spencer Gulf.
Trigger event: proposed
section 61CV of the BSA will define a trigger event for a regional
commercial television broadcasting licence as: occurring when a person starts
to be in a position to exercise control of a commercial television broadcasting
licence, and immediately after that event, is in a position to control two or
more television broadcasting licences (including at least one regional
commercial television licence) with a combined licence area population that
exceeds 75 per cent of the population of Australia.
Material of local
significance: proposed section 61CU intends that material of local
significance will be defined in a local programming determination. Proposed section 61CZ provides that the ACMA will make the local programming
determination. The determination will deal with issues such as: what areas
will be designated local areas ‘in relation to’ a regional commercial
television licence, what constitutes material of local significance for a local
area and what is required for news reports to receive three points towards
quota points.[153]
|
Item 1 of Schedule 3 proposes to insert a new
Division (Division 5D) into Part 5 of the BSA. Commercial
television broadcasters who broadcast in aggregated markets and who are
affected by a trigger event will be required to broadcast to local areas
material of local significance in order to accumulate at least 900 points in
each timing period (with at least 120 points being broadcast each week) that
commences six months after the trigger event occurs (proposed subsection
61CW(1)). A timing period is six weeks.[154]
In the six month transitional period the broadcaster will be
required to broadcast 720 minutes of local content (with at least 90 points
broadcast each week) (proposed subsection 61CW(2)). There is no
change in the local content broadcasting requirements for broadcasters who are
not affected by a trigger event (proposed subsection 61CW(3)).[155]
New subsection 61CX also proposes to introduce local
programming requirements for non-aggregated markets if a trigger
event occurs. The broadcaster will be required to broadcast to each local
area material of local significance to accumulate 360 points (with at least 45
points being broadcast each week) in each timing period that commences six
months after the trigger event occurs. The proposed subsection does not
apply to licences granted under sections 38A and 38B of the BSA.[156]
Proposed section 61CZA requires licencees who have
experienced a trigger event to produce and retain (for 30 days after
each six week timing period or longer if ACMA requires) an audio visual record
of the material of local significance it has broadcast in local areas. The
record must be provided to ACMA on request.
In addition, proposed section 61CZB proposes
that licencees subject to trigger events must provide ACMA with two
compliance reports. The first of these is to cover a 12-month period commencing
six months after the trigger event and the second report to cover the
12-month period after the first report period.
Box 3: the points system—definitions and allocations
Under proposed section
61CY:
Eligible period: it
is intended that points will be able to be accumulated in the hours from 6.30 am
to midnight Monday to Friday and 8am to midnight on Saturday and Sunday (proposed subsection 61CY(1)).
Timing period: it is
intended that points will be calculated during certain timing periods. Proposed
subsection 61CY(2)) designates these timing periods as:
- the period starting on the
first Sunday in February each year and continuing for six week periods until
the end of the 42nd week after this date. Points can be accumulated in this
period
- the period starting at the
end of the 42nd week after the first Sunday in February and ending immediately
before the first Sunday in February the following year. (Points cannot be
accumulated during certain parts of this period—see proposed subsection
61CY(4)).
Under proposed subsections 61CY(9) and (10) it is proposed through the local programming
determination that ACMA may be able to vary the timing periods for individual
non-aggregated licensees.
|
Box 4: the points system—points allocations : proposed
subsection 61CY(3)
Item
|
Material
|
Points for each minute of material
|
1
|
News that:
(a) is broadcast during an eligible period by a licensee covered by
subsection 61CW(1) or 61CX(1); and
(b) has not previously been broadcast to the local area
during an eligible period; and
(c) depicts people, places or things in the local area;
and
(d) meets such other requirements (if any) as are set out in the
local programming determination.
|
3
|
2
|
News that:
(a) is broadcast during an eligible period; and
(b) has not previously been broadcast to the local area during an
eligible period; and
(c) relates directly to the local area; and
(d) is not covered by item 1.
|
2
|
3
|
Other material that:
(a) is broadcast during an eligible period; and
(b) except in the case of a community service announcement—has not
previously been broadcast to the local area during an eligible period; and
(c) relates directly to the local area.
|
1
|
4
|
News that:
(a) is broadcast during an eligible period; and
(b) has not previously been broadcast to the local area during an
eligible period; and
(c) relates directly to the licensee’s licence area.
|
1
|
5
|
Other material that:
(a) is broadcast during an eligible period; and
(b) except in the case of a community service announcement—has not
previously been broadcast to the local area during an eligible period; and
(c) relates directly to the licensee’s licence area.
|
1
|
Proposed subsections 61CY(5) and (6) place
limitations on the material that is able to be used towards accumulating
points. These subsections intend that material which relates to an overall licence
area (or in the case of the Regional Victoria licence areas 104 and 106, to the
combined areas) can accumulate no more than 50 per cent of the points required
under the legislation.
Further limitations apply to the number of community
service announcements that can be broadcast to accumulate points. Under proposed
subsection 61CY(7) the first broadcast of a community service
announcement (and four repeats of that announcement) are eligible to accrue
points. In addition, no more than ten per cent of points accumulated in a local
area in a timing period can be community service announcements (proposed
subsection 61CY(8)).
Box 5: ACMA and the Minister
Proposed subsection
61CZC will require ACMA to review the new Division 5D, the licence
conditions in paragraph 7(2)(ba) of Schedule 2 of the BSA (see below)
and the local programming determination and provide a report to the Minister on
its findings.
It is intended that the
Minister will be able to direct ACMA about the exercise of the powers conferred
on it by Division 5D (other than the review and reporting requirements in proposed
subsection 61CZC) and that ACMA must comply with these directions (section
61CZD).
Item 2 of Schedule
3 to the Bill proposes to impose a new licence condition in Schedule 2 of the BSA.
This will be imposed under proposed paragraph 7(2)(ba) and will require
all commercial television broadcasting licences to comply with the applicable
local programming requirements.
|
Schedule 3: Part 2
Item 3 proposes to repeal section 43A of the BSA
which sets out the current requirements for regional aggregated commercial
television broadcasting licences to provide material of local significance. The
repeal of this section is to take place six months after this Bill receives
Royal Assent.
Item 4 provides that ACMA is taken, six months
after the Bill receives Royal Assent, to have revoked the Broadcasting
Services (Additional Television Licence Condition) Notice 2014, which
currently sets out the detail of the local content condition.[157]
The requirements in subsections 43(2) and 43(3) of the BSA do not
apply to the revocation.[158]
However, the Notice continues to apply with regards to material broadcast
during a timing period that commenced before the revocation is taken to have
occurred.
Schedule 4
Schedule 4 deals with the anti-siphoning list, which sets
out a list of events that the Minister considers should be available on
free-to-air television. Item 1 of Schedule 4 amends subsection 115(1AA)
of the BSA which currently states that events are removed from the
anti-siphoning list and available for subscription television providers to
purchase 12 weeks before the event commences. It is proposed that events on the
anti-siphoning list will be delisted 26 weeks before they commence.
Items 5 to 8 propose to repeal clauses in the BSA
which restrict commercial television and national broadcasters (the ABC and
SBS) from televising an event listed on the anti-siphoning list on a secondary
channel unless the broadcasters have previously televised the event on their
primary service or they will television the event simultaneously on their
primary and secondary services.
Item 9 repeals the Schedule to the Broadcasting Services
Events Notice (No. 1) 2010 which contains the list of events that compromises
the anti-siphoning list.[159]
This list is specified by the Minister under subsection 115(1) of the BSA.
The item intends to replace the current list with the one shown below in Box 7.
Box 7: proposed anti-siphoning list
Olympic Games
- Each
event held as part of the Summer Olympic Games, including the Opening Ceremony
and the Closing Ceremony.
- Each
event held as part of the Winter Olympic Games, including the Opening Ceremony
and the Closing Ceremony.
Commonwealth Games
- Each
event held as part of the Commonwealth Games, including the Opening Ceremony
and the Closing Ceremony.
Horse racing
- Each
running of the Melbourne Cup organised by the Victoria Racing Club.
Australian rules football
- Each
match in the Australian Football League Premiership competition (including the
Finals Series).
Rugby league football
- Each
match in the National Rugby League Premiership competition (including the
Finals Series).
- Each
match in the National Rugby League State of Origin Series.
- Each
international rugby league test match that involves the senior Australian
representative team and is played in Australia or New Zealand.
- Each
match of the Rugby League World Cup that involves the senior Australian
representative team and is played in Australia, New Zealand of Papua New
Guinea.
Rugby union football
- Each
international test match that involves the senior Australian representative
team selected by the Australian Rugby Union and is played in Australia or New
Zealand.
- Each
match of the Rugby World Cup tournament that involves the senior Australian
representative team selected by the Australian Rugby Union.
- The
final of the Rugby World Cup tournament.
Cricket
- Each
test match that involves the senior Australian representative team selected by Cricket
Australia and is played in Australia.
- Each
test match that involves both the senior Australian representative team
selected by Cricket Australia and the senior English representative team; and is
played in the United Kingdom.
- Each
one day cricket match that involves the senior Australian representative team
selected by Cricket Australia and is played in Australia.
- Each
Twenty20 cricket match that involves the senior Australian representative team
selected by Cricket Australia and is played in Australia.
- Each match of the International Cricket Council One Day
International World Cup that involves the senior
Australian representative team selected by Cricket Australia and is played in
Australia or New Zealand.
-
The final of the International Cricket Council One Day
International World Cup if the final is played in Australia or New 7 Zealand.
- Each match of the International Cricket Council World Twenty20
tournament that involves the senior Australian
representative team selected by Cricket Australia and is played in Australia or
New Zealand.
- The final of the International Cricket Council World Twenty20 14 tournament if the final is played in
Australia or New Zealand.
Soccer
- Each
match of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup
tournament that involves the senior Australian representative team selected by
the Football Federation Australia.
- The
final of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup
tournament.
- Each
match in the Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup
Qualification tournament that involves the senior Australian representative
team selected by the Football Federation Australia and is played in Australia.
Tennis
- Each
match in the Australian Open tennis tournament.
- Each
match in each tie of the International Tennis Federation Davis Cup World Group
tennis tournament that involves an Australian representative team and is played
in Australia.
- The
final of the International Tennis Federation Davis Cup World Group tennis
tournament if the final involves an Australian representative team.
Netball
- A
semi-final of the Netball World Cup if the semi-final involves the senior
Australian representative team selected by the All Australian Netball
Association.
- The
final of the Netball World Cup if the final involves the senior Australian
representative team selected by the All Australian Netball Association.
Motor sports
- Each
race in the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile Formula One World
Championship (Grand Prix) held in Australia.
- Each
race in the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme Moto-GP held in
Australia.
- Each
Bathurst 1000 race in the V8 Supercars Championship Series.
|
Schedule 5
Part 1 of Schedule 5 repeals the Regulations and Acts which
impose annual licence fees and charges on commercial radio and television
broadcasters. Part 2 of this Schedule makes consequential amendments to the BSA
and the Australian
Communications and Media Authority Act 2005 as a result of the repeal
of the licence and datacasting fees proposed in Part 1. Item 22 of Schedule
5 proposes that ACMA will retain the power to collect fees for the periods in
which the licensing fees and datacasting Acts and Regulations were in force.
Schedule 6
The items in this Schedule relate to the imposition of the
new tax to be imposed by the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017 (Tax Bill)
and make changes to a number of Acts to define terms, make clear that the tax
would be related to the use of spectrum, clarify conditions for issue of
certain licences and state conditions for the return of overpayments of tax and
pro-rata returns of payments.[160]
Items 3 and 9 of Schedule 6 propose to insert
the definition of ‘interim tax’ into the BSA and the Radiocommunications
Act 1992 (Radcomms Act).[161]
The interim tax is the tax that it is intended will be imposed under the Tax
Bill. Item 3 will also insert the same definition of ‘transmitter
licence’ as is in the Radcomms Act into the BSA.
Broadcasting
Services Act 1992
Item 5 proposes to insert a new part into the BSA which
deals with the collection of the interim tax (Part 14AA). The simplified
outline of collection is that ACMA would make written assessments of what
interim tax is to be paid and that this would be payable 28 days after the
assessment is delivered (proposed section 205AA). Proposed section
205AE provides for refunds of overpayments. Penalties will be imposed for
late payment of the interim tax under proposed section 205AF.
Radiocommunications
Act 1992
Item 10 deals with licences that can be issued under
section 100 of the Radcomms Act to assist in achieving or improving the
reception of commercial broadcasting services; services such as re-transmission
by self-help providers come under this category. Item 10 proposes that
two new subsections will be added to the Radcomms Act so that section
100 licences cannot be used to avoid paying the transmission tax. Under proposed
subsection 100(3BA) ACMA would be prevented from issuing a section 100
licence if it has ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe the application for the
licence is part of a scheme to avoid paying the tax. Proposed subsection 100(5A)
under Item 11 would require ACMA to consider, when deciding whether to issue
a transmitter licence under section 100, whether the licence could be used to
transmit broadcasting services without paying the interim tax, even if it is
not part of a scheme to avoid paying tax.
Radiocommunications Taxes Collection Act 1983
Items 14 to 16 amend the Radiocommunications
Taxes Collection Act 1983. [162]
Item 14 proposes to insert a new section (proposed section 4A) so
the question as to whether a transmitter licence is associated with a
commercial broadcasting licence is determined for the Radiocommunications
Taxes Collection Act in the same manner as it is in the Commercial
Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017. Item 16 deals with refunds of
overpayments of the tax by ACMA (proposed section 10B) and pro-rata
refunds of tax paid for licences issued before 1 July 2017 (proposed section
10C).
Radiocommunications (Transmitter Licence Tax) Act 1983
Items 17 to 37 propose that a transmitter
licence associated with a commercial broadcasting licence is determined for the
Radiocommunications (Transmitter Licence Tax) Act 1983 in the same
manner as it is in the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017.[163]
This concept will be used to determine which licences will no longer be
required to pay the transmitter licence tax imposed under this legislation from
1 July 2017 licensees when they would instead pay the new interim transmission
tax.
Part 3 of Schedule 6 proposes to establish transitional
support payment arrangements for broadcasters to ensure that no commercial
television or radio licensee is worse off by more than $2,000 annually for a
period of five years as a result of the new taxation arrangements to be imposed
under the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017. A table of payments for 19
eligible companies is included in item 40.
Schedule 7
This Schedule proposes to insert a new section in the BSA (proposed
section 216AA) to require that ACMA must conduct a review of the interim
tax arrangements on or before 1 July 2022 to determine if they should be
repealed.
Comment
The
national and community broadcasters issue
As noted in comments made in the Library’s digest for the
previous iteration of this Bill:[164]
One issue which has not been discussed in great detail in
relation to these changes is the role the national broadcasters, the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)
could, or should play, in light of media reforms.[165]
A Department of Communications’ media ownership and control discussion paper
noted in 2014 that any examination of media diversity in Australia needs to
consider the role of SBS and the ABC.[166]
According to this paper, the national broadcasters:
... make a significant contribution to media diversity through
their provision of television, radio and online services. This is particularly
so for the ABC, the reach and depth of whose media outlets compare favorably to
its commercial counterparts in most areas of Australia ...
The television, radio and online services provided by the
national broadcasters, particularly the ABC, are also prominent in regional and
remote Australia, providing audiences with an additional source of news and
information in areas where there are frequently few local commercial media
outlets.[167]
In addition, community broadcasting services, predominantly community
radio services, also add to media diversity.[168]
Senator Nick Xenophon, among others, has made the point that
funding could be provided to the ABC in ‘the absence of a commercial television
presence in regional areas’ to increase news services and local content
offerings.[169]
While under its Charter, the ABC is already required to deliver such services
whether commercial broadcasters choose to do so or not, the Charter could be
amended to include specific requirements for the types of local content it must
deliver and the variety of sources from which it must obtain that content.[170]
It appears that the principle of the ABC taking on these
obligations would be acceptable to the commercial industry. In 2013, with
reference to suggestions that local content provisions should be extended to
non‑aggregated areas, Free TV Australia, the commercial television industry
lobby group, observed that if regional news in these areas was decided to be in
the public interest, then the government should provide it, instead of imposing
additional regulations on commercial broadcasters.[171]
However, given the frequent criticism of the ABC’s supposed use of government
funding to compete with commercial broadcasters, from within and outside the
industry, it is not likely that it would support additional funding to the
national broadcaster for this purpose.[172]
Audiences, on the other hand, may be satisfied with this
alternative. Molly Johnson from The Australia Institute cites polling which
shows that there is very strong overall support for increasing funding for the
ABC to improve regional services, even among city-dwelling Australians.[173]
Funding the ABC (and in addition SBS and community
broadcasters) in this manner may go a long way towards alleviating concerns
expressed about the loss of local content.
Questions
about local content
It can be asked what content actually qualifies as ‘local’
and further, can such content ever have been said to exist. The definition of
‘material of local significance’ for television in the BSA is broad and
leaves room for considerable interpretation of what material relates directly
to a local area or a ‘licensee’s licence area’.[174]
Stipulations for material of local significance are more stringent for radio
than television but, nevertheless, there is room for considerable
interpretation about what constitutes local.[175]
As academics Kristy Hess and Lisa Waller
from Deakin University have stated, currently, and under changes proposed in
this Bill, points are gained for commercial television broadcasters for
broadcasting local content. Local areas are calculated by ACMA maps, but these
group towns and cities that are often hundreds of miles apart and include a
number of local government areas.[176]
In Hess and Waller’s opinion, the process of media reform needs to redraft the
idea of local. They suggest that perhaps a grid system could be beneficial,
where broadcasters gain bonus points for covering towns and cities at a
considerable distance from the centre of a local area, or points for regularly
presenting a full range of stories from all corners of the grid.[177]
This suggestion may also help to alleviate
some of the concerns about the potential loss of reports of a truly local
nature. To work effectively, however, it would most likely need to involve some
sort of compulsory reporting of broadcaster compliance as was required for
radio, for example, until the most recent licence condition notice came into
effect in 2014.[178]
In 2013 ACMA suggested a subsidies scheme
that could be adapted to encourage the production and broadcast of more local
content. ACMA’s suggestion involved paying broadcasters direct subsidies or providing
regulatory relief as incentives.[179]
This could be adapted to encourage broadcasters to provide more local content
than will be required under the proposed revised regulations. A variation of
this idea from ACMA was that subsidies could be provided to community
organisations or to the national broadcasters to produce local content for
commercial broadcasters to air.[180]
Further to the issue of where the public
broadcasters are situated in the local content debate, DigEcon Research
comments:
For many years local programming has been the forte of
the ABC. The innovative ABC Local program took that to another level,
encouraging community generated content for publication on ABC platforms. The
ABC’s digital platforms are a critical channel for the dissemination of this
material. ABC local radio provides real local content on an ongoing basis.
Better funding the ABC to provide local content in regional
areas is a preferable policy tool to ineffective content regulation of
commercial providers. Indeed, this should be the policy position across all
content regulation (except for self-regulated classification) in the radio and
television markets.[181]
Screen Producers Australia Chief Executive, Matthew
Deaner, has made a number of pleas for savings from licence fee reductions for
free-to-air broadcasters to be accompanied by further obligations to invest in
local content.[182]
In 2016 Mr Deaner claimed that ‘commercial free-to-air's investment in drama,
documentary and children's production is around $160 million annually, less
than half that spent by these broadcasters on sports’.[183]
In response to the 2017 proposal to abolish licence fees,
Mr Deaner noted that the abolition of licence fees was based in part on arguments ‘that they will use these windfalls
to invest in local content’. Mr Deaner quotes Australian Bureau of Statistics
figures to argue that previous reductions in fees have not delivered on these
promises; he contends in fact that in the case of commercial television
broadcasters, since 2011–12 they have:
... cut their commitment to Australian drama
and documentaries by 20 per cent and increased the substitution of Australian
content for cheap second-run New Zealand content. The broadcasters are also
moving more production in-house, from 44 per cent of production in 2011-12 to
55 per cent in 2015-16. This, together with worsening deals being offered to
the independent production sector, should be ringing competition alarm bells in
the Government and the ACCC. Independent producers are being driven to the
wall.[184]
Alternative means to deliver more diversity
The Public Interest Journalism Foundation has suggested
that new types of measures could be introduced to replace simple regulation and
protect and monitor plurality and diversity in news and information.[185]
The Foundation considers three measures particularly appropriate:
- Regular
review of media diversity
The Government could be required to establish an
independent committee to review and report every three years on the plurality
and diversity of news and information sources and the adequacy of local news in
regional Australia.
- Establishing
an independent production fund for public interest journalism
This measure would involve legislation that would establish
a production fund for independent journalism. The fund would be ‘designed to
encourage innovation and experimentation in digital journalism, especially in
regional and rural Australia’.
- Government
incentives to promote a culture of philanthropy to promote quality journalism,
such as those that have a long history in the United States.[186]
Trigger
events
In relation to trigger events, Professor Matthew Ricketson
from the University of Canberra noted in commenting on the previous iterations
of this Bill that the definition of ‘trigger event’ was imprecise:[187]
... it is given as a ‘change in control’ of a licence that
would result in the licence covering a market that exceeds 75 per cent of
the population. It seems likely that the definition of ‘control’ derives from
the existing definition in the Broadcasting Services Act. More
significantly, the ‘trigger event’ only occurs in the context of the 75 per
cent reach rule, not the two out of three cross-media control rule. So a merger
or acquisition that resulted in ownership of two out of three licenses in a
market but whose reach stayed within 75 per cent of the population would not be
a trigger event, and so the new provision of local content rules wouldn't
apply.[188]
Professor Ricketson also notes there are only two
compliance reports required following a trigger event. Professor Ricketson
implies that it may be naive to assume that broadcasters will continue to
comply with requirements, given that there are no reporting obligations beyond
the two compliance reports.[189]
Definition of control
Prime Media also raised the issue of control in its
submission to the Senate inquiry into the first 2016 Bill. Prime suggested that
a more precise definition of control may be achieved by confining its meaning
to that found in Schedule 1 of the BSA (see box below).[190]
The Senate inquiry report published in May 2016 suggests that the Government
may wish to consider the issue of control in the context of this reform, but
this issue was not addressed in either the September 2016 or this Bill.[191]
Box 6: a more precise definition of control?
Prime
Media suggests that a more precise definition of control of a media company
could be achieved with reference to paragraphs 2(1)(d) and (e) of Schedule 1 of
the BSA.[192]
These define a person
as in control of a company if:
(d) the person,
either alone or together with an associate of the person, is in a position to:
(i) veto
any action taken by the board of directors of the licensee or the company; or
(ii) appoint or secure the appointment
of, or veto the appointment of, at least half of the board of directors of the
licensee or the company; or
(iii) exercise, in any other
manner, whether directly or indirectly, direction or restraint over any
substantial issue affecting the management or affairs of the licensee or the
company; or
(e)
the licensee or the company or more than 50% of its directors:
(i) act, or are accustomed to act; or
(ii) under
a contract or an arrangement or understanding (whether formal or informal) are
intended or expected to act;
in accordance with the
directions, instructions or wishes of, or in concert with, the person or of the
person and an associate of the person acting together or, if the person is a
company, of the directors of the person.
|
Anti-siphoning issue
In the discussions leading up to the introduction of pay
television anti-siphoning was controversial and divisive and until the
Government’s announcement of the reform package in May 2017, free-to-air
broadcasters and subscription television providers took opposing positions. But
the anti-siphoning provisions in this Bill have been able to bring both sides
together as both benefit from the provisions. While this is the case, the
fundamental question relating to anti-siphoning remains; and it is likely that
the solutions delivered are temporary. The arguments put by subscription
broadcasters, for example, that the anti-siphoning list amounts to a protection
from competition for free-to-air broadcasters, will continue while there is a
list. Similarly, free-to-air broadcasters will argue that there must be a list,
to ensure that the public interest is served, as all people are entitled to see
the important events that reflect Australia’s national identity.
However, as Professor David Rowe from Western Sydney
University points out, a number of international events are no longer on the
list and the implication is that events involving Australian sport teams and
individuals in several overseas locations are no longer regarded as being of
national importance and cultural significance.[193]
Moreover, the list is male dominated, despite the rising popularity of women’s
sports.[194]
Also as a result of the diminution of the list, ‘what people
could once see for free, punctuated by advertisements, they will now have to
pay for—while still being exposed to advertisements’.[195]
Professor Rowe’s observations raise
questions about what constitutes national and cultural identity and whether in
the process of writing this legislation there should have been public
consultation about what events should remain, and/or be added to the
anti-siphoning list. Objectives of the list have been continually cited as delivering
a service to the public and enhancing cultural citizenship, rather than delivering
audience numbers to, broadcasters—regardless of whether they are free-to-air or
subscription operators. Accordingly, this appears to be a legitimate question
that should be raised in discussions about changes to the composition of the
list.
At the same time, as one commentator noted
in 2015, the anti-siphoning list has been:
... a very Australian arrangement. In many
countries, pay TV has been able to secure the rights to major sporting codes
thus requiring sports fans to pay for a subscription. Our arrangements, which
are very long-standing and are amended from time to time, strike a balance
between egalitarianism and our sense of a fair go on the one hand and strict
economic rationalism on the other.[196]
So while public consultation was not
considered in drafting the anti-siphoning provision in this Bill, it could be
argued that seeking this balance continues to be the Government’s underlying
objective in shortening the list while maintaining events which have featured
on the list since its inception and events which have become popular over time.
Appendix A:
major media interests snapshot: June 2017
Owner
|
Interests: broadcasting
|
Interests: print
|
Bruce Gordon
|
WIN Network (family
owned)
|
|
|
14.96% of Ten Network*
|
|
|
14.96% of Nine
Entertainment
|
|
Gina Rinehart
|
8.52% of Ten Network*
|
|
James Packer
|
7.68% of Ten Network*
|
|
Lachlan Murdoch
|
7.68% of Ten Network *
|
|
|
100% of Nova
Entertainment
|
|
Rupert Murdoch
|
100% of News Corp
Australia
|
Estimated ownership of
58.2% of print media involving national, metropolitan, regional and community
newspapers
|
|
13.23% HT&E
|
|
|
50% of Foxtel
|
|
Foxtel
|
13.84% of Ten Network*
|
|
Bill Caralis
|
Super Network Radio
(family owned)
|
|
Janet Cameron
|
Grant Broadcasters
(family owned)
|
|
Fairfax Media
|
54.5% of Macquarie Media
|
Estimated ownership of
print media: 31.6% involving national, metropolitan, regional and community
newspapers
|
John Singleton
|
32% of Macquarie Media
|
|
Kerry Stokes
|
73% of Seven Group
Holdings
|
|
Seven Group Holdings
|
41% of Seven West Media
|
Seven West Media
estimated 7.8% ownership of print media involving metropolitan, regional and
community newspapers
|
|
11% of Prime Media Group
|
|
Macquarie Group
|
6.10% Nine Entertainment
Co. Holdings Ltd
|
|
Source: ACMA and Ibis World[197]
[1]. Parliament
of Australia, ‘Commercial
Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017 homepage’, Australian Parliament website.
[2]. Parliament
of Australia, ‘Broadcasting
Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016 homepage’, Australian
Parliament website. See: R Jolly, Broadcasting
Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016, Bills digest, 111,
2015-16, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2016.
[3]. Parliament
of Australia, ‘Broadcasting
Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016 homepage’, Australian
Parliament website.
[4]. R
Jolly, Broadcasting
Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016, Bills digest, 13, 2016–17,
Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2016.
[5]. R Jolly, Media
ownership and regulation: a chronology: part one: from print to radio days and
television nights, Research paper series,
2015–16, Parliamentary Library, Canberra,
2016.
[6]. Wireless Telegraphy
Regulations 1935 (nos. 104 and 120).
[7]. R Harding-Smith, Media
ownership and regulation in Australia, Issue brief, Centre for Policy Development, Sydney, August 2011.
[8]. J Oswin, Localism in
Australian broadcasting: a review of the policy,
Department of Communications and the Arts (DCA) and Australian Government
Publishing Service (AGPS), Canberra, August 1984.
[9]. Suggestions
for the minimum reach rule originally ranged from 33 per cent to 43 per cent
and were prompted by the fact that at the time the Murdoch and Packer families
had control of two stations—in Sydney and Melbourne—the reach of which amounted
to 43 per cent of the population. Forward Development Unit, Ownership
and control of commercial television: future policy directions, vols 1
and 2, Department of Communications and AGPS, Canberra, 1986.
[10]. Under section 53A of the Broadcasting and
Television Act 1956.
[11]. Broadcasting
Amendment Act 1987 and Broadcasting
(Ownership and Control) Act 1987.
[12]. Broadcasting
Services Act 1992.
[13]. This comment is attributed to Mr Keating by numerous
commentators and academics, but there is no definitive source for the
quotation. It appears from some reports that the comment was made in a Labor
Caucus meeting and later reported to the media. G Earl, ‘Murdoch shakeout would
trigger a media upheaval’, Australian Financial Review, 4 December 1986.
[14]. For example, Anne Davies makes this comment in ‘Broadcasting
under Labor: 1983 to 1994’, in J Craik, J Bailey and A Moran, eds, Public voices,
private interests: Australia's media policy, Allen
and Unwin, Sydney, 1995, p. 3.
[15]. J Howard (Prime Minister), Interview
with Neil Mitchell, transcript, Radio 3AW, 1
September 2000.
[16]. Productivity Commission (PC), Broadcasting, Inquiry report, 11, PC, Melbourne, 3 March 2000, p. iv.
[17]. Ibid.
[18]. Ibid.,
p. 24.
[19]. Ibid.,
p. 25.
[20]. Ibid.
[21]. Explanatory
Memorandum and Regulation
Impact Statement, Broadcasting Services Amendment
(Media Ownership) Bill 2006, pp. 21–22.
[22]. Ibid.
[23]. Media
group is defined as: a grouping of one or more of a commercial radio licence, a
commercial television licence and an associated newspaper where there is at
least one person in a position to exercise control over each of the media
entities in the media group and where the media operation complies with the
statutory control rules (BSA, section 61AA). The number of media groups
is calculated in accordance with a points test. Radio licence areas are
specific geographic areas which are determined in a Licence Area Plan (LAP).
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) defines Licence Areas
in terms of areas defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the
purposes of the Australian Census.
[24]. ACMA, ‘About the Media Control database’,
ACMA website. Note: licensees operating outside the
broadcasting services bands are exempt from media diversity rules and are not
considered in assessing an unacceptable media diversity situation. As defined
in section 6 of the BSA, broadcasting
services bands are that part of the radiofrequency spectrum that is designated
under subsection 31(1) of the Radiocommunications
Act 1992 as being primarily for broadcasting
purposes and that part of the radiofrequency spectrum that is designated under
subsection 31(1A) of the Radiocommunications
Act 1992 as being partly for the purpose
of digital radio broadcasting services.
[25]. Convergence Review, Convergence
review: final report, Department of
Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Canberra, March 2012, p. 26.
[26]. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Media
mergers, ACCC, Melbourne, August 2006
(revised 2010).
[27]. Editorial, ‘Senator
Conroy's reckless and flawed media reforms’,
The Australian, 13 March 2013, p. 13. See
analysis of the reforms in R Jolly, Media
reform: in shallows and miseries, Research
paper series, 2013–14, Parliamentary Library,
Canberra, 2013. The label of ‘reckless and flawed’ was particularly applied to
the proposal to create an office of the Public Interest Media Advocate (PIMA).
This body was intended as an independent statutory office which would have responsibility
for administering a public interest test.
[28]. A Bennett, ‘Review
tipped for media law’, Adelaide Advertiser,
10 March 2014, p. 9.
[29]. D Davidson, ‘PM dodges media reform fight’, The Australian, 18
June 2015, p. 2.
[30]. D White, ‘Regionals
push for local news services’, Australian Financial Review, 5 October 2015, p. 26.
[31]. Save Our Voices website.
[32]. White, ‘Regionals push for local news services’, op. cit.
[33]. Streaming refers to the practice of watching video in ‘real
time’, instead of downloading to watch later.
[34]. G Dwyer, ‘Govt
to scrap reach rule, so expect media to screw up their newfound freedom’, Crikey, 13
November 2015.
[35]. M Fifield (Minister for Communications and the Arts), Modernising
Australian media laws, media release, 1 March 2016; Parliament of Australia, ‘Broadcasting
Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016 homepage’, Australian Parliament website.
[36]. Parliament
of Australia, ‘Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016 homepage’,
Parliament of Australia website.
[37]. Australian
Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT), Cable
and subscription television services for Australia, Report, vol. 1,
AGPS, Canberra, August 1982, pt A, para. 7.4.
[38]. FACTS,
Submission to the ABT, Cable and subscription television services for
Australia, op. cit., submission 188, p. 17, para. 13.22. Note: FACTS is
now called Free TV Australia.
[39]. Nilsen
Premiere, Submission to the ABT, Cable and subscription television services
for Australia, op. cit., submission 85, para. 13.22, p. 95; and the
Confederation of Australian Sport, Evidence to the ABT, Cable and
subscription television services for Australia, op. cit., p. 1027, para. 13.22.
[40]. M
Westfield, The
gatekeepers: the global media battle to control Australia’s pay TV,
Pluto Press, Sydney, 2000, p. 245.
[41]. R
Jolly, Sport
on television: to siphon or not to siphon?, Research paper 14, 2009–10,
Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2010, see the section on Howard Government
policy.
[42]. Anti-hoarding
changes required free-to-air broadcasters who did not intend to televise live a
substantial portion of events to which they had live rights, to offer the
unused rights for a nominal charge to the ABC and SBS. The ABC and SBS were
then bound to televise live the designated events they accepted or to offer the
rights (either in total or in part) to the other national broadcaster. Only if
the public broadcasters did not want events, would they then become available
to pay television.
[43]. Productivity
Commission, Broadcasting
Inquiry report, March 2000, p. 435.
[44]. Productivity
Commission, Annual
review of regulatory burdens on business: social and economic infrastructure
services, Research Report, Melbourne, 15 September 2009, p. 155.
[45]. Australian
Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA), Submission
to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Sport
on television: a review of the anti-siphoning scheme in the contemporary
digital environment, October 2009, p. 3.
[46]. Free
TV Australia, Keep
sport free on TV, media release, 18 September 2009.
[47]. Australian
Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA), Media
changes a welcome first step, media release, 6 May 2017 and Free TV
Australia, Broadcasting
reforms positive for Aussie content and local jobs, media release, 6
May 2017.
[48]. Senate Standing Committee for Selection of Bills, Report, 3, 2016, The Senate, Canberra, 3 March 2016 and Senate
Standing Committee for Selection of Bills, Report, 5, 2016, The Senate, Canberra, 1 September 2016, p. 11.
[49]. Senate Standing Committee for Selection of Bills, Report, 6, 2017, The Senate, Canberra, 15 June 2017.
[50]. Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Alert
digest, 4, 2016, The Senate, 17 March 2016,
p. 1 and Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Alert
digest, 6, 2016,
The Senate, 17 March 2016, p. 1.
[51]. Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, Scrutiny
digest, 7, 2017, The Senate, 21 June 2017.
[52]. Environment
and Communications Legislation Committee, Inquiry
into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016 [Provisions],
The Senate, Canberra, May 2016, p. 37.
[53]. Environment
and Communications Legislation Committee, Inquiry
into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016 [Provisions],
The Senate, Canberra, November 2016, p .2.
[54]. J
Clare (Shadow Minister for Communications), Interview
with Michael Brissenden, ABC AM: Media Reform,
marriage equality, Western Australian MPs, transcript, 2 March 2016.
[55]. Ibid.
[56]. Labor
Senators Dissenting Report, Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016 [Provisions], op. cit., p. 37.
[57]. Ibid.,
p. 28.
[58]. M
Rowland (Shadow Minister for Communications), Statement
on TEN Network Holdings announcement, media release, 14 June 2017.
[59]. M
Rowland, ‘Second
reading speech: Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2017’,
House of Representatives, Debates, 20 September 2017, p. 7097.
[60]. B
Mitchell, ‘Second
reading speech: Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2017’,
House of Representatives, Debates, 21 September 2017, p. 7175.
[61]. Ibid.,
p. 7176.
[62]. S
Ludlam (Deputy Leader Australian Greens), Protect
media diversity and local content first: Greens, media release, 2 March
2016.
[63]. Ibid.
[64]. Ibid.
[65]. Australian
Greens, ‘Dissenting
report’, Environment and Communications Legislation Committee,
Inquiry into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016
[Provisions], The Senate, Canberra, May 2016, p. 43.
[66]. A
Remeikis and L Battersby, ‘Hinch
brings media reform closer’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 May 2017,
p. 8.
[67]. N
Christensen, ‘Will
Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch hold the key to media reform?’, Mumbrella, 8 July 2016.
[68]. Remeikis
and Battersby, ‘Hinch
brings media reform closer’, op. cit.
[69]. Christensen,
‘Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch’, op. cit.
[70]. D
White, ‘Broadcasters
to be viable after reform’, The Australian Financial Review, 19
January 2016, p. 6.
[71]. Christensen,
‘Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch’, op. cit.
[72]. R
Lewis, ‘Networks
dismiss deal on media bill’, The Australian, Saturday 17 June 2017,
p. 2.
[73]. A
Tillett, ‘One
Nation edges nearer media deal’, The Australian Financial Review, 26
June 2017, p. 9.
[74]. M
Mason, ‘One
Nation seeks Qld deal in media laws’, The Australian Financial Review,
5 June 2017, p. 29.
[75]. Remeikis
and Battersby, ‘Hinch
brings media reform closer’, op. cit.
[76]. M
Mason, ‘Cross
bench not sold on case for reform’, The Australian Financial Review,
7 March 2016.
[77]. N
Xenophon, Deal
or no deal: media law changes must include licence fee cuts and a fair tax on
Facebook, Google and Netflix, media release, 1
September 2016.
[78]. Ibid.
Note: a turnover tax is a tax levied on turnover (revenue) at a specific rate,
irrespective of the source of revenue and whether or not the revenue is
associated with any profit or loss to the entity (as defined by Economics
Section, Parliamentary Library).
[79]. D Davidson and J Mitchell, ‘Fifield warns diversity in danger’, The
Australian, 5 September 2016, p. 23.
[80]. R
Lewis, ‘Media
bill set to be left in the cold’, The Australian, 23 June, p. 4.
[81]. R
Lewis, ‘Union
backs new media plan’, The Australian, 7 July 2017, p. 2.
[82]. Joint
Select Committee on Broadcasting Legislation, Three
broadcasting reform proposals, House of Representatives, Canberra, June
2013: recommendation 1.
[83]. I
Audsley, (Chief Executive Officer, Prime Media Group), Evidence
to Joint Select Committee on Broadcasting Legislation, 18 March 2013, p. 17.
[84]. WIN
Network and Network TEN, Submissions
to Joint Select Committee on Broadcasting Legislation, March 2013.
[85]. A
Lancaster (Chief Executive Officer, WIN Network Pty Ltd), Evidence
to Joint Select Committee on Broadcasting Legislation, 18 March 2013, p. 11.
[86]. WIN,
Submission
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry Into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016, 21 March 2016, pp. 5–6.
[87]. Ibid.
[88]. Ibid.
[89]. D
White, ‘Fairfax chair hopeful of media reform’, The
Australian Financial Review, 9 November 2015, p. 9.
[90]. P
Durkin and J Lynch, ‘Ownership
laws a decade overdue, says Fairfax CEO’, The Australian Financial
Review, 17 March 2016, p. 10.
[91]. D
Crowe and J Mitchell, ‘Forces
massing to fight Fifield's media reforms’, The Australian, 2 March
2016, p. 6.
[92]. The anti-siphoning regime prevents certain televised events,
which have been listed by the Government, from being appropriated by pay
television operators so that only those who subscribe to a pay service are able
to view the events. Free-to-air television broadcasters argue that it is not in
the public interest to allow subscription operators to force audiences to pay
to view programs; subscription television owners argue free-to-air broadcasters
support the anti-siphoning list because it is in their financial interest to do
so and not for any concern about the public interest. For a detailed discussion
of this issue see R Jolly, Sport
on television: to siphon or not to siphon?,
Research paper, 14, 2009–10, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2010.
[93]. Foxtel,
Submission
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry Into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016, 21 March 2016, p. 1.
[94]. Ten
Network Holdings, A
statement from Ten Network on media reform, media release, 1 September
2016.
[95]. Ibid.
[96]. Ibid.
[97]. Mediaweek,
‘Media
bosses unite to push media reform with threat of more delays’, Mediaweek website, 2 September 2016.
[98]. Ibid.
[99]. Ibid.
[100]. Prime
Media, Submission
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry Into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016, 21 March 2016, p. 3.
[101]. Ibid.
[102]. M
Fifield (Minister for Communications and the Arts), Major
reforms to support Australian broadcasters, media release,
6 May 2017; Commercial Radio Australia, Commercial
radio welcomes removal of licence fees, media release, 6 May 2017.
[103].
Free TV Australia, Broadcasting
reforms positive for Aussie content and local jobs, media release, 6
May 2017.
[104].
Fifield, Major reforms, op. cit.
[105].
Ibid.
[106].
Ibid.
[107]. R
Jolly, ‘Broadcasting
and content reform package: broadcasting licensing fees’, Budget Review
2017–18, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, May 2017.
[108]. Free TV, Broadcasting
reforms, op. cit. and Australian Subscription Television and Radio
Association (ASTRA), Media
changes a welcome first step, media release, 6 May 2017.
[109]. ASTRA, Media changes,
op. cit.
[110]. L
Battersby, ‘Media
chiefs hit Canberra over reforms’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May
2017, p. 18.
[111]. D
Davidson, ‘Media
chiefs urge Senate reform’, The Australian, 29 May, p. 1.
[112]. Lewis,
‘Media bill set to be left in the cold’, op. cit.
[113]. B
Eltham, ‘Who
benefits from deregulating the media?’, New Matilda, 11 March 2014.
[114]. B
Eltham, ‘Good
For moguls, bad for journalists: what the Coalition’s media reforms will do’,
New Matilda, 2 March 2016.
[115]. Ibid.
[116]. B Keane and G Dyer, ‘Removal of “two out of three” ain’t bad for News Corp’, Crikey, 4 February 2014.
[117].
G Dyer and B Keane, ‘Winners
from the media package will need a lot more than handouts’, Crikey,
8 May 2017.
[118].
Ibid.
[119]. B
Keane and G Dyer, ‘Media
reforms cannot proceed while Ten is on the brink’, Crikey, 16 June
2017.
[120]. V
O’Donnell, ‘Who benefits from media reform? If history is any guide, it’s not
the public’, The Conversation, 11 March
2016.
[121]. Ibid.
[122]. T
Dwyer, Statement
to Media Watch, 27 January, 2016, Media Watch, transcript,
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
[123]. T
Dwyer, ‘Why
media reform in Australia has been so hard to achieve’, The Conversation,
12 May 2017.
[124]. Ibid.
[125]. M
Fraser, Statement
to Media Watch, 27 January, 2016, Media Watch, transcript,
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
[126]. D
Muller, ‘Diversity and local voices at risk as media owners aim to become
emperors of everything’, The Conversation,
29 February 2016.
[127]. Ibid.
[128]. ‘ACCC chair backs push for media law reform’, The Newspaper Works, 5 November 2015.
[129]. D
White, ‘ACCC addresses fears over News Corp expansion’, The Australian Financial
Review, 1 February 2016, p. 29 and Competition
and Consumer Act 2010.
[130]. M
de Percy, ‘Archaic
cross-media laws won’t save local content’, The Conversation, 12
March 2014.
[131]. Ibid.
[132]. Ibid.
[133]. Editorial,
‘Technology
and market forces test old media laws’, The Australian, 11 March
2014, p. 11.
[134]. Institute
of Public Affairs, Submission
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016, 21 March 2016, p. 2.
[135]. D
Wilding (University of Technology Sydney) Evidence
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications, Inquiry into
Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016, 31 March 2016,
p. 8.
[136]. Ibid.
[137]. Ibid.
[138]. Ibid.
[139]. Essential
Media Communications, ‘Media regulation’,
Essential Report, 25 March 2013, p. 7.
[140]. D
White, ‘Regional
Australia backs media reform’, The Australian Financial
Review, 12 October 2015, p. 26.
[141]. Essential
Media Communications, ‘Media regulation’, op. cit.
[142]. White,
‘Regional Australia backs media reform’, op. cit., p. 26.
[143]. Explanatory
Memorandum, p. 12.
[144]. Ibid.
[145]. Ibid.
[146]. The
Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights can be found at pages 13 to 19 of
the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill.
[147]. D
Vadori, ‘Democracy
and diversity: media ownership in Australia’, On Line opinion:
Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate, 11 June 2014.
Note: paragraph added to enhance readability.
[148]. Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Thirty-sixth
report of the 44th Parliament 16 March 2016, p. 1 and Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Human
rights scrutiny report, 7, 11 October 2016, p. 99.
[149]. Parliamentary
Joint Committee on Human Rights, Human
rights scrutiny report, 6, 21 June 2017, p. 55.
[150]. Broadcasting
Services Act 1992.
[151]. Department
of Communications Forward Development Unit, Future directions for commercial
television, AGPS, Canberra, 1985, p. xx.
[152]. Australian
Broadcasting Authority (ABA), Adequacy
of Local News and Information Programs on Commercial Television Broadcasting
Services in Regional and Rural Australia (Solus Operator and Two Operator
Markets), ABA, Sydney, June 2004, p. 3.
[153]. Explanatory
Memorandum, Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media
Reform) Bill 2016, pp. 86–87.
[154]. Proposed
subsection 61CY(2) of the BSA.
[155]. For
current requirements see section 43 of the BSA and Broadcasting
Services (Additional Television Licence Condition) Notice 2014.
[156]. Section
38A of the Broadcasting
Services Act 1992 (the BSA) provides for the
allocation of an additional commercial television licence to an operator who is
providing the only commercial television service in a market. Under section 38B
the BSA provides for the allocation of an additional commercial
television broadcasting licence to licensees in markets where there are two
commercial television licences in force. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill provides that ‘section 38A and 38B licences are allocated
by the ACMA to existing licensees to ensure that regional audiences receive all
three main television networks, where there are less than three broadcasters in
the licence area’: Explanatory
Memorandum, p. 85.
[157]. Broadcasting Services
(Additional Television Licence Condition) Notice 2014.
[158]. Subsections
43(2) and 43(3) provide that if ACMA proposes to vary or revoke a licence condition
or to impose a new condition, it must: give to the licensee written notice of
its intention, give the licensee a reasonable opportunity to make
representations to the ACMA in relation to the proposed action and publish the
proposed changes in the Gazette. This section does not allow the ACMA to
vary or revoke a condition set out in Part 3 or 4 of Schedule 2 of
the BSA.
[159]. Broadcasting Services
(Events) Notice (No. 1) 2010.
[160]. Parliament
of Australia, ‘Commercial
Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017 homepage’, Australian Parliament website.
[161]. Radiocommunications
Act 1992.
[162]. Radiocommunications
Taxes Collection Act 1983.
[163]. Radiocommunications
(Transmitter Licence Tax) Act 1983.
[164]. R
Jolly, Broadcasting
Legislation Amendment (Media Reform) Bill 2016, Bills digest, 13, 2016-17,
Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2016.
[165]. This
is not to say that it has not been raised; for example Labor’s spokesperson
Jason Clare has alluded to the role of the ABC as noted previously in the
Digest for the previous version of this Bill.
[166]. Department
of Communications and the Arts (DCA), Media
control and ownership, Policy background paper, 3, June 2014.
[167]. Ibid.,
p. 20.
[168]. Ibid.
[169]. N
Xenophon, Statement
to Media Watch, 27 January, 2016, Media Watch, transcript,
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
[170]. The
Charter is set out at section 6 of the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983.
[171]. Free
TV Australia, Submission
to Australian Communications and Media Authority Regional Television Local
Content Investigation, 27 August 2013.
[172]. For
example, J Sloan, 'Aunty suddenly fills the air, and it's a real shame', The Australian, 2 October 2010, p. 13.
[173]. M
Johnson, Heartland:
why the bush needs its ABC, Australia Institute, Canberra, September
2015, pp. 9–10.
[174]. Broadcasting
Services (Additional Television Licence Condition) Notice 2014, section 8.
[175]. Broadcasting
Services (Regional Commercial Radio - Material of Local Significance) Licence
Condition 2014.
[176]. K
Hess and L Waller, ‘Regions at the pointy end of media reform’, The
Conversation, 2 March 2016.
[177]. Ibid.
[178]. Broadcasting Services (Regional Commercial Radio - Material of Local
Significance) Licence Condition 2014, op. cit.
[179]. ACMA,
Regional
commercial television local content investigation report, ACMA website,
December 2013, p. 35.
[180]. Ibid.,
p. 36.
[181]. DigEcon
Research, Submission
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry Into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016, 21 March 2016, p. 5.
[182]. M
Mason and D White, ‘Free
and pay TV row over licence fees’, The Australian Financial Review,
14 March 2016, p. 30.
[183]. M
Mason, ‘Budget
2016: free-to-air and pay TV clash over licence fee cut’, The Sydney
Morning Herald, (online edition), 3 May 2016.
[184]. Screen
Producers Australia, SPA welcomes
relief for broadcaster, but notes the entire value chain is under pressure,
media release, 28 June 2017.
[185]. Public
Interest Journalism Foundation, Submission
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry Into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016, 21 March 2016, pp. 2–3.
[186]. Ibid.
[187]. M
Ricketson, Submission
to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications Legislation
Committee, Inquiry Into Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform)
Bill 2016, 21 March 2016, p. 2.
[188]. Ibid.
[189]. Ibid.,
p. 3.
[190]. Prime
Media submission to Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
Inquiry, op. cit., pp. 7–8.
[191]. Senate
Environment and Communications Legislation Committee Inquiry report, op. cit.,
pp. 34–35.
[192]. Prime
Media submission to Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
Inquiry, op. cit., pp. 7–8.
[193]. D
Rowe, ‘Anti-siphoning
changes a blow to sports fans who want to watch on free-to-air TV’, The
Conversation, 5 June 2017.
[194]. Ibid.
[195]. Ibid.
[196]. A
Kidman, ‘The
anti-siphoning list for sports isn’t going away’, Lifehacker website, 17 May
2015.
[197]. ACMA,
‘Media
Interests snapshot’, current as at 28 June 2017, note: this ACMA page also
provides more detailed information about the business interests of broadcasters,
and Ibis World, Newspaper publishing in Australia, June 2017, available
only through subscription.
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