Oz commercial radio granted collective bargaining

20 September 2021

Oz commercial radio granted collective bargaining

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has granted Commercial Radio Australia members interim authorisation for ten years to collectively bargain with Google and Facebook concerning payment for content featured on those platforms.

CRA chief executive officer Joan Warner welcomed the ACCC’s announcement, which allows radio stations to collectively engage in discussions about fair payment and exchange information about negotiations without breaching competition laws.

“CRA now has the opportunity to act as the bargaining agent for CRA members to secure fair compensation for individual publishers for content they produce that appears on the digital platforms, to reflect the value of that content and the resources required to produce that content,” CRA chief executive officer Joan Warner said.

“Negotiated outcomes providing compensation from Google and Facebook will help to sustain commercial radio stations in Australia, many of whom provide small and local communities with regional news and information.”

In its draft determination the ACCC said the proposed conduct is likely to “result in public benefits through reduced transaction costs, improved input into negotiations and contribution to the sustainability of Australian news businesses”.

CRA members can commence collective negotiations while the ACCC seeks feedback on CRA’s application for final authorisation.

CRA represents 261 commercial radio stations across the country. It will be voluntary for CRA members to participate. The proposed authorisation excludes Nine Entertainment which previously announced it has reached agreements with Google and Facebook.

The ACCC has invited submissions in relation to its draft determination by 30 September 2021 before making a final decision.

Australia’s Channel Nine rapped by regulator over paid-for editorial

21 July 2021

Australia’s Channel Nine rapped by regulator over paid-for editorial

Australia’s media regulator has announced that TCN Channel Nine (Nine) has breached broadcasting rules for failing to disclose a commercial arrangement with McDonald’s behind a segment on its Today programme aired in October 2020.

Over the course of the programme the Today show presenters discussed a new McDonald’s product line and presented the range on-camera.

An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation found Nine did not satisfactorily bring to viewers’ attention that it had a commercial arrangement with McDonald’s to endorse the products, as required under the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice.

Under the Code, broadcasters must disclose commercial arrangements to viewers if they air material that endorses or features the products of a commercial partner. This can be done before, during or after the programme or on the programme’s official website.

ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said viewers should not be left guessing if what they are watching is a paid endorsement.

“This kind of blurring of the lines between advertising and programme content breaks down the audience’s trust in what they are seeing,” Ms O’Loughlin said.

“Transparency around commercial arrangements is very important for viewers, particularly if the programme contains a mix of facts, editorial and advertisements.

“In this case Channel Nine was not clear enough in disclosing their commercial arrangement and I expect them to do better.”

Accepting the breach finding, Today will list all its commercial arrangements on its website. Nine will also bring the ACMA investigation and finding to the attention of its staff.

Last year Channel 7 also breached the commercial arrangement rules with a segment on The Morning Show showcasing a Big W clothing line. The ACMA report into this broadcast was published in October 2020.

In 2019 the ACMA commissioned qualitative and quantitative research to gauge community perceptions and attitudes to commercialisation in news and current affairs. It included a finding that 84 per cent of respondents believed that they had noticed commercial influence in television current affairs.

“The findings highlighted the importance Australians place on transparency, including measures which allow viewers to distinguish opinion or commercial content from factual reporting,” Ms O’Loughlin said.

ABC welcomes Australian government’s focus of Media Reform Green Paper

4 June 2021

ABC welcomes Australian government’s focus of Media Reform Green Paper

The ABC has welcomed the Australian government’s focus on what the Corporation says are much-needed reforms to the Australian television and screen industry. The ABC has called for greater consultation on finding effective measures to ensure the future sustainability of the sector.

The ABC’s response to the government’s Media Reform Green Paper highlights the continued importance of free-to-air (FTA) television services, noting that 75% of Australians watch FTA television for an average of 21.3 hours a week, compared with 12.4 hours for online video-on-demand (VOD) viewers.

David Anderson, ABC Managing Director, said: “We welcome the Green Paper’s recognition of the essential role that FTA television plays in making Australian news, culture and stories available to all Australians.

“As the nation’s biggest backer of homegrown content and creativity, the ABC agrees that broadcast television is important for most Australians and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

“We look forward to further consultation involving the government and FTA broadcasters to find the best approach to ensuring a sustainable future for the Australian television industry across the next decade and beyond.”

The ABC’s response to the Green Paper proposes principles that should be applied to developing a future roadmap for television, including:

Maintaining the Australian television broadcasting system and the distinct roles that national and commercial broadcasters play in it;
Equitable distribution of spectrum in each broadcast market; and
Ensuring consistent access to ABC services for all Australians across metropolitan, regional and remote areas.

In response to the Green Paper, the ABC says the proposal to shift broadcasters to delivering services through shared multiplexes, reducing the number of 7 MHz channels allocated for broadcasting, will require broadcasters to reduce the number and/or quality of the channels they offer audiences.

The ABC also submits that the Green Paper model removes any future growth path for FTA television, by preventing broadcasters from offering television services in higher-resolution formats to meet audiences’ expectations and remain competitive with online platforms.

The ABC welcomes the invitation in the Green Paper to propose other means of ensuring a sustainable Australian broadcast television sector.

The ABC submission makes the following points:

In combination with other funding sources such as Screen Australia, state screen agencies and the producer offset, additional funding for the ABC of $30 million per annum over the next three years would deliver more Australian stories on television screens. That funding will support the production of an extra 36 hours of Australian drama, factual and children’s content and 30 hours of arts, music and specialist programming a year.
The ABC strongly supports the introduction of regulatory mechanisms to ensure the presence and prominence of FTA broadcasters’ services on connected-TV platforms, which are becoming a new type of gatekeeper for Australian media services and content.
The ABC acknowledges the merit of the proposition that major international VOD services should contribute to the Australian production sector. Both content commissioners and audiences benefit from a thriving independent sector, and the Corporation supports measures that would sustain and grow it. The ABC would support regulation that would require SVODs to contribute to an Australian content fund. Careful design is required to ensure that it does not add to inflationary pressures already affecting the production sector.
Legislating an explicit requirement for the national broadcasters to provide new Australian programming is unnecessary. In the absence of any quota, the ABC is already a major investor in Australian content and a key partner to Australia’s independent production sector. Further, the imposition of an explicit content obligation risks affecting the ABC’s operational independence.

The ABC’s response to the Media Reform Green Paper is available to read here.

Facebook bans news in Australia – wherever it’s from

18 February 2021

Facebook bans news in Australia – wherever it’s from

Global social media platform Facebook has, according to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, “unfriended Australia”. Morrison’s comments follow the closing of all news providers’ Facebook pages – whether domestic or international – in response to a proposed law in the country that would force companies like Facebook pay for news content on their platforms.

The ban has taken away access to the Facebook feeds of public broadcasters ABC and SBS, commercial news channels such as Nine Network, as well as whole raft of other organisations that may have only the most tenuous connection with news – such as Brisbane-based Podnews which reports on developments in podcasting across the world. Commercial radio’s trade association, Commercial Radio Australia, has also had its page blocked, although the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia has escaped the Facebook axe as this article was being prepared. The AIB’s main Facebook page has been blocked and our awards website appears to have had its contents filtered

Many Australian government Facebook pages were blocked, along with pages of organisations such as the Bureau of Meterology and Queensland Health – both later restored. A list of affected pages was compiled on this Twitter feed. A Google document keeping tab on pages that are down has also been created by Elliott Bledsoe.

In addition, the pages of news organisations across the world – including the BBC, Al Jazeera, New York Times for example – are now not accessible in Australia.

In a statement on the issue made by Managing Director David Anderson, the ABC said:

ABC News is Australia’s number one digital news service and the nation’s most trusted news outlet.

The ABC’s digital news services will always remain free and accessible to all Australians on the ABC website and via the ABC News app, providing independent and reliable news, information and analysis.

Despite key issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic having ongoing effects on all Australians, Facebook has today removed important and credible news and information sources from its Australian platform.

We will continue our discussions with Facebook today following this development.

Facebook’s Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand issued a statement saying that “with a heavy heart” it was choosing to stop allowing news content on its services in Australia.

The social platform is a major source of news in Australia, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report: In spite of this, Facebook says it generates little revenue from news although it is clear that news is one of the drivers for people to use the platform.

Unlike in Myanmar where VPNs allow the country’s citizens to circumvent the military’s ban on the Internet and social platforms, the use of virtual private networks does not help in Australia. That’s because Facebook has stopped the pages at source and disabled the content. It’s unclear whether the assets of all the items that a major news organisation such as the ABC are preserved on Facebook servers to allow the page to be reactivated if the social platform reverses its decision in the future.

Have you been affected? Let us know by sending us your comments or story at editorial [at] aib.org.uk.

Australian government accepts media freedom recommendations, more work needed

18 December 2020

Australian government accepts media freedom recommendations, more work needed

Australia’s government has accepted recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security following the Committee’s Inquiry into issues around freedom of the press.

The Inquiry – and one in the Australian Senate – took on added significance with the raids on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC News Room in Sydney. The unprecedented raids were criticised widely within and outside Australia with some civil society organisations saying that media freedom within the country had been seriously eroded.

The Government Response means that search warrants involving journalists and whistleblowers will need to be signed off by senior judges, offering some degree of protection for journalists and news organisations covering stories regarded as sensitive by government.

Speaking to the ABC, the Corporation’s managing director David Anderson said that the response offered “some progress in meeting press freedom requirements”.

“The ABC remains concerned that police and other agencies can use warrants to investigate the work of journalists and whistleblowers, as we have seen in recent years,” Anderson said.

“We look forward to working with the Government to ensure the implementation of reforms that protect journalists and their sources acting in the public interest and which bring Australia on par with similar standards in other Western democracies.”

The AIB – which responded to the Parliamentary and Senate Inquiries and gave in person evidence to the Senate – will continue to monitor the situation in Australia as part of its continuing media freedom workstream.