The federal government is considering changes that will make finding local television applications easier on smart televisions in a policy response to be made public before the end of the year.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the response is also expected to alleviate concerns about the high amount regional broadcasters pay in spectrum tax.
However, multiple sources familiar with the response, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said reform to laws that ensure television networks get first offer on broadcast rights for live sports events is not expected to be a focus.
The commercial television sector is expected to receive a policy response from the federal government.Credit:Peter Rae
“It’s likely we will issue a response ... that will indicate how the government is thinking about these issues and the way forward. It’s unlikely to be a detailed, lengthy document, but it will give a sense of the future work directions,” Mr Fletcher said. “We’ll be getting a bit of an update into what we think the future work program looks like.”
The ‘prominence’ of streaming applications on smart TV screens has become one of the biggest regulatory issues for local television networks, which view advertising based streaming services as a key source of growth.
Smart TVs - devices that allow people to watch television through an internet connection - are increasingly common in Australian households, but manufacturers like Samsung, Toshiba and Sony often strike global deals with international tech and media companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to feature their apps in favourable positions on their interfaces, muscling out local channels. A law requiring local online apps such as 9Now, 7Plus and 10Play to be easier to find would resolve these concerns.
Parts of the television sector are also worried about the expiry of a scheme that ensures regional broadcasters do not pay more than metropolitan networks for use of spectrum to deliver services.
Spectrum fees were introduced after the abolishment of broadcast licence fees in 2017, and are dependent on a range of factors including how much spectrum a network has and its strength. Industry sources expected the scheme that helped the regional broadcasters - known as the transitional support payment scheme - will either be extended or that the way spectrum tax is calculated will be changed.
Mr Fletcher’s comments were made after Free TV, the industry lobby group for the commercial television sector, launched a campaign last week to advocate three specific changes before the next federal election: the introduction of a law that requires free TV services and their online apps to be easy to find on smart televisions, the expansion of the anti-siphoning list to ensure streaming services cannot bid for key sporting events before free-to-air television networks, and an extension of support for regional broadcasters to ensure they don’t pay excessive amounts for the amount of spectrum they used to deliver services to communities.
“As our government considers what the future of broadcasting looks like in Australia, we need to ensure no one is left out and free commercial services can continue to thrive,” Free TV CEO Bridget Fair said last week.
Free TV’s concerns were raised with government after a green paper was made public last November, which proposed several measures to bolster the industry such as scrapping annual broadcast spectrum taxes for commercial TV networks and implementing local content quotas for Netflix and other global streaming services. Mr Fletcher said last year the green paper was made because the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had reinforced the need for regulatory action to help the TV industry.
Mr Fletcher introduced a range of measures to alleviate the pressures that the local media sector faced last year after COVID-19 led to economic factors that caused a sharp fall in advertising spend. One of the key measures - the introduction of a Public Interest News Gathering fund - is under scrutiny because some regional Australian publishers that won the multimillion-dollar government grants sacked staff and closed newsrooms, a breach of grant conditions.
“It was a series of staged payments,” Mr Fletcher said. “There were a set of conditions including continuation of the print edition ... and in circumstances where a print edition that had been the recipient of funding did not maintain print distribution there was an adjustment to the entitlement and that was dealt with either through a reduction in what would otherwise have been paid as an instalment or in a request for repayment.”
The comments by Mr Fletcher were made after the ABC announced on Friday it would employ more than 50 journalists in regional areas after striking deals with Google and Facebook for use of its content. Mr Fletcher said it was a pleasing outcome and proved that the government’s news media bargaining code - which requires the tech giants to negotiate payments with local media companies - had done its job.
“It is particularly pleasing that the ABC has chosen to allocate these resources to increase its presence in regional Australia,” he said. “What it also shows, again, is the success of the policy approach we took with the News Media Bargaining code, where we made it pretty clear what we wanted to see happen.”
Mr Fletcher said that any changes to government funding of the ABC would not be because of the money it now receives from Facebook and Google. He declined to comment on whether the current indexation freeze would be removed.
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