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ACMA pushing to stay relevant

The media watchdog is pushing to reinforce its role after the Convergence Review recommended two new regulation bodies be set up.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is pushing to reinforce its role after the Convergence Review recommended two new regulation bodies be set up.

The report recommends two new regulators, a self-regulatory and industry-funded body to displace the Australian Press Council and and a statutory body to replace ACMA and the Classifications Board.

In recent weeks ACMA has been on the hustings, with a press conference addressing the Kyle Sandilands outcome for 2DAY FM (including expressing some frustration at limited powers), appearances by Chairman Chris Chapman on SKY News, interviews to print media and yesterday a Press Release responding to the Review.

ACMA says it is well-placed to deal with a changing and converging landscape:

The ACMA has been living and working with the impact of convergence since its inception in 2005. For the last seven years it has been increasingly dealing on a daily basis with convergence issues such as telephone numbering and communications addressability, cybersafety, online security and a myriad of content-related matters.

Relentless digitalisation has rendered many of the assumptions, which underpin the current regime, ineffective. The ACMA has itself identified these “broken concepts,” as well as articulating what it believes are the “enduring concepts” to underpin future regulatory oversight of the citizen, consumer and public interest in the media and communications sector.

The ACMA is an independent player with deep experience of the current shape of the industry and insight into the disruptive changes which continue at an accelerated rate.

But other media have criticised ACMA’s duration in addressing complaints, and questioned outcomes for various breaches of the Code of Practices.

Senator Conroy’s department is currently considering all the recommendations of the 176 page Report…

4 Responses

  1. Have to say it again, dig out the old Broadcasting Control Board from the Bruce Gyngell archives and reinstate that. It’s all there already.

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