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TV bosses seeking $157m cuts in license fees

David Gyngell, Tim Worner and Hamish McLennan will push for major cuts -or even the abolition- of TV license fees when they meet with the PM.

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Commercial Free to Air bosses David Gyngell, Tim Worner and Hamish McLennan will push for major cuts -or even the abolition- of TV license fees when they meet with the Prime Minister on Thursday.

License fees, currently at 4.5% of network revenue, totalled $157 million in 2013-14 an last received a 50% reduction in 2013.

But networks facing a flat advertising market, fragmenting audiences online media and new streaming models (two of which are part-owned by the same companies), are agreed on seeking further cuts.

Free TV Australia claims comparative license fees are 1.5 per cent of revenue in Britain, 0.1 per cent in New Zealand and 0.04 per cent in the US.

Previous cuts in license fees have not come with any strings, such as minimum first-run drama on multichannel.

Commercial networks have also cried foul over “subsidising” funding to SBS after a proposal to give SBS more flexibility with its prime time advertising.

Fairfax notes regional broadcasters, Prime, Southern Cross and WIN, will meet with the Prime Minister after their metropolitan counterparts and will push for the “reach rule” to be scrapped.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is overseas and not expected to attend the meetings.

13 Responses

  1. A simple solution would be for the government to auction the bandwidth off to the telecommunications companies.

    Minister Turnball said a while back ( in relation to ch 31 ) that VOD was the way of the future so I don’t see what would be so different for the commercial channels to go the same way.

  2. @ Russell – a good start, however I suggest some other commitments which must be made:

    1) Shows must start on the half hour.
    2) Late starts of up to 5 min are allowed. Exemptions can be made for live sports or late breaking news only (i.e. something “fantastic” that happened on MKR 3 wks ago and so you had more than enough time to edit appropriately does not count).
    3) If a show does start late then the time must be made up within the half hour by the removal of the necessary number of station promos. i.e. a late start is not allowed to “roll on”.
    4) Any apology or redaction must be made in the same timeslot as when the offence occurred. e.g. if ACA stuffs up then the apology must be made live during ACA, not on the website.
    5) Etc…

    1. There are, of course, others I’d like to add, but I only had 900 characters 😉

      Any breaches of the above are subject to heavy fines (e.g. every minute a show is late is a $10 000+ fine). This is all to be enforced by a committee of community members that have no affiliation at all to any station.

      I reckon given these conditions the network bosses would rather an increase in fees 😛

  3. That will be an interesting meeting. I wonder if Malcolm Turnbull, the Communications Minister will be present. He previously criticised Labor’s last 50% cut. Malcolm may be able to set some preconditions if this is contemplated. In fantasy land a salary cap would be a very interesting proposition for these overpaid and underperforming executives. But there is no need for the government to capitulate on this. Labor is not going to be more sympathetic. But the commercial free to air lobbyists will continue to camp outside the doors of ministers and the PM and try to bully and cajole.

  5. How much do these blokes earn. Take a pay cut first as your companies can’t afford you. The Govt should remove the digi chs from these 3 and sell them off to new entrants

  6. So the networks claim that letting SBS run more ads in prime time is “subsidizing” SBS

    So what do they call it when they ask the Australian taxpayer to provide $157m in cuts because their business model has chbaged and they haven’t adapted.

    That would be subsidizing

    Give them their license cuts and at the same time
    – NZ content does not count as Australian content
    – 20% original Australian content between 6am-midnight on digital multi-channels
    – scrap 75% reach rule
    – all TV stations regional and metro must have 30 minutes local news a day aired between 4pm and 11pm
    – tax Netflix gst
    – Netflix 20% of Australian revenue ro be reinvested into Australian content
    – open up anti siphoning sports list for fox sports
    – pay TV companies / Channels 20% revenue to be spent on Australian productions per channel

  7. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – Licence fees should not be cut – they should be quadrupled! The amount of total shit dished out by the commercial stations in the form of these so-called “reality(anything but) shows” proves the commercial stations have wantonly abused the privilege they’ve been afforded to run a TV station in Australia.

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