Report: Licence fee cuts recommended
Dept of Communications recommends cutting the $153 million licence fees for Free to Air networks.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
The Department of Communications has recommended that the Turnbull government cut $153 million licence fees for Free to Air networks, according to a Fairfax article.
Metro and regional networks have lobbied hard to dump the fees they pay, arguing other players such as Netflix and Google are exempt from the same fees.
If the Treasury enacts a cut as part of the May budget it would the be the first since the Gillard government’s cut from 9 per cent to 4.5 per cent of revenues in March 2013. That came with no stipulations networks should increase local content. 2013 -as with 2016- was a federal election year.
Foxtel has argued networks should not be given further cuts without changes to the anti-siphoning list.
A spokesman for Senator Fifield said, “The government’s consideration of broadcast licence fees is ongoing.”
Meanwhile FremantleMedia Australia CEO Ian Hogg has also backed wider media reforms.
“First of all, it’s absolutely critical for the fabric of Australian broadcast media that these reforms come through,” he told The Australian.
“The current rules are archaic at best and dysfunctional at worst and there’s pretty broad consensus now they should go through.”
9 Responses
So the network lobbyists have succeeded at the expense of the Australian tax payer. These are the commercial networks who have paid almost double for AFL and NRL rights and looked to cheap New Zealand drama to fulfil their local drama content obligations. The Nine Network’s drama quota was 50% NZ shows in 2014. They got their digital spectrum for nothing. They get a 20% tax rebate on all Australian drama and documentaries up to 65 hours. They access Screen Australia for significant equity investment in mini-series such as Molly and House Husbands etc. They access cheap animation to fulfill their children’s drama obligations. They are protected in sport by anti-siphoning rules. The list of concessions and subsidies is now very long and a new Federal minister swallows all this and wants to eliminate licence fees. Perhaps it is time for the Department of Communications to do an audit of…
What about all hundreds of millions the federal govt has given of tax payer money to the FTA networks to fund their transitions to digital over the years .all that digital equipment is tax payer funded .FTA should be paying full commercial rates for their broadcasting not have it cut back.someone correct me but is this not right.
The spectrum should be open to all if no licence fees and no more bashing the public broadcasters
So the government now loses $153 million of revenue… triggering more cuts to ABC and SBS no doubt. Then when SBS puts its hand out to allow more sponsorship just to maintain existing services the commercial sector cries foul that they are subsidising SBS by having to share more of the advertising market?
If online platforms are getting such a free ride, and if the broadcasters see using FTA spectrum as such a financial and regulatory burden then why don’t they just hand back their broadcast licences and go online themselves?
They should make the broadcasters put that towards new local content on top of the current investments instead of a fee and then that will produce jobs and sector will grow . Yearly audits can be done to make sure the money is going into content and not misused .
Netflix, like Quickflix and Blockbuster don’t use public spectrum. How to fund this proposed $153Million? No probs – think ABC & SBS funding, and/or cuts to health services with the co-payment-by-stealth.
Netflix and Google don’t pay fees because they haven’t been given use of valuable publicly-owned RF spectrum to make a profit by showing ads separated with short segments of programs. Presto and Stan don’t pay any fees either.
If the commercial FTA networks are having trouble making a big enough profit, perhaps they should
adjust their business models to something more appropriate for the current market conditions (you know, like every other business has to)? They could start by considering how they’ve been treating their ever-dwindling audiences?
Well said.
The large chunk of the spectrum that FTA uses is a national resource, which means FTA should be paying full commercial market value. If they want to use Netflix as a reason to have free use of the spectrum then FTA needs to change their business model.