‘Bloody well give a helping hand’: Seven news boss calls on Albo to help journalism and end ‘archaic’ $45M broadcast tax
Seven West Media news boss, Anthony De Ceglie, has called for the Albanese government to scrap an “archaic” broadcast tax introduced six decades ago that costs the three commercial TV stations a combined $45 million a year.
De Ceglie will deliver a speech to the Melbourne Press Club on Tuesday, where he suggests that, rather than attempt to claw back lost funds from overseas social media giants, the Albanese government could abolish broadcast spectrum fees being paid for the commercial broadcasters that total $45 million this financial year – money the Seven boss argues could fund hundreds of journalism jobs in Australia.
As De Ceglie told Mumbrella, if television stations are airing ten hours of free-to-air news a day, then this broadcast fee is actually a tax on journalism.
Further to this, De Ceglie is calling on the Albanese Government to “immediately investigate a rebate for the costs of producing news and current affairs”, much like the rebates given to locally produced drama.
“The government has already decided that it’s so important to have this local content for our national psyche that is should be subsidised,” he says of shows like Home and Away, which receive such rebates.
“I would argue that it’s even more important to safeguard the future of Australian news.”
The below excerpt is from De Ceglie’s speech, which he will give at Melbourne Press Club on Tuesday.
It gets lost on many people that every single night across Australia the number one and the number two program on TV is the 6pm news bulletin.
Combined 7NEWS and 9NEWS reach an astonishing 3.6 million people on average each night. Again, that’s every single night.
In fact, there’s only two events of the year that the massive audience reach of those two 6pm news bulletins combined is beaten – the AFL and the NRL grand final.
I believe that Channel 7 and Channel 9 are news companies first and foremost.
It’s in our DNA.
It seeps out of our pores and into the living rooms of Australians.
We are the shining light on the hill in an increasingly dystopian world of conspiracy theorists and deepfakes and anti-vaxxer cookers.
Elon Musk doesn’t care about the truth. In fact, he revels in peddling lies and boasts about using his bin fire of a site to influence the US election.
Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg is seemingly happy for Meta to profit off the page impressions that child sex offenders create when they routinely use his site to prey on their next victim. Not even the parents of dead children are enough for Facebook to take seriously the harm it is doing to society.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labelled Meta arrogant bullies who should fess up to the damage they cause.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has spoken many times about how social media platforms cynically use algorithms to push dangerous conspiracy theories onto impressionable people – creating a vicious spiral down a rabbit hole he calls the “dark corners of the internet”.
Against these evil forces – and calling them that is not an exaggeration – there is only one true antidote.
The news. The truth. The fourth estate.
In a world where the proliferation of misinformation has never been worse, our role as journalists has never been more important. But we can’t do it alone. And the Government – who tells voters so often of their fears about social media – needs to realise this and step up to help us.
If the Prime Minister is genuinely worried about the toxicity of Facebook and Meta and X and TikTok… then bloody well give a helping hand to the journalism that fights for facts.
The government needs to stop treating Australia’s news stations with disdain.
Every day across our nation, Channel 7 proudly produces about 26 hours of journalism. But just like those regional newspapers that I started my career at, we can’t promise we can keep doing that forever.
The Government acts like newsrooms are still bathing in the rivers of gold. It does this at a high cost and a high risk to journalism and the Australian democracy.
Free to air networks like Channel 7 still pay an archaic ‘broadcast tax’ that was designed 60 years ago during an era of super profits that simply no longer exist.
At a time when a viewer can access to 10 hours of news on our Seven on any given day … the so-called Commercial Broadcast Tax is actually just a tax on journalism. Even more so, it’s a tax on the truth and it’s a tax on facts.
The cost of the Commercial Broadcasting Tax this financial year for stations like Seven, Nine and 10 will be a combined $45 million.
I ask the Albanese Government how many journalism jobs do they think that is? How many TV newsroom shifts will disappear so we can pay it? How many regional reporters will be let go?
No other comparable jurisdiction in the world places tax burdens of this kind on broadcasters.
Licence fees paid by Australian broadcasters are now the highest in the world at 52 times more than the equivalent per capita charge on our US peers.
Make no mistake, I am using today’s speech to call on the Albanese Government and the Dutton Opposition to vow to scrap the Commercial Broadcast Tax immediately in the name of journalism.
I want to go one step further though.
The Government must also immediately investigate a rebate for the costs of producing news and current affairs.
They already have a rebate for the production of Australian dramas like Home and Away and for Australian documentaries.
The government has already decided that it’s so important to have this local content for our national psyche that is should be subsidised. I would argue that it’s even more important to safeguard the future of Australian news.
There are all kinds of rebates in other industries.
And us journalists do a bloody good job of helping other industries like miners and small businesses lobby for change.
It’s high-time we did it for ourselves.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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If I recall correctly, the’ tax’ is a % of the profit the broadcaster makes in a financial year. The ‘airspace’ to broadcast belongs to all Australians and is therefore licensed by the government. The fee has been reduced over the years to compensate for Australian content and Children’s programming – the latter now defunct for commercial stations as another compensation. Enough!
Surely rather than suggesting cutbacks on fees for the major networks, perhaps the government could subsidise local and provincial news with some of those fees. Even supporting diversified, investigative newsgathering by journalists would be far better than the current conservative views by some of the networks.
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65 years ago there was no TV news in Australia. It was enabled by a change in technology, one they were very happy about. Now they complain about a new change in technology because it’s against their personal best interest.
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“Channel 7 proudly produces about 26 hours of journalism.”
No mention of the words quality or researched. I assume you allowed for the 13 hours of adverts, station promos, horoscopes and other marketplace sponsorships, Channel 7 regularly schedule in your claim of 26 hours of journalism
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I think you will find the ‘“archaic” broadcast tax’ is actually a cost and not a tax.
Pre-COVID, costs for the three commercial channels for the increased broadcast spectrum (additional channels etc.) was over $200m p.a. The spectrum (of all broadcasts) is actually a national asset that belongs to the Australian people (not to commercial entities) and is costed by the incumbent government.
The spectrum costs were slashed during COVID … to $45m p.a. Quite some discount eh, and they want further discounts … probably because of the quality of television content that they are providing is driving the audience away.
And I also note that the people of Australia are receiving less broadcast spectrum funds from the FTAs, but the cost to watch television by a viewer is increasing as the viewing options increase.
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