‘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.
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.
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.
“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
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.