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Pay TV: SBS and ABC are buying up content just to keep it off the air

abc-logo1sbs-logo1The ABC is doing “aggressive” deals to lock out pay TV from showing the latest shows, the Australian Subscription TV & Radio Association has complained in a submission to the Government.

The allegation is contained in an ASTRA discussion paper submittted to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy which has been released today.

ASTRA complains: “There is clear evidence of an increasingly aggressive attitude from the ABC and SBS towards ‘competition’ with the subscription television sector. The rhetoric and behaviour of both the ABC and SBS has included pursuit of commercial terms which seek to ensure longer than industry standard ‘hold back’ clauses in production and acquisition deals, and in some instances the ABC in particular has been willing to pay more for content to ensure this happens.

“The clear intent of these deals is to block programming being made available to subscription television for as long as possible. This seems inconsistent with the charter goal of making content as widely available as possible.”

The report submission urges: “Programming investments made by the ABC and SBS, funded as they are by public money, should not include clauses such as subscription television rights “holdbacks”, which prevent the broadcast of that content on subscription television. The public broadcasters should not be entitled to use public money to acquire rights solely for the purpose of retarding competitive offerings.”

The ASTRA paper is one of more than 2,400 that have been submitted to the government as it considers the future model and funding of the ABC and SBS.

ASTRA members  include both Foxtel and Austar. It also suggests in its paper that the ABC has failed to make the case that there is an unmet need for a public affairs channel and children’s channel as they already exist on pay TV. it also argues that where there are gaps in provision, the ABC and SBS should not automatically be the organisations that receive funding.

An SBS spokesman firmly denied the claims, pointing to examples including soccer where SBS has cooperated with pay TV in acquiring broadcast rights. She said the organisation also works with the World Movies Channel, even though by doing so films can end up on pay TV first.

She said there were plenty of examples of pay TV getting first run material – for example, SBS is yet to show the first series of advertising drama Mad Men, while Showcase on pay TV is already on the second series.

She added: “We have such a small contents and acquisition budget that we want to get eveything  to air as soon as we possibly can. We’re not in the business of being anti-competitive.”

And an ABC spokesman said: “The ABC is not sure how ASTRA can justify such claims of warehousing when there are many examples of rights sharing of programs between the ABC and the subscription channels. As late as this week the ABC commenced broadcasting the Australian comedy series Chandon Pictures after it was broadcast on Movie Extra.”

Although Mumbrella has not looked at all 2,400 submissions just yet, a representative sample of submissions from individuals suggests that a further key issue being raised is opposition to the advertising that is now on SBS.

Update: More detail from Crikey’s Margaret Simons here.

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