SPAA demands local content increase following TV licensing proposal
The Screen Producers Association of Australia has responded to a proposed Television License Fees Amendment rushed through the House of Representatives by the Government late Thursday, demanding an increase in Australian content.
The rushed amendment will cut 25% off the licensing fees payable by the free to air television networks for the use of public spectrum.
Geoff Brown, executive director of SPAA said: “It’s time for the federal government to ensure that Australians see an increase in Australian content on our television screens, as promised by the big three networks in return for a reduction in their obligations of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The promise Brown mentioned came in February 2010, when the initial breaks were given to the networks.
Brown told Encore: “Ryan Stokes said the slashing of the licenses would allow the networks to protect local content. There has been no delivery on that. We understand the economics on the multi-channels are still being worked out but some form of local content regulation needs to be instilled on the primary channels. We were promised a new landscape and they haven’t delivered.”
In a statement, Brown said: “This renewal of the rebate will now amount to savings in excess of $275m for the networks and they expressly requested it of the Minister to ensure appropriate levels of Australian content. There has been no appreciable increase in Australian content since the license rebate and in that time the amount of foreign content on the free to air multi channels and on the Internet has increased. The government must now act to shore up Australian content by legislating for an increase in the Producer Tax Offset for television.”
In the recent Convergence Review interim report, the Review panel suggested the government increase the Producer Offset for television from 20% to 40%.
Brown said: “The government must heed the recommendation in the interim report and commit to an increase in the Offset.”
I was waling along a Melbourne street on my way to work late one morning, when I ran into a fellow work mate and another guy I didn’t know. The fellow I did know suggested that we have a coffee and talk with the guy I didn’t know, of course he introduced him, but I have forgotten his name, so he remains that guy I didn’t know, but I remember him and the conversation. We sat down in a nearby coffee shop and all the talk was Australian content, how it had all been laid out by the Government, how the TV channels had fought it, how it was welcomed by every actor, producer and film maker in the country, and how it had been knocked down in its infancy by the channels, who simply doubled the number of talk shows game shows and footy coverages in the name of Australian content. The year was 1972, the colleague was John Bonney, the street I was walking along was Johnson St Abbotsford and the work we were on the way to was Ryan, a short lived series being made at Crawford studios, which used to be situated where the brewery is now. Oh and the guy I didn’t know, I still don’t know, but he was something to do with the union.
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On a related subject … I recall that during the 2007 Federal election campaign, the Labor party proclaimed as platform policy the idea that the ABC would be compelled to make and screen the same amount of Australian content as their commercial rivals. This struck me as an outstanding initiative – though somewhat sad that things had got to the stage where the ABC would need to be compelled to do something which is surely meant to be in its DNA.
Anyway, I was very curious to know how this grand policy ambition was going to be funded, so I wrote to the then Opposition Arts minister, Peter Garret asking him to explain where the money was going to come from. No answer.
After Rudd won the election, I also wrote to my local Federal MP, Malcolm Turnbull, asking him if he could question the Government on this policy which, from the outset, had every sign of morphing into a ‘non-core’ commitment. Turnbull at least had the decency to reply, saying that my concerns were noted. Not worth a pinch of sh1t but less insulting than no reply whatsoever.
I also wrote to the Snowboarding Senator (Conroy) asking him what the Australian viewing public stood to gain from the first round of spectrum license discounts in (I think it was) 2009. You guessed it, no answer. He was probably enjoying a bit of apres-ski relaxation in Kerry Stokes’ hot-tub at the time. On you.
I commend SPAA for making a fuss over these latest discounts – a sickeningly generous handout to some of the most ruthlessly greedy corporations to blight our land – and ardently hope that this is only the beginning of a sustained campaign of harassment …
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Yeah, well, good luck trying to get that idea to stand up in court. The FTA with the US put the kibosh on ever being able to increase quotas. They can only ever go down, unless the US – out of the goodness of their heart – agrees to allow them.
So good luck with that.
It’s one of the reasons the current convergence review is so brain dead – it’s as though nobody who worked on the review ever read what the FTA actually says.
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