The politics behind the competitive neutrality inquiry into ABC and SBS
As the competitive neutrality inquiry looms large, Denis Muller reveals the politics behind Hanson's revenge plot in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Last September, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson made a deal with Malcolm Turnbull’s government: You give me an inquiry into the ABC and I’ll support the changes you want to make to media ownership laws.
The government agreed to do this in the form of an inquiry into the ABC’s competitive neutrality – and broadened it to include SBS.
It was clear at the time this had the potential to do real damage to the national broadcaster.
Competitive neutrality principles say an organisation should not enjoy an undue competitive advantage by virtue of it being government-funded. It is suitably arcane camouflage for an inquiry whose real purpose is to put pressure on the ABC over its news service, which Hanson had alleged was biased against her.
It was Hanson’s way of getting revenge on the ABC for its pursuit of her over the issue of funding for her senate re-election campaign in 2016.
And now we know the shape of this competitive neutrality inquiry. We know who is conducting it, and last week we got to see the issues paper that the inquiry put out, which tells us what it is going to cover.
Scope of the inquiry
The chair is Robert Kerr, who has a Productivity Commission background and impeccable credentials as a free-market economist. Joining him in the inquiry are Julie Flynn, a one-time ABC reporter who used to be CEO of the commercial TV lobby group Free TV Australia, and Sandra Levy, the former head of television at ABC.
This all seems perfectly reasonable, until you remember this is mainly about online media. In that case, why have two people with television backgrounds on the panel?
Online is where the real action is now. Data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority included in the issues paper show just how dramatic the shift has been from traditional television viewing to digital online platforms for media consumption. In 2017, Australians aged 18-34 spent an average of 9.2 hours per week watching video content online compared to just 3.8 hours watching free-to-air television.
Mark Scott foresaw this when he was managing director of the ABC and drove the broadcaster hard into the digital sphere. He realised that if the ABC was not a relevant provider of digital content online, it would soon cease to be relevant.
That’s why the other big media players, especially Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, have lobbied relentlessly to have the ABC’s wings clipped in this arena. Hanson, wittingly or not, played right into News Corp’s strategy.
As for the issues paper, the giveaway is on page 11.
There, it refers to the requirement in the ABC Act that the ABC “take account of the broadcasting services provided by the commercial and community broadcasting sectors of the Australian Broadcasting system.” In other words, the ABC is discouraged from just replicating what the commercial broadcasters do.
In that context, the paper then addresses this question to the ABC: How does it apply this requirement specifically to its on-air, iView and online news services? Nothing else. Not its drama or documentaries or narrative comedy or children’s programs. Just its news services.
The reason? That’s the part of the ABC that Hanson detests. So there’s the pay-off.
There are some broader competition questions, as well, but the only part of its vast portfolio the ABC is specifically asked about is its news output. Yet, if there is one category of program content that most obviously and unmistakably distinguishes the ABC from commercial broadcasters, it’s news.
Time for responses
Then the issues paper asks “other stakeholders” – basically the ABC and SBS’s commercial broadcasting rivals – a range of questions about ways in which they think they may have been harmed by any undue competitive advantage enjoyed by the public broadcasters.
There is no indication the answers to these questions are going to be subjected to any cross-examination by the ABC or SBS. Not that there would be time for that anyway, with just three months between the deadline for submissions in response to the issues paper on June 22 and the completion of the report in September.
So, the inquiry is a quickie. And by its own admission, it’s trampling over ground already covered 18 years ago by the Productivity Commission.
It also acknowledges in the issues paper that it has to dance its way between a number of other current inquiries, including the Australian and Children’s Content Review, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s digital platforms inquiry and the broader Treasury review of the country’s overall competitive neutrality policy.
Nonetheless, the inquiry is likely to provide the Turnbull Government with ammunition should it wish to mount an attack on the ABC’s scope of operations (especially online) and give Hanson what she really wants: a rolled-up piece of paper with which to smack the ABC around the head.
Denis Muller is a senior research fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
No Denis, “The reason” is because former Managing Director Mark Scott spent ten years turning the Australian BROADCASTING Corporation into, in his words a “news organisation” instead. Is it surprising then that the inquiry does the same?
User ID not verified.
Excellent thing Pauline Hanson got done. The ABC/SBS has driven into services that the Commercial TV networks have broadcast in, but without the necessity to deliver a profit. That’s the killer. . It is hoped that the ABC/SBS, in overseas program buying become subject to a form of syphoning rule, that acquired programs are only those that the FTA networks have rejected. This ensures that no taxpayers money is spent on product that otherwise would be paid for by FTA networks and their advertisers.
In localism, the big gap is in regional news, 35% of the population, only 22% of FTA revenues and this smaller amount, allowing less than 10% of FTA network news ad current affairs expenditure -the 35/22/10 case(all ACMA or FTA figures). The ABC and SBS should be functionally separated into regional and metropolitan organisations with separate budgets and HQ locations (say Toowoomba and Albury for ABC and SBS respectively).
From any objective viewpoint the ABC/SBS has driven commercial networks out of Sunday morning, and late night news, have counteracted any FTA initiatives that might allow FTA to profitability exploit such audiences for news and current affairs.
Pauline is right, the ABC/ SBS swamp these political discourse categories because that is the politically biased agenda of the ABC/SBS. Drive out non left wing opinion.
A good Inquiry and long overdue. If people want ABC/SBS views and programming they should pay for it directly. Not from my tax money, but their own.
User ID not verified.
Thank God for Pauline. Aunty has outstayed her welcome.
User ID not verified.
What chance does this review have if they accept the ACMA data that 18-34 spend just 3.8 hours a week watching FTA television.
There is your bias right there writ large.
User ID not verified.
The SBS “HQ” is in fact the whole of SBS, apart from one small building in Federation Square that houses its Melbourne office. You express concern for your tax money. Do you have any idea of the cost of transferring the whole of SBS to Albury? Likewise, do you have any idea of the quantity of television production that goes on around the world? If SBS had to wait until all the programs it was interested in had been rejected by Australian commercial television (!), it would be waiting forever.
User ID not verified.