A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN S MEDIA USE AND TIME CHOICES

ISBN 978-0-9804344-4-6
First published November 2011
© Network Insight Pty Ltd
Network Insight Institute
GPO Box 5277
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w: http://www.networkinsight.org

iii
PREFACE
The papers in this volume were delivered at the Communications Policy and Research Forum
on 7–8 November 2011.
The Forum is Australia’s largest annual gathering of communications research and policy
experts. It is a non-profit, co-operative effort by research centres to provide an open platform
for all viewpoints. It brings together academic researchers, policy-makers, and professional
and industry practitioners.
When reading these papers, you may start thinking about how you could contribute to public
discussion on similar topics. Please feel very welcome to propose a talk or paper for the next
Forum. When a date and other details of the next Forum are settled, you will find them on the
web via http://www.networkinsight.org. All viewpoints are equally welcome. To ensure
impartiality, proposals to be on the platform are considered by an independent program
committee, separate from the management of the event.
We would like to thank the authors of the papers in this volume, who spent so much time and
effort to produce them. Thanks also to people from the supporting research centres who
helped us spread the word about the Forum. Two key individuals to thank are: Cristina Abad
of the Network Insight Institute for brilliant management and execution; and Noelene Lowes,
the editor and publisher, who brought this volume into existence within a few days after the
Forum.
We also thank the three sponsors whose generosity and public spirit made it possible to offer
participation at a price within reach of researchers:
Gilbert + Tobin Lawyers
The Smart Services Co-operative Research Centre
The International Institute of Communications, Australian Chapter
The independent process for selecting the papers
The papers to be found in this volume were volunteered by researchers from around Australia
in response to the call for submissions earlier this year. To ensure impartiality, the program
committee assessed the proposals without any identification of the authors. Invitations to
present papers were made on the basis of the committee’s assessment.
The committee members were: Franco Papandrea, University of Canberra (chair of the panel);
Trevor Barr, Media and Communications Unit, Swinburne University; Terry Flew, Creative
Industries Faculty, QUT; Gerard Goggin, Journalism and Media Research Centre; Bridget
Griffen-Foley, Centre for Media History; Leslie Hitchens, UTS; and Julian Thomas, Institute
for Social Research, Swinburne.
Proposals by academics for refereed papers went through extra assessment steps as follows.
All those receiving an offer to present a refereed paper were required to submit full papers for
anonymous peer review by two experts in the relevant field. The criteria used for the
evaluation of full papers were fully consistent with DIISR specifications for refereed
conference papers. Final inclusion on the program as a refereed paper was conditional upon a
positive assessment by referees and, where relevant, re-submission of the paper after adequate
amendments taking into account observations and recommendations made by referees.
Refereed papers are marked by the word ‘(refereed)’ adjacent to their title in this volume.

iv Record of the Communications Policy & Research Forum 2011
The papers here belong to the authors
Whilst there has been a careful and objective process for evaluating papers, they are entirely
the work of their authors, who have kindly agreed to share their knowledge through these
pages. No views or statements expressed in them should be attributed to any organiser of the
Communications Policy and Research Forum.
The authors of the papers are the exclusive owners of the copyright in their work reproduced
here. Any questions about further reproduction should be addressed directly to the authors.
Franco Papandrea and Mark Armstrong
Sydney
14 November 2011

v
CONTENTS
Preface ................................................................................................................................... iii
Contents by Contributor ....................................................................................................... vii
Keynote: The Convergence Review ......................................................................................... 1
Keynote: New platforms, but same old media mind: Why Media Watch won’t soon
be out of a job ........................................................................................................................ 6
Sustainability of Australian content quotas ............................................................................ 14
Copyright in the connected digital world ............................................................................... 27
The Piracy Bus, who’s on it? Consumer attitudes to movie and TV theft in Australia .......... 33
The Internet and sovereignty: What are the limits of government control? ........................... 37
Competition policy for the digital economy .......................................................................... 54
International communication policy and Australia–US relations, 1920–1950 ...................... 67
The Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC): a 1960s trend setter
for GBE reform ................................................................................................................... 81
There’s an App for that ........................................................................................................... 98
Access and control in music distribution: locks, lockers or locked out ............................... 105
Why we need ACMA leadership to avoid bad NBN user outcomes .................................... 110
Disruption revisited: Netflix, Apple TV, Google TV, Facebook TV .................................... 116
Visual networking: Keeping television on the box .............................................................. 128
Smart grids, electric vehicles and the National Broadband Network .................................. 141
Sharing more than bandwidth: online collaboration in the era of
the National Broadband Network ...................................................................................... 158
Community participation in the development of digital radio: the Australian
experience .......................................................................................................................... 166
Framing ICT policies to facilitate participatory e-government ........................................... 180
The Internet in Australia 2011 — initial findings from the World Internet Project ............. 194
Audience engagement with the Special Broadcasting Service ............................................ 206
Connecting://arts audiences online ....................................................................................... 209
Feature film audience testing in Australia: capturing the audience before it bites .............. 214
Digital inclusion in the broadband world: challenges for Australia ..................................... 222
Reading the tealeaves to meet the diverse communications needs of ‘baby boomers’
to live independently ......................................................................................................... 231
Access to digital devices and its relationship to digital media literacy ................................ 241
A longitudinal analysis of children’s media use and time choices ....................................... 251
Australian children’s experiences of parents’ online mediation ........................................... 259
Competing visions of a cause of action for invasion of privacy in Australia ....................... 277
Consumer advocacy for refugees and communications technology: highlights
from Mind the Gap ............................................................................................................ 301
Purpose driven productivity: digital case studies in social innovation ................................ 309

vi Record of the Communications Policy & Research Forum 2011
The Arthritis Map of Victoria ............................................................................................... 324
Summary of all sessions and speakers at the Forum .......................................................... 327
Program of the Forum ...................................................................................................... 371

vii
CONTENTS BY CONTRIBUTOR
Trevor Barr, Disruption revisited: Netflix, Apple TV, Google TV, Facebook TV .................. 116
Glen Boreham, Keynote: The Convergence Review ................................................................. 1
Toija Cinque and David Marshall, Visual networking: Keeping television on the box ........ 128
Reg Coutts, Reading the tealeaves to meet the diverse communications needs of
‘baby boomers’to live independently ................................................................................ 231
Scott Ewing, The Internet in Australia 2011 — initial findings from the World
Internet Project ................................................................................................................. 194
Patrick Fair and Anne Petterd, The Internet and sovereignty: What are the limits of
government control? ............................................................................................................ 37
Hamish Fraser, There’s an App for that .................................................................................. 98
Michael Fraser, Copyright in the connected digital world ..................................................... 27
Julie Freeman, Framing ICT policies to facilitate participatory e-government ................. 180
Peter Gerrand, Why we need ACMA leadership to avoid bad NBN user outcomes ............. 110
Gail Grant, The Piracy Bus, who’s on it? Consumer attitudes to movie and TV theft
in Australia ......................................................................................................................... 33
Lelia Green, John Hartley, Catharine Lumby and Danielle Brady, Australian
children’s experiences of parents’online mediation .......................................................... 259
Catherine Griff, Feature film audience testing in Australia: capturing the audience
before it bites .................................................................................................................... 214
David Havyatt, Competition policy for the digital economy .................................................. 54
Jonathan Holmes, Keynote: New platforms, but same old media mind: Why Media
Watch won’t soon be out of a job ........................................................................................... 6
Alan Hui, Access and control in music distribution: locks, lockers or locked out .............. 105
Bridget Jones, Connecting://arts audiences online .............................................................. 209
Susanne Larson, Audience engagement with the Special Broadcasting Service .................. 206
Peter Leonard and Michael Burnett, Competing visions of a cause of action for
invasion of privacy in Australia ........................................................................................ 277
Linda Leung, Consumer advocacy for refugees and communications technology:
highlights from Mind the Gap ........................................................................................... 301
Ian Martin, The Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC): a 1960s
trend setter for GBE reform ................................................................................................. 81
Robert Morsillo, Purpose driven productivity: digital case studies in social
innovation .......................................................................................................................... 309
Franco Papandrea, Sustainability of Australian content quotas ............................................. 14
Sora Park, Access to digital devices and its relationship to digital media literacy ............. 241
Chris Pavlovski, Smart grids, electric vehicles and the National Broadband Network ...... 141
Don Perlgut, Digital inclusion in the broadband world: challenges for Australia .............. 222

viii Record of the Communications Policy & Research Forum 2011
Peter Putnis, International communication policy and Australia–US relations,
1920–1950 ........................................................................................................................... 67
Leonie Rutherford, Jude Brown and Michael Bittman, A longitudinal analysis
of children’s media use and time choices ......................................................................... 251
Mandy Salomon and Wendy Doube, Sharing more than bandwidth: online
collaboration in the era of the National Broadband Network .......................................... 158
Christina Spurgeon, Ellie Rennie and Yat Ming Fung, Community participation in the
development of digital radio: the Australian experience .................................................. 166
Simon von Saldern, The Arthritis Map of Victoria ............................................................... 324

1 © Glen Boreham
THE CONVERGENCE REVIEW
KEYNOTE ADDRESS B Y G L E N B O R E H A M
Chair, Convergence Review Committee
The Convergence Review was announced by the Australian Government late last year with the goal
of bringing our media and communications laws up to date in the face of new technology like smart
TVs, smart phones, and tablet devices, such as iPads.
The Convergence Review Committee — which also includes my colleagues Malcolm Long and
Louise McElvogue — has already met with a number of industry groups and we have received
close to 200 submissions on various papers that we have put out for comment.
The Committee also traversed the country back in August for a series of public meetings in
8 metropolitan and regional centres where it met Australians face-to-face to discuss the many issues
at hand.
There may be some of you here today who are not sure what convergence is, and that is perfectly
understandable. The word itself is a bit confusing, but the reality of convergence can be seen all
around you.
Think of convergence like this: A few years ago we watched TV in the lounge; maybe listened to
radio in a bedroom, your newspaper arrived on the front steps, you talked to friends on the phone,
and had a stack of video tapes on the shelf.
Everything was neatly separated, not only in your house, but also for businesses and the
government rules that applied to them. TV stations, Telcos, newspapers, the music and film industry
all knew where they stood.
Things have changed. Now, on a smart TV you can download movies and music, watch catch-up
TV or surf the web. I actually bought a smart TV recently and the choice of content is quite
remarkable. You can also do all this on your mobile phone.
This is convergence: everything is available on a single device.
These changes are certainly not bad; they create a lot of opportunity. But the government rules,
designed 20 years ago, are under pressure and it is not clear anymore who the rules apply to and
what industry needs to do. This is not good for innovation and not good for consumers or industry.
Just one quick example: Australian content. TV stations have to show a minimum amount of
Australian programs, but these rules don’t apply to content on the internet, so what happens now as
more people use the internet for their entertainment?
We have to ask the fundamental questions, what is Australian content in a converged environment,
and where, when and how do people want to see it?
There is no doubt that internet viewing of video is only expected to increase in Australia —
particularly as the National Broadband Network progressively takes hold across Australia over the
next several years.
Communications regulation in Australia up until now
Australia’s key communications legislative framework was introduced in the 1990s: the
Broadcasting Services Act and the Radiocommunications Act were enacted in 1992; the
Telecommunications Act was enacted in 1997. Each piece of legislation has been tailored to achieve
different public policy objectives.

2 Record of the Communications Policy & Research Forum 2011
Our broadcasting legislation was designed to provide flexible regulation to promote objectives such
as the availability throughout Australia of a diverse range of broadcasting services that entertain,
educate and inform — a broadcasting industry that is efficient, competitive, and responsive to
audience needs; and diversity in control of the more influential media services.
The social and cultural focus of the Broadcasting Services Act was highlighted in its accompanying
Explanatory Memorandum:
it is widely accepted that television is a powerful medium with the potential to influence public
opinion, and that television has a role to play in promoting Australia’s cultural identity.
Our telecommunications legislation, on the other hand, emphasises the long-term interests of end
users of telecommunication services and the efficiency and international competitiveness of the
Australian telecommunications industry — while the Radiocommunications Act is designed to
promote the efficient allocation and use of spectrum to maximise public benefit.
When the current regulations were being designed, there was little understanding of a future where
anyone could easily download a movie to the home TV, view TV programs on a mobile phone,
make a telephone call via an internet service, upload personal videos for all to see, or watch content
online whenever they like.
In just 20 years, Australia has moved from analog phones to smartphones, from dial-up to
broadband, and from five analog free-to-air broadcast television channels to 15 or more digital
channels, TV and radio content delivered via internet, online video and a subscription broadcast
industry offering a vast range of television and radio channels from a variety of providers.
The switch to digital-only television and particularly the rollout of the National Broadband Network
will ensure that Australians are well placed to take advantage of these exciting new technological
innovations.
These changes have implications for Australia’s communications regulations, because the
obligations imposed by the current framework often differ depending on the type of platform the
content or service is delivered on.
So every time there are major changes in the technology or business models, the regulation has to
change with it — as an indication when the Broadcasting Services Act was enacted it was around
100 pages, today it is just under 1000.
The implications of convergence for Australian content and culture are also enormous.
When audiences can watch, listen to or read content from anywhere at any time, then the role of the
media in forming and nurturing our national identity will have to adapt.
The need for shared experience will remain, but it is incumbent on us to get the settings right to
ensure Australian stories are there to be shared.
These changes have implications for Australia’s communications regulations, because the
obligations imposed by the current framework often differ depending on the type of platform the
content or service is delivered on.
It is therefore timely to consider whether these differences continue to be relevant and how we can
continue to achieve public policy objectives.
Main policy challenges in the convergence era
So what are the main issues or ‘big rocks’ that the Convergence Review will cover?
At the centre of the review is how to ensure the ongoing distribution and availability of Australian
and local content in an environment where eyeballs are increasingly turning to services not covered
by the existing rules, e.g. catch-up TV.

The Convergence Review 3
Also on the table is the topical area of media diversity and pluralism including cross media
ownership rules and competition laws, for example exclusive content arrangements.
The review will also consider how to allocate and manage scarce spectrum in an environment where
there is increasing ‘contestability’ for spectrum from a variety of established and emerging uses.
Another key group of issues could be loosely called ‘ protection of community standards’ — this
includes the range of Internet content policy issues including inappropriate material, but also issues
that are controversial including advertising standards and allegations of accuracy and bias in the
media.
Most importantly the review will advise the government on a new framework for addressing the
media, one that gets away from the old silos of the past such as broadcasting and
telecommunications, towards a framework that is more functionally descriptive, for example, one
that could focus on layers such as infrastructure, networks, content, applications and devices, rather
than industries, or possibly content value chains from production to channels to devices and
ultimately, to consumers.
In considering all of these issues the Committee will need to take into account a range of
overarching issues that are a constant theme in the review.
These include the idea of ‘regulatory parity’ the idea that like services should be regulated in a like
manner regardless of the underlying technology, platform or business model.
These questions of ‘regulatory parity’ are relevant not just to Australian and local content
obligations, but also to issues such as media diversity, including cross media ownership, licensing
and planning, and community standards in the media.
As one example current measures for the protection of community standards range from industry
self-regulation to pre-broadcast warnings about inappropriate content, to the complaints based
system for online content — but they are different according to the platform even though the
underlying content is often the same.
However, regulatory parity is a starting proposition only — there are good reasons why some
content could be treated differently depending on the platform it is delivered on and the business
model.
For example, regulation that may be appropriate for programmed or linear content, such as
broadcast classification time zones, may not be appropriate to an on-demand or non-linear delivery
mode — even though the content is often the same.
In addition, regulatory parity — in both a technology or platform sense — may need to be informed
by community expectations or wider public policy objectives.
For example, consumers may still expect that certain types of content are restricted when delivered
through free-to-air broadcasting but consider them acceptable on other devices which are used in
different environments or circumstances.
Another key issue is the capacity for any new policy framework to remain adaptable in the face of
the endless change that we have come to expect in the modern communications and media
environment.
If the existing Broadcasting Services Act was designed in the early 1990s and still operates now —
the new regime may need to still be effective in the early 2030s. So a key question for the
Committee is how do we design a new policy framework so that its key assumptions are still valid
in 20 years time.
Another key issue is that of transparency — most of you would agree that existing regulation
reflects a history of political compromise between Government and key interest groups.

I’m not saying that there won’t be compromises in the future but ideally a new policy framework
would be designed so that any discriminatory treatment between services or content is visible and
transparent, and that any subsidies or imposts can be clearly measured or assessed.
Detailed discussion papers
Clearly then there are a plethora of issues that we need to address in the Convergence Review.
The Committee has received some very high quality submissions to the review over the past
6 months or so and these have helped inform the Review.
Some of these submissions played a critical role in the development of five detailed discussion
papers the Committee released in mid-September. These papers have even further generated
discussion on the key issues under the microscope.
I hear you ask why 5 discussion papers. I agree it does sound a lot until you consider the quite
complex and far reaching issues we are dealing with here.
The papers focused on the five following themes:
̇ Layering, Licensing and Regulation
̇ Australian and Local Content
̇ Spectrum Allocation and Management
̇ Media Diversity, Competition and Market Structure
̇ Community Standards
I think it’s important to break these down so I will briefly outline each paper to give you more of an
idea of the significance of these issues in the converged media environment.
The Media Diversity, Competition and Market Structure paper identifies the key issues that impact
on the diversity and competition in Australia’s communications and media market. It discusses key
rules that support media diversity and competition, and describes some of the key issues and
challenges that convergence poses to them.
The Spectrum Allocation and Management paper discusses the ways of allocating and managing
broadcasting and other spectrum in a converged media environment. It also discusses some key
policy questions that might arise if spectrum was planned, managed and allocated in a more
convergent way.
In the Community Standards paper, we addressed community expectations about media content.
This includes a range of issues, such as harmful and offensive content, cultural sensitivity and
discrimination, as well as matters such as privacy, accuracy, fairness and transparency.
For the Australian and Local Content discussion paper, the focus is on how to ensure the production
and distribution of Australian and local content in a world where Australia will be a leader in
communications and media connectivity with the NBN, digital-only television and new spectrum-
enabled wireless communications technologies.
Finally, the Layering, Licensing and Regulation discussion paper essentially addressed three areas:
1. Potential approaches to media regulation in a convergent world such as using a layering
approach which separates content from their delivery platform
2. The administrative complexity around the licensing of content services that use traditional and
emerging media platforms.
3. The inflexibility of much current regulation and jurisdictional issues in dealing with new forms
of content delivery.

The Convergence Review 5
As many of you would be aware the independent media inquiry may also touch on some of the
media standards and diversity issues. We will incorporate their report into our final document when
we report to government in March next year.
The Committee has received considerable feedback from both industry and the Australian public on
these discussion papers as they are clearly issues at the centre of the convergence debate in
Australia today.
We are currently in another writing phase at the moment working an interim report which we hope
to release in about a month’s time.
Both of these reports will have been substantially influenced by the reaction from both the
Australian public and industry to the five detailed discussion papers I just referred to.
It has been of vital importance that the Convergence Review Committee has heard Australian voices
and Australian stories in our work this year, but we don’t want to stifle new players with red tape, so
we need to look at all the issues.
This is the first review of its kind anywhere in the world so we have wanted to make sure we
covered all the key issues and consulted across the board.
This review is about asking whether we still need rules in a range of areas, and if we think we do,
making sure the rules keep up with technology so that the market remains competitive and all
Australians have access to a very wide range of services, content and devices.
One thing is clear however, that the growth of the digital economy, underpinned by rapid
improvements in network technologies, Internet connection speeds, and smart devices are the main
driving influences towards this thing we all call convergence.
Media and communications industries affect the lives of every Australian, and the Convergence
Review will have important outcomes for our society.
My Committee has been asking all interested Australians to contribute ideas, comments or
suggestions to assist the review as it is crucial that all voices are heard in this important
conversation about our future as a nation.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

© Jonathan Holmes 6
NEW PLATFORMS, BUT SAME OLD MEDIA MIND: WHY MEDIA WATCH
WON’T SOON BE OUT OF A JOB
KEYNOTE ADDRESS B Y J O N A T H A N H O L M E S
Media Watch, ABC TV
First, a little personal anecdote. Two or three times a week, for around nine months in the year,
I swim at Wylies Baths, the beautiful rock pool in South Coogee. One of the blokes who looks after
the pool, who I’ve known to say hullo to for years, let’s call him Hughie, has never shown the
slightest sign that he knows what I do for a living, or cares.
The other day I was collecting a new season ticket. Hughie was there, but there was a new bloke
handing out the tickets. Five minutes after I collected mine I went back to the office for some
change, and the new feller says ‘We were just talking about your TV show.’ ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Yerse,’
says the new feller. ‘I’m a big fan. Never miss it. Not like Hughie here. He can’t stand yer.’
One of the hazards of being a television host is that you can easily get the impression that everyone
thinks you’re terrific; because the people who do will happily tell you so, and the people who don’t
are much too polite to say a word. Except, of course, online, where there are no such inhibitions.
So I fully accept that some of you will like Media Watch and me — and it’s hard to like the show if
you can’t stand the presenter; some will find it, and me, intensely irritating; and some won’t care
either way because ‘I never watch TV’.
But one thing, I reckon, is undeniable. The possibility of appearing on Media Watch is one of the
very few sanctions for encouraging good journalistic behaviour, and punishing bad, in Australia.
And arguably, it’s the most effective, because it’s swift, it’s very public, and it can be quite
damaging for a journalist’s reputation and career.
The other sanctions — what you might call the formal sanctions — for the breach of the various
codes of conduct to which every mainstream, ‘old media’ journalist in this country is bound, depend
on regulation or self-regulation. And I thought, since it’s very much in the news, that I’d talk a bit
this morning about regulation: whether we need it, who should exercise it, and how it can be made
more effective — especially in the new online environment in which all the old business models,
and regulatory structures, are breaking down.
Let me emphasise that I’m not going to concern myself with most of the regulatory issues that the
Convergence Review is worrying about: licensing areas for television and radio; licence fees;
spectrum allocation; amounts of advertising permissible on free-to-air and subscription; children’s
quotas, Australian production quotas; sporting rights, anti-siphoning lists; access to the NBN; and
so on and so forth.
I’m concerned principally with the matters that the second Media Inquiry, being conducted by Ray
Finkelstein QC and Professor Matthew Ricketson, is concerning itself with — especially two of its
terms of reference:1
a) The effectiveness of the current media codes of practice in Australia, particularly in light of
technological change that is leading to the migration of print media to digital and online
platforms;
and:
c) Ways of substantially strengthening the independence and effectiveness of the Australian
Press Council, including in relation to on-line publications, and with particular reference to
the handling of complaints

New platforms, but same old media mind 7
In other words, I’m concerned with the sort of regulation which attempts to ensure a modicum of
accuracy, fairness, and respect for individual privacy in the output of the mainstream media. The
kind of thing, in fact, with which Media Watch concerns itself week by week — at least during the
40 weeks per year that it’s on air.
A couple of weeks ago we got stuck into a particular segment on Seven’s Today Tonight.2
It
purported to be an ‘investigation’ into what it called the ‘welcome mat’ laid down by the Australian
government for refugees — judging by the pictures we were shown, and the content of the program,
though it was never really spelled out, that meant unauthorised maritime arrivals, or boat people,
not the people, ten times more numerous, who are accepted every year by Australia on refugee or
humanitarian visas.
As I said in a subsequent column on the ABC’s opinion and analysis website,3
The Drum, in my
four years in the chair at Media Watch I have never come across a more mendacious, deceptive or
inflammatory piece of journalism. People were filmed and recorded without their permission —
people whose families might well be endangered in the countries from which they had fled. Their
words were distorted. Their welfare benefits were grossly exaggerated. Old footage of temporary
detention centres than no longer exist were presented as though they were contemporary; the
language used, and the facts presented — many of them wrong or exaggerated — were carefully
designed to confirm in the minds of viewers prejudices and beliefs about refugees and boat people
that are flat-out wrong.
The day after Media Watch went to air, and more than two weeks after the original report, Today
Tonight host Matt White read out what the program called a ‘clarification’. It corrected the more
egregious factual errors that Media Watch had identified. It didn’t apologise, or explain why the
mistakes had been made.
It was following that clarification that I wrote the column for The Drum. I pointed out that the
‘clarification’, for all its shortcomings, was probably enough, under the terms of clause 4.3.11 of the
Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice,4
to head off an inquiry by the Australian
Communications and Media Authority into complaints that Seven had breached the code’s
requirement for accuracy. (An aside: in deference to the many people from that organisation that are
here today, I’ll make and exception and call it ‘the A.C.M.A., not Ackma, which it apparently
hates.)
And then I wrote this:
What this goes to show, to my mind, is not that media regulation should be tougher — although
that’s the conclusion many of our viewers will inevitably come to …
On the contrary, to my mind this episode shows that the attempt to regulate such matters is
essentially fruitless.
Journalists have to be shamed, by Media Watch, by their readers and viewers, by their
colleagues, and above all by their bosses, to behave professionally. There is no other way.5
Now that article featured for a day or so on the top ten most popular articles list on the whole ABC
website — something that rarely happens with a piece on The Drum. It attracted more than
350 comments — five times the number my pieces usually attract. And I was right. The majority of
commentators didn’t agree with me. They wanted tougher regulation of the media. Here are a few:
There will never be sufficient will in corporate media boardrooms to shame programs like TT
into a semblance of integrity, honesty and fair news reporting. Our government, representing the
people, needs to create disincentives under law, else this demagogy and propaganda in the guise
of news will simply continue, likely even get worse.
The only thing that can work is strong and forceful regulation — I cannot see any reasonable
alternative.

An independent body is needed to investigate examples of corrupt and vindictive journalism.
This body must have powers to impose real penalties including revocation of licences.
And this one — perhaps my favourite:
Deliberate propagation of lies by the media should be punished by jail terms and huge fines.
‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’ … and go to jail you slimy bastards.
I tell you what, that might work!
But the point, of course, is this. Unlike the print media, broadcasters like Seven are already subject
to a regulator, funded by but independent of the government, which has the power to ensure that
their Codes of Conduct — all of which include a requirement that factual information should be
accurate and that viewpoints be fairly represented — are applied. In theory, the ACMA can apply
penalties up to and including the withdrawal of the licence to broadcast.
And yet in practice, Stephen Conroy’s description of the Australian Press Council — that it’s a
toothless tiger — could be applied with equal force to the ACMA.
As I said, one of the requirements of most of the Codes that the ACMA oversees — including the
Commercial Radio Australia Codes of Practice — includes a requirement that various viewpoints
on matters of controversy be aired. In fact in that particular Code, it’s clause 2.3 (b), and it’s phrased
like this:
In the preparation and presentation of current affairs programs a licensee must ensure that
reasonable efforts are made or reasonable opportunities are given to present significant
viewpoints when dealing with controversial issues of public importance, either within the same
program or similar programs, while the issue has immediate relevance to the community.6
Some months ago, Media Watch pointed out7
that in their coverage of the issue of climate change
science — undeniably a controversial issue of public importance — that provision was being
systematically flouted by five or six of the country’s leading talkback hosts. Presenters like Alan
Jones and Chris Smith on 2GB, Jason Morrison and Michael Smith on 2UE, Gary Hardgrave on
Brisbane’s 4BC, and Howard Sattler on Perth’s 6PR were continually giving substantial airtime to
climate change sceptics such as Bob Carter and Ian Plimer, but literally none to scientists who
represent by far the majority scientific view on the issue, and on whose assessment the
government’s policy is based. (Since that program, Alan Jones has interviewed Melbourne
University’s David Karoly — though Mr Jones did more talking than Dr Karoly.)8
As a result of our program, the organisation GetUp (and probably others too) made a formal
complaint to the ACMA, which announced it would inquire into the matter. The Media Watch
program went to air at the end of March. No one’s heard a dicky bird from the ACMA on the issue
since. No doubt it will report, some time next year. But even if it does find some or all of those
broadcasters in breach — and I’ll be rather surprised if it does — it will have sat on its hands for
years doing nothing, because no listener had made a formal complaint. The fact is, as an enforcer of
fairness and accuracy in the media, the ACMA is slow and ineffective.
There are a lot of good reasons for that. For a start, as a state regulator it is constrained to behave in
a highly legalistic manner. Precisely because the sanctions at its disposal are potentially severe, it
must afford broadcasters every opportunity to make their case.
In addition, like most regulators, it depends for much of the time on the willing co-operation of
broadcasters. It doesn’t want to alienate them. It doesn’t like getting into fights. Unless the matter is
very high-profile, as the Cash for Comment matter was a decade and more ago, it’s far easier to
keep the judgments tempered and the sanctions unexceptional.
And yet the Minister for Communications apparently thinks that the ACMA is doing a much better
job in ensuring that Australian audiences get tolerably fair and accurate journalism from its
broadcasters than the Australian Press Council is doing for the print media.

At least, he indicated at the press conference in which he announced the new Finkelstein/Ricketson
inquiry that, as one solution to the toothlessness of the Australian Press Council, he’d be happy to
consider a recommendation that the print media, currently self-regulated, and the online media,
currently not regulated by anyone at all, would all come under a single, statutory regulator like the
ACMA.
And, in case you think that was just one politician going off the rails, here’s a question posed in the
issues paper published by the Finkelstein inquiry not long ago:
As an alternative to strengthening the effectiveness of the Australian Press Council, would it be
preferable to establish a statutory body to take over its functions?9
Now, as I’ve said in print a couple of times already, in my view this is a mind-boggling question for
a serious inquiry to be asking. It seems to be blithely ignoring some fundamental principles.
The first is that the press is supposed to be free in this country. It’s a freedom, like the supremacy of
the Parliament over the Monarchy, or the right not to be imprisoned without trial, that’s been won
by the struggle and strife of our ancestors over many centuries. It should not be lightly thrown
away. And setting up a statutory regulator with the power to tell the press what it can or can’t print,
presumably with the power to levy fines or impose other sanctions on miscreants, is to throw away
that fundamental liberty.
The ACMA administers the Codes of Practice of broadcasters only as part of the broader bargain
between the government, which administers the radio wave spectrum on behalf of the public, and
the lucky few organisations, public or private, that were licensed to use them to communicate with
mass audiences. Without spectrum scarcity, there would be no need to license; and without the need
to license, there could be no state regulation. Because the ACMA regulates licensees, and no one
else.
But, at least since the seventeenth century in England, the printing presses have not been licensed.
Anyone can set up a newspaper. And within the constraints of the law — defamation law, the Racial
Discrimination Act, the laws of contempt and so on — anyone can print what they please. That’s
what freedom of the press means.
It’s true that various conventions have grown up around the so-called profession of journalism.
Material that purports to be factual should be true, not mendacious; opinion and news should be
kept separate; privacy should be respected, unless there is an over-riding public interest in
disclosing private matters; and so forth.
And over the centuries capitalism has waved its magic wand over this business like most others.
The result: a concentration of the industry into fewer and fewer corporate hands, with a
commensurate increase in power and influence, for the survivors, over the body politic. The more
media power became concentrated, the more the public wanted some independent umpire to which
it could complain if the power was used unfairly. And so the big newspaper companies set up and
paid for the Australian Press Council — as an independent adjudicator, as they saw it; as a
powerless fig-leaf, as its critics maintained.
It’s possible that the pressure to strengthen the Press Council’s powers has arisen because the
remorseless squeezing of newspaper’s profits, the falling-apart of its business model, brought about
by the advent of the internet has resulted in more strident, more opinionated, more inaccurate
journalism than ever before. I’m not personally convinced of that.
I think it stems from the fact that this present government is uniquely unpopular, and has been
attacked with unusual ferocity by at least some, if not all, the major newspapers of the group which
owns around 70% of Australia’s print media (yes, I know that figure is controversial, but it will do
as an approximation).

News Ltd editors will tell you that they are merely reflecting the views of their readership, and
acting on their behalf in holding the government to account. The government believes rather than its
unpopularity derives, in no small measure, from the way its policies have been systematically
misrepresented to the public by newspapers — and by News Ltd in particular — and that that
misrepresentation arises from a policy, imposed from above by the foreign owner of that
corporation, to dislodge it from power as soon as possible. The government sees this as an
illegitimate use of a near-monopoly power, and feels that it has the right to do something about it.
Well, I have some sympathy for the government’s frustration. Media Watch has taken the Daily
Telegraph, for example, to task for its blatantly one-sided coverage of issues like the carbon price
and mandatory pre-commitment on poker machines.10
But every previous government has accepted that such unfairness is part of the price we pay for a
free press. None has attempted to set up a regulator over the print media, to turn the clock back two
or three hundred years.
The other excuse that’s made for reviewing the regulatory arrangements, of course, is that the print
media, like the broadcast media, is changing. Everything is converging online. The traditional
distinctions between radio, television, print are becoming meaningless. It’s all just a stream of
zeroes and ones, bounced off satellites, carried on radio waves or microwaves, or along telephone
lines, or through coaxial cables, or soon, along a fibre-optic superhighway. The ABC is publishing
hundreds of thousands of words of text every day. The newspapers are carrying audio and video on
their websites. And all of it is being accessed indiscriminately through social media and mobile
devices and on and on.
In this environment, doesn’t it make sense to have a statutory regulator to oversee all journalism,
whether it’s broadcast or printed or on the net, whether it’s audio or audio-visual or text?
To which I can only say, of course it doesn’t. It makes absolutely no sense at all.
The spectrum scarcity that made necessary, and excused, the statutory regulation of broadcasting is
giving way to plenty, indeed to surplus: there are so many voices out there, yammering away at us,
that most of us can barely hear ourselves think.
And in this era of communications plenty, we should be accepting that regulation — as opposed to
self-regulation — is not only undesirable, it’s downright impossible.
Here’s a simple question: who is the proposed regulator going to regulate?
The mainstream media, you say? I see. And supposing a mainstream player doesn’t want to be
regulated by the state?
Oh well, we’ll insist that they are. We’ll issue licences, and if they don’t accept regulation, they’ll
lose their licence to publish on the web.
Hullo? You can’t stop them, for one. And there’s no way of drawing a line between publishers that
should submit to regulation, and those that don’t have to. Newspaper websites: yes; the SBS and
ABC and Yahoo News: yes; Crikey: probably; Grogs Gamut’s blog, and Kangaroo Court, and
Possum Politics, and Mama Mia, and thousands of others? Every mad website devoted to
demonstrating that the Mossad planned 9/11, and that global warming is a Jewish-Communist
conspiracy? Do they need a licence? Where do you stop?
The only way this can work is that people who want the respectability bestowed by self-regulation
can gain it by voluntarily agreeing to become subject to a regulator’s rulings. There is simply no
other sensible way. And that means an adaption of the Australian Press Council, not an extension of
the ACMA.
The Press Council’s Julian Disney has floated a lot of new ideas: that only journalists employed by
or working for news outlets that are members of the Press Council can qualify for the protection of

shield laws; that to boost its derisory funding it should be able to accept up to 30% of its budget
from the government; and so on.11
These are properly matters for the new inquiry to ponder, and having pondered, to make
recommendations about. But it should not, in my view, even be contemplating statutory regulation.
Indeed, it seems to me that in the new internet age, the Codes of Practice that currently guide, at
least in theory, the news and current affairs output of TV and radio should be rolled into the Press
Council’s code, and all journalism should be self-regulated by the same, voluntary body.
Of course, my view may not prevail. If it doesn’t, it will be because the Australian media has
behaved so badly; has blatantly distorted facts, and allowed its agenda to dictate its news values,
and invaded its readers’ privacy, to such an extent that the consumer has cried ‘enough!’. And in
that case, the media will have no one to blame but itself — or more likely, each other.
But all those who are calling for tougher regulation, for journos to be flogged and hung and drawn
and quartered, should reflect: do they really want a world where a bunch of public servants decide
what’s fair, and what’s accurate, and what’s not?
Whatever the evils of the free press — and they are many, thank goodness, or I’d be out of a job —
they do not, in my view, justify a resort to state regulation. Those of us who’ve worked all our lives
in the broadcast media can tell you: we’ve been there, we’ve tried that. It doesn’t make things
better.
The ABC is the most-regulated major producer of journalism in the land. For most of my time there,
people who complain that we’ve breached our Editorial Policies had five — yes, five — levels of
appeal.
You could complain to the program itself. If you weren’t satisfied with the response, you could
insist on an investigation by the ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs department. If dissatisfied,
you could appeal to a senior ABC person whose title was the Complaints Review Executive. If you
didn’t like his or her judgment, you could appeal to the ABC’s Independent Complaints Review
Panel, a collection of worthies, some with a media background, some with legal credentials, who
were paid a small sum by the ABC to investigate and rule on the complaints that came their way.
It was a body that was deeply unpopular with the ABC’s journalists, because they felt it often
denied them a fair hearing, and applied unrealistic standards. It was universally known as I-CRAP.
And if your complaint got rejected by I-CRAP, you could still appeal to the statutory broadcasting
regulator, universally known, I’m afraid, as Ackma.
Those of you with long memories may recall that during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, John
Howard’s Minister for Communications, Richard Alston, formally complained about 68 separate
incidents of biased coverage by the ABC’s AM program, which worked their way through those
layers.
The Complaints Review Executive upheld 2; the I-CRAP, another 15; the ABA, as it then was,
7 more. The process took more than two years. It deeply soured relationships between the ABC and
the government. The ABA’s rulings were roundly criticised by my predecessor at Media Watch,
David Marr, who said they clearly hadn’t a clue how journalists worked, especially in war zones.
The upshot of the whole affair is that the ABC might have become more cautious in its coverage,
not out of respect for the validity of the regulator’s findings, but from a desire to avoid the sheer
hassle involved in dealing with more governmental complaints. That outcome may have been one
that Senator Alston considered desirable. Whether it served the public interest is far more debatable.
Interestingly, in the past few months the ABC has started using a new complaints procedure.
Programs have been given more power to deal with complainants directly, encourage them to use
websites to voice their feelings etc. Serious complaints are dealt with, once, by Audience and

Consumer Affairs. If the complainant doesn’t like the result, he or she can go to the ACMA. That’s
it. No CRE. No ICRP.12
And the amazing thing is that, so far as I’m aware, no one — not the government, not the
opposition, not even individuals who’ve previously expressed themselves deeply unimpressed by
the ABC’s complaints procedures, like former ABC Board Member Janet Albrechtsen and the
Sydney Institute’s Gerard Henderson, has raised a whisper of protest. The ABC must be wishing it
had done it before.
Of course that’s partly because we have a government that is far more concerned about perceived
bias at News Ltd than at the ABC. If and when the Coalition gets back onto the government
benches, it is of course conceivable that that will change.
But I’d still maintain that the most effective sanction, for journalists, is being found to have got it
wrong by their own organisation. The benefit of self-regulation is that at its best it is respected by
those who are regulated. Ask John Laws or Alan Jones if they respect the ABA. And heaven help a
state regulator that attempts to enforce rulings on the print media.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd is certainly a powerful force in this country. Murdoch has strong
ideological views of his own; but to the extent that he determines what line his newspapers take —
and that’s a matter for endless debate — it seems to me that he uses his power, everywhere in the
world that he wields it, primarily to back winners. With or without the global Chairman’s blessing,
as the government’s polling has declined, News Ltd’s attacks on it have increased in ferocity.
Conversely, if Julia Gillard were popular in Western Sydney, as Kevin Rudd was for his first two
years in government, you would not be seeing the Telegraph and its columnists, day after day,
trashing her policies and mocking her person. Politics is tough.
At Media Watch we’ll continue to do our bit to hold the newspapers to account; I would love to see
a tougher and better-funded Press Council doing the same.
But if the Gillard government thinks that the ACMA, or something like it, would help bring the
Daily Telegraph to heel, I have to tell ’em they’re dreaming. As for any attempt to regulate and
control the oceans of information, reportage, opinion, fantasy, bile, conspiracy, rumour, speculation,
gossip and satire that flows through the global internet, it would be, quite simply, futile.
Thank you very much.
Note: In the question session after this keynote address to the CPRF 2011 my attention was drawn
to the submission by Dr Johan Lidberg of Monash University to the Finkelstein/Ricketson inquiry.
He outlines there the successful Norwegian Press Complaints Committee (PFU), a non-statutory
body that adjudicates on complaints about all news media in Norway, print, online, TV and radio,
whether or not they are contributing members of the system. (See
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/142240/Dr-Johan-Lidberg.pdf.)
I agree with Dr Lidberg that the PFU offers an excellent model for a strengthened media complaints
system in Australia.
1
Independent Media Inquiry Terms of Reference
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry.
2
ABC Media Watch Episode 37, 24 October 2011, ‘TT’s false facts fuel fear’
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3346987.htm.
3
‘Today Tonight: Refugees from Journalistic Decency’, The Drum, ABC website 27 Oct 2011
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-27/holmes-shaming-today-tonight/3603986.
4
Australian Television Industry Code of Practice
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/aba/contentreg/codes/television/documents/2010-
commercial_tv_industry_code_of_practice.pdf.

5
‘Today Tonight: Refugees from Journalistic Decency’, The Drum, ABC website 27 Oct 2011
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-27/holmes-shaming-today-tonight/3603986.
6
Commercial Radio Australia Codes of Practice and Guidelines, Code 2.3 (b)
http://www.commercialradio.com.au/files/uploaded/file/Commercial%20Radio%20Codes%20&%20Guidelines%20
%205%20September%202011.pdf.
7
ABC Media Watch Episode 7, 21 March 2011, ‘Balancing a Hot Debate’
8
ABC Media Watch Episode 16, 30 May 2011, ‘Lessons in Hyperbolic Gestures’
9
For Independent Media Inquiry Issues Paper and Submissions go to
http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/independent_media_inquiry/consultation.
10
ABC Media Watch Episode 23, 18 Jul 2011 http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3272258.htm and
Episode 32, 19 Sept 2011 http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3321170.htm.
11
See Australian Press Council submission to Independent Media Inquiry, note 9 above.
12
ABC Complaints Procedure http://www.abc.net.au/contact/complaints_process.htm.

© Franco Papandrea 14
SUSTAINABILITY OF AUSTRALIAN CONTENT QUOTAS
F R A N C O P A P A N D R E A (Refereed)
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Arts and Design
University of Canberra
Introduction
This year marks the 50th
anniversary of the introduction of quotas for Australian programs on
television. The 1961 quotas gave practical effect to a legislated general obligation of stations to
employ ‘Australians, as far as is possible, in the production and presentation of programs’
(Broadcasting and Television Act 1942, S 114 (1)) which had been in place since 1956. The quotas
required all commercial stations to broadcast at least one hour of Australian programs per week
during prime time (defined as 7:30 pm–9:30 pm). In addition stations that had been established for
more than three years were required to broadcast Australian programs for more than 40 per cent of
their total transmission time. The initially modest requirements were increased on several
subsequent occasions. In 1967, for example, the prime time quota was increased to 12 hours for
each 28 days (rising to 18 hours in 1969) with an added condition that at least two hours were to be
drama. In 1972, the prime-time (redefined as 6:00 pm–10:00 pm) drama quota was increased to
6 hours per 28 days; the overall transmission quota was increased to 50 per cent, and a children’s
program quota of 4 hours per 28 days was introduced. The system was overhauled in 1973 and
again in the early 1990s. After many modifications over the past two decades, the current system
has become a highly detailed regulatory standard.
What clearly emerges even from a cursory examination of the evolution of the current Australian
Content Standard (ACS) is that while the broad objective of the regulation has remained relatively
constant for the past 50 years both the quantity and specificity of the requirements have increased
considerably. At the same time, both the industry and the competitive environment in which it
operates have undergone considerable change. When the regulation was first introduced, the
national television service operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was the only rival
faced by commercial operators in competing for audiences. Since then, competition for audiences
has increased with the establishment of a second national television service (Special Broadcasting
Service) and by the introduction of subscription television with a different Australian content
regime. In more recent times, an increasing variety of services beyond the reach of Australian
regulation has been accessible via the Internet over a multiplicity of fixed and mobile platforms.
Free-to-air television itself is in the midst of conversion from analog to digital transmission that has
brought about a major expansion of channels that so far have not been subjected to Australian
content requirements. In view of all these changes, this paper examines the continuing sustainability
of the current Australian content regulation. It does this by examining the effectiveness of the
current regulatory approach in achieving its objectives in the currently evolving environment.
Current regulatory provisions
The current ACS requires all commercial free-to-air television licensees to broadcast Australian
programming for at least 55 per cent of the transmission time between 6a.m. and midnight. In
addition there are specific minimum annual sub-quotas for Australian (adult) drama, documentary
and children’s programs as follows:
̇ Broadcast first-release drama in prime time to attain at least 860 points1
over a three-year period
with at least 250 points in any year.
̇ At least 96 hours of first release children’s drama over three years with at least 25 hours in any
year and at least 8 hours of non-first release children drama each year.

Sustainability of Australian content quotas 15
̇ At least 260 hours of children’s programming per year of which at least 50 per cent of the must
be first-release.
̇ At least 130 hours per year of Australian pre-school children’s programming which may be
broadcast on no more than 3 occasions in a period of 5 years.
̇ At least 20 hours per year of first-release Australian documentaries of not less than 30 minutes
each.
Subscription television is not subject to Australian program quotas. However, predominantly drama
channels are required to ‘invest’ at least 10 per cent of their programming expenditure to fund the
production of Australian (including New Zealand) drama programs.
In addition to the assistance received from the ACS quotas, the production of Australian feature
films, television drama and documentaries also benefits from direct government funding assistance
(http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/funding/tvdrama/TVDrama.aspx).
Objective of the regulation
The principal legislation relating to broadcasting, the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA),
provides the legal authority for the licensing and regulation of commercial broadcasters. Included
among the stated objectives of the legislation is the express intention ‘to promote the role of
broadcasting services in developing and reflecting a sense of national identity, character and culture’
(BSA, section 3(e)).
As highlighted in the BSA explanatory memorandum the aim of this objective is to support the
broadcast of programming ‘which reflects the multicultural nature of Australia’s population,
promotes Australians’ cultural identity and facilitates the development of the local production
industry’. The BSA also authorises the broadcasting regulator to determine program standards for
commercial television (section 122) including the Australian content of programs (section
122(2)(b)).
The ACS leaves no doubt that a principal element of its purpose is ‘to promote the role of
commercial television in developing and reflecting a sense of Australian identity, character and
cultural diversity by supporting the community’s continued access to television programs produced
under Australian creative control’. Support of local content is deemed necessary to avert the risk of
erosion of the national culture and identity likely to be caused by ‘excessive’ consumption of
imported programs which reflect the culture and customs of the producing countries. The risk is
aggravated by a station’s ability to secure a financial advantage from the replacement of locally
produced programs with less costly popular imported programs. Drama programs are the most
affected as they can easily be replaced by imported alternatives. Other domestic programs, such as
news and sports, are less susceptible to import substitution because consumer preferences for
coverage of local events are generally much more intense than for coverage of events in other
countries.
Several other non-cultural arguments including employment generation, assistance to the
production industry, flow-on benefits to other activities (e.g. film and theatre) and contribution to
foreign earnings have also been advanced in support of local content regulation. However, such
justifications are much less plausible as reasons for regulation because in essence they are little
more than a pleading for special treatment on the basis that production of television programs is
somehow more deserving of support than other activities making similar contributions to
development and enhancement of national culture and identity.
While a robust case can be made for regulation on national culture and identity grounds, seldom is
any attempt made to define and quantify the specific desirable contributions generated by Australian
programs. Without quantification of the impact of domestic programs on the development of a
national culture it is difficult to establish that quotas are the most effective instrument or method

(for example better than education) available to achieve the desired outcome. Even if quotas were
the best mechanism available, the current arbitrarily determined mix might not necessarily be the
most effective. For decades, for example, various changes to the regulation have sought without
much success to increase the quantity of ‘high quality’ drama transmitted by broadcasters. When to
these serious doubts about the efficiency of the current regime we add the anticipated complications
of applicability and enforceability in the digital environment it becomes clear that even if the
regulatory objective remains valid, at the very least, the regulatory approach needs a rethink.
Effectiveness of content quotas
The whole history of the Australian content quotas regime is marked by two underlying features
which have had significant implications for its operational effectiveness and efficiency. The first of
these has been the highly accommodating disposition of successive regulators to ‘adjust’ the
requirements to the needs of broadcasters. The second has been a less than successful series of
attempts to give effect to the consistently expressed desire to encourage the broadcast of ‘quality’
drama (usually defined in terms of high production values).
Successive regulators have been overly concerned with avoiding the imposition of onerous burdens
on broadcasters and the general tendency has been to prescribe requirements that could be complied
with easily with little, if any, change to established programming patterns. Also breaches of the
standards have attracted little, if any, penalties. The Australian Broadcasting Control Board’s
(ABCB) approach to compliance, which continued to influence the approach adopted by its
successors, was outlined in evidence to the Senate Select Committee on the Encouragement of
Australian Production for Television (1963:6):
The Board has not threatened any commercial television licensee with disciplinary action. When
breaches of the Programme Standards come under notice of the Board the matter is taken up
with the station management, either verbally or in writing according to circumstances. There is
continued consultation between the Board’s officers and station managements and a high degree
of co-operation is received from stations.
That such an approach failed to live up to the high expectations of various interest groups in the
community is not surprising. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the regulation were often negative.
For example, Harrison (1980:42), in a detailed critique of the ‘points system’ introduced in 1973
with the aim of raising program quality and increasing the quantity and diversity of local programs
concluded that:
the points system was doomed to fail from its very inception, for a number of reasons. There
can be no doubt that the levels set made it too easy for the stations to meet their points targets.
There can be no incentive to show higher quality and higher points scoring programs if the
targets can be met by showing programs selected without any regard to points. A related reason
for the failure of the system is absorption of the values of the regulated group by the regulatory
agency. On the available evidence one can only conclude that the Board, and later the Tribunal,
steered the system towards concessions to the stations rather than towards a strict enforcement
of the system.
Like its predecessor, the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) was sympathetic to and sought to
accommodate the needs of stations when it made significant amendments to the point system in
1991. Although its draft standard developed after an extensive public inquiry had proposed a
transmission quota of 50 per cent, increasing to 60 per cent over a period of five years because
‘there appears to be a growing consensus that 60 per cent represents the desirable level to preserve a
national identity’ (ABT 1991:Vol 1:223), adopting the guiding principle ‘of setting a ‘safety net’ at
the relevant average program levels reached and sustained in the past’ (p. 28), the ABT set a
transmission quota of 45 per cent rising to 50 per cent over five years. To reassure the major
television networks, which at the time were experiencing financial difficulties, the ABT was also at
pains to stress that the ‘financial impact of the Standard on licensee’s operations has been

considered throughout the Inquiry’ (p. 29). Fulfilment of the prime-time requirements was
facilitated by setting both an annual minimum and a higher three-year average a drama/diversity
points-score that provided stations extra flexibility to comply with the requirement.
Overall, however, while some elements of the quotas during this period had little effect, others
appear to have induced stations to broadcast more Australian content than they otherwise would
have. An extensive analysis of compliance with the regulation in the period 1987–1994 (Papandrea,
1997) concluded that the transmission quota had had little impact on the behaviour of broadcasters.
In relation to the first release drama requirements, the analysis concluded that the regulation had
had some impact on the quantity of adult-drama broadcast by at least one of the major network, and
that they had been instrumental to the delivery of Australian children’s drama. The recent
performance of ACS is broadly in line with the earlier assessments. A brief review of the recent
effectiveness of each of the main instruments of the regulation follows.
Transmission quota
Traditionally broadcasters have had little difficulty in complying with the current 55 per cent
Australian transmission quota for programs broadcast between 6:00 am and midnight. The
popularity of news, current affairs and sports programs together with their natural protection from
imports generally act to ensure the broadcast of a substantial proportion of locally produced
programs. Another contributing factor in more recent times has been the popularity of locally
produced ‘reality’ programs. In any event, any shortfall in the local content requirement can be
made up easily by screening repeats of previously broadcast programs.
Figure 1, provides details of the Australian transmission quota performance of the three major
commercial networks in the period 2001–10. Although occasionally the performance of individual
networks has been only slightly above the quota (for example, Ten in 2004 and Seven in 2005), the
general tendency of the networks has been to significantly outperform the requirement. In 2010, the
proportion of Australian programs broadcast by each of the three networks broadcast exceeded 60
per cent (almost 70 per cent by Seven).
Drama requirements
Although drama generally is one of the main program genres broadcast by commercial television
stations most of it is imported programming. First release Australian drama makes up a very small

proportion of the more than 3600 hours of Australian programming each commercial broadcaster is
required to transmit annually. In 2010, for example, the three commercial networks combined
broadcasted a total of 430 hours of first release Australian drama equivalent to approximately
3.4 per cent of their aggregate Australian programming. The first release drama quota is prescribed
in terms of ‘points’ which vary according to the duration and format of a program. Stations are
required to broadcast programs to achieve a minimum score of 250 points each year (225 in 2002
and earlier years) and 860 points in each consecutive three-year period (830 for three years 2002–04
and 775 earlier). The available data (see figure 2) indicate that the three commercial networks
stations have complied with both the annual and three-year requirements, but relied on different sets
of programs to do so. In 2010, for example, Seven and Ten relied heavily on relatively low-scoring
series and serial drama, whereas Nine relied on a much greater proportion of higher-scoring mini-
series, telemovies and feature films.
To comply with the minimum three-year score requirement networks had to achieve an average
annual score somewhat greater than the minimum annual score set by the regulation. As the
minimum annual score sets the threshold for compliance, analysis of compliance against this
requirement provides little information on the impact of the quota on the behaviour of the networks.
Performance against the three-year score requirement are more telling in this regard. As shown in
Figure 3, only the Seven network has consistently performed above the requirement, with a three-
year score significantly higher than the minimum requirement up to 2007. For the three years
ending 2010 its performance is only slightly above the required minimum. The performance of the
other two networks, on the other hand, is only slightly in excess of requirements throughout the
whole period. This is a strong indication that the quota regime is the main driver for the
performance of the Nine and Ten networks. Without the quota obligation, the first release Australian
drama broadcast by those two networks would be likely to decline.
The fact that Australian programs regularly feature in the top-rating programs on television is often
used as evidence that the quotas are consistent with consumer demand and thus justify their
continued application. But popular Australian programs, including top-rating drama, would not need
quotas to ensure their broadcast. The more popular a program, the greater the advertising earnings it
can generate for a station and the greater its capacity to compete with imported programs. While the
cost disadvantage of Australian drama would render it uncompetitive with high rating imported
substitutes, high-rating domestic drama can generate sufficient advertising revenue to outweigh its
cost disadvantage vis à vis average-rating imported substitutes (Papandrea, 1998).

Although popular Australian drama can be competitive with average rating imported substitutes, its
appeal to television stations is reduced substantially by the high risk associated with program
development. Television stations face a lower risk, and a lower up-front investment, when
committing to exhibit an imported program. Continued production of imported programs is
primarily determined by good ratings in their country of origin — a useful indicator of potential
success in other markets. But even if it fails to appeal sufficiently to prime time audiences, an
imported program can be shifted with little penalty to another time slot for the duration of the
associated purchase obligations. A replacement imported program for prime time is likely to be
available at similar cost. In contrast, a similar shift for a domestic series would incur a substantial
penalty. In the latter case, because only first-release drama complies with the regulation, the
disincentives to the broadcaster would be compounded since the commissioning of a replacement
series would have cost and risk disadvantages similar to those of the one being replaced. Thus,
while broadcasters have an incentive to schedule domestic drama after it has proven its audience
appeal, the high initial risk of commissioning the drama is a disincentive to production.
Consequently, without some form of regulatory support, current levels of Australian drama may not
be sustained.
The key effect of the drama quota, therefore, seems to be to compel broadcasters to accept the high
risk of investing in Australian production. In response, stations will attempt to minimise the cost of
compliance and will produce low-cost programs which, if unsuccessful with audiences, can be
scheduled during non-peak viewing time. To reduce broadcasters’ bias for low-cost drama (often
deemed to be of lower cultural value), the quota incorporates an incentive (the ‘format factor’) for
broadcasters to meet their obligation using fewer, but higher cost, hours of programming by
weighting the points earned by the average hourly cost of the program. In essence, the format factor
seeks to offset the incentive to broadcast low-cost drama by ensuring that the choice of format has a
neutral effect on the overall cost of compliance with the drama requirement. However, as no
allowance is made for the higher risk of commissioning higher cost drama (mini-series and
telemovies), the format factor weighting has only a limited influence in encouraging higher value
productions.
Children’s programs
According to the ABT (1987), ‘regulatory action for children’s television has essentially been a
response to lack of quality, age specific, television programs for children and the need to protect

their interests’. Analyses of broadcasters’ performance in this regard consistently conclude that in
the absence of regulation, commercial broadcasters would have little interest or incentive to
broadcast children’s programming.
The issue of children’s programming is more complex than for other programs. The need to protect
children extends beyond programs to advertising where the regulators impose controls on both the
type and quantity of advertising during children’s programs. Programs for pre-school children are
not permitted to carry advertising at all. These restrictions exacerbate the disincentives facing
broadcasters. Even if advertising restrictions were not more stringent than those for other programs,
the minority appeal nature of children’s programs would bias broadcasters against them. The
disincentives are even greater for children’s drama. It is almost as expensive to produce as adult
drama, but does not have the wide audience appeal of the latter. When coupled with the advertising
restrictions, there is virtually no scope for broadcasters to recover the cost of supplying children’s
drama. Consequently, the broadcasters’ natural response to the regulation, is to minimise their cost
of compliance and the only way they can achieve this in a fixed quantity quota regime is through
reductions in program quality.
Documentaries
Special quotas for Australian documentaries were imposed for the first time in 1996. The Australian
Broadcasting Authority’s (ABA) decision to set specific quota levels for documentaries provided
few details of its motivating factors. As noted by Papandrea (1997), justification for support of
documentaries appear to have been based on their cultural importance, their underrepresentation on
programming schedules2
and their cost disadvantage relative to imported substitutes. The
documentaries quotas, however, do not appear to be effective in addressing these factors.
When the initial quota of 10 hours per year was introduced, all three major commercial networks
were already supplying significantly more than the requirement. The subsequent increase in the
quota level to 20 hours per year also occurred in similar circumstances. The settings were consistent
with the ABA’s ‘safety net’ guiding principle applied to other content quotas. As no other
justifications were provided for the determinations, it can only be presumed that, in the ABA’s view,
the set quota levels were sufficient to guarantee an adequate supply of Australian documentaries.
Consequently, given that the supply of documentaries by the networks has always been, and
continues to be, well above the prescribed levels, the quota seems to be largely redundant and
serving little purpose other than appeasing special interest groups lobbying for mandatory
requirements.
Quotas in the current environment
The development and growth of the online environment has provided significant opportunities for
both established operators and new entrants to experiment with and use new platforms for the
delivery of both traditional and emerging video services likely to appeal to consumers. According to
the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA, 2011a), recent data indicate a rapidly
growing interest in online video services. Other information anticipates considerable growth in
online media services in the years ahead. Recent forecasts by Cisco (2011) predict that ‘in Australia,
IP traffic will grow 6-fold from 2010 to 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 41%’ and will then
‘be equivalent to 2 billion DVDs per year, 128 million DVDs per month, or 175,885 DVDs per
hour’.
New delivery systems, which already have altered considerably the supply and sources of television
services, are continuing to be developed and promise to profoundly expand the range of choices
available to viewers. The once limited viewer’s free-to-air choice of up to five analog channels has
already been expanded threefold by digital conversion. Some 30 per cent of households have access
to a much wider range of channels supplied by subscription television providers. And the range of
potential options (free or pay) available to those with access to the internet is already large and

growing. Mobile services are also available. Convergence is also bringing the separate delivery
platforms together and television sets enabling consumers to access all the various delivery systems
and viewing options on a single piece of equipment in their lounge rooms are already widely
available.
The existing regulation of Australian television content developed for a highly controlled licensing
system with a restricted small number of players does not fit well in the new environment. On the
consumer side, the much larger choice of services available to viewers will fragment audiences and
consequently diminish the influence of each individual service. The anticipated structure of
television is one where a multitude of specialist channels and other sources providing viewers with
a catalogue of choices to be selected at will, rather than the traditional passive selection of one of
the few available choices on free-to-air channels at the time of viewing. On the supply side, many
of the new sources of programs accessible by viewers are either not conducive to control with the
existing regulatory instruments or may even be beyond the jurisdiction of domestic regulatory
authorities.
The changing environment will place increasing stress on the effectiveness of regulation. Some
strains are already evident. The multichannel nature of subscription television, introduced almost
two decades ago, has not been conducive to the Australia content quota regime applied to free-to-air
services. In recognition of their different nature, subscription television services generally have not
been subjected to Australian content quotas. Only predominantly drama channels have been
subjected to a variant form of regulation which requires them to invest 10 per cent of their program
expenditure in Australian productions without a related obligation to broadcast them. The more
recent introduction of digital multichannelling has added some further strain as only the main
channel of a commercial broadcaster is subject to the Australian content regime. Differential
treatment is also accorded to IPTV services. Over a decade ago, a ministerial determination ruled
that ‘Internet services providing television and or radio programs outside of the broadcasting
services bands should not be regulated as a broadcasting service’ (Department of Broadband,
Communications and the Digital Economy, 2000). Some IPTV services, such as those of Foxtel and
Transact (licensed subscription TV providers), to the extent to which they are classified as part of
their subscription television services, are captured by the Australian production obligations applying
to predominantly drama channels. Other IPTV services supplied by ISPs for download over the
Internet are not subject to Australian content regulation. Although access to these services is
essentially on a single program basis, rather than a ‘channel’ basis, the application of regulation
along lines similar to those applied to subscription television providers could be conceivable. But
even such a possibility would be difficult to conceive for web TV and satellite TV services,
particularly those from providers located outside Australia’s territorial jurisdiction. Further details
of current pressures on the regulation are provided in the recent ACMA (2011b) report Broken
concepts: the Australian communications legislative landscape.
As the number and range of competitors to free-to-air providers expand the sustainability of the
current regulatory system will become increasingly difficult to sustain. Yet, the importance of
ensuring access to Australian content remains unchanged. Indeed, in the emerging environment with
a multitude of viewing options available to consumers, development of appropriate measures
capable of promoting and ensuring access to Australian content is likely to become even more
critical for the promotion of a national identity and culture.
What should be preserved?
Consideration of potential measures for future support of Australian content necessarily needs to
commence with a determination of what benefits accrue and are being sought by the application of
the current regulatory regime. As highlighted above, of the existing instruments, the overall
transmission quota and the quotas for Australian documentaries have had little noticeable impact on
the behaviour of stations and appear to be redundant.

The fact that stations consistently transmit significantly more Australian content than required by
the ACS is a strong indication that consumer preferences rather than the quota are the main
determinants of a station’s output. Programs such as news, current affairs and sports not only have a
large element of natural protection from imports, but also enjoy a high level of popularity among
viewers. Because they are profitable to stations the likelihood is that they would continue to be
provided even without a quota.
Different considerations apply to the existing program specific quotas. The supply of Australian
documentaries has always been well in excess of the quota requirement and strongly suggests that
the quota’s introduction was based on dubious premises. Its removal would be unlikely to have any
significant effect on the supply of Australian documentaries. In contrast, the output of drama and
children’s programs seems to be driven by the related specific quotas. These program genres are
also regarded as being of particular importance to the development and enhancement of national
culture and identity. Consequently, action to secure their future presence and availability to
Australian audiences requires serious consideration.
Although the adult drama quota imposes a considerable impost on broadcasters, it has not been
entirely effective in its operations. Various attempts have been made to encourage broadcasters to
favour longer-forms of drama in complying with the quota requirements. While there have been
some fine examples of mini-series and features that have proved highly popular with audiences,
long running serials and series have consistently been the mainstay of genres used to comply with
quota obligations. This inefficiency of the current adult-drama quota regime should be addressed in
any future mechanism.
Children’s programming represents a difficult problem for regulatory authorities. Commercial
broadcasters clearly see it as a cost burden and try to minimise its impact on their profitability.
Quality of commercial programming is often poor and so is its value to children. The ABC, on the
other hand, has had substantial success with the production of children’s programming. With digital
television, it is devoting greater attention to children’s programming through its ABC2 and ABC3
multichannels which have significantly improved the programming choices available to pre-school
and school aged children.
In summary then, regulatory consideration for the maintenance of Australian programming on
television in the digital age should focus on options that preserve access to adult drama and to
children’s programming. On the basis of past performance, regulations of transmission time devoted
to Australian programming and documentary quotas have little, if any, influence on broadcasters’
behaviour and appear to be serving only the purpose of appeasing pro-quota interest groups.
Some considerations and prospective policy options
In an environment of rapidly changing technologies and converging markets care needs to be
exercised to avoid the risk that essentially the same service might face different regulatory treatment
depending on the mode or technology used to deliver it. Guiding principles for efficient regulatory
intervention advocate that:
̇ intervention should be retained or introduced only when strictly necessary to correct market
failure or pursue a social goal and then only if the benefits to society clearly outweigh the
associated costs;
̇ the intervention should be directed at outcomes and not on the method used to generate or
deliver the desired outcomes; and
̇ the instrument used must have a clear, well-defined, transparent and predictable framework and
should not impede the process of market change induced by technological change and
convergence.

Consistent with these principles, some options available to policymakers to ensure a sustainable
supply of Australian television content to consumers are outlined below.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stresses the need to exercise
extensive care when considering regulatory intervention in a market. While noting the importance
of consumers being ‘able to access the types of content that they value’, its submission to the
Convergence Review (ACCC, 2011) cautions that:
vibrant and competitive emerging platforms, which support additional opportunities for new
businesses and new services to better meet consumer demand, may result in a communications
and media industry that is better placed to meet a range of social policy objectives than has
previously been the case. Given this, in considering whether regulation is required to deliver
specific outcomes consistent with social policy objectives, it is important to identify the extent
to which a competitive industry is likely to fall short in delivering these outcomes.
It further argued that ‘where consumers are able to choose freely from a wide range of media
sources, there will be a strong discipline on businesses to offer the type of content consumers want’
even when ‘lower cost programming or content is available’ and used examples of top rating
Australian programs shown on commercial television in support of its view.
The transition from the traditional television industry structure with a small number of suppliers
each operating a single channel to one with a multitude of services on many different platforms is
likely to alter considerably the operating business models. The much larger choice of services
available to consumers will undoubtedly lead to audience fragmentation and a consequential
reduction in the influence of individual channels. The anticipation is that the current general
channels supplying a broad range of programming will be replaced by a variety of individual
specialised channels concentrating on the delivery of one or a few program genres. Internet
television services, whether free or pay, are likely to feature access to a range of program libraries
giving consumers a variety of personal consumption choices at a time of their choosing. In such an
environment, ensuring the availability of desirable Australian content to those wishing to consume
it, is likely to be more dependent on the availability of dedicated channels and specialised program
libraries rather than ensuring the broadcast of minimum amounts on generalised channels.
As highlighted by the analysis above, the Australian transmission and documentaries quotas for
commercial television have no effect on the behaviour of operators. Indeed, in determining the
requirements, regulators saw the quotas as some kind of insurance (‘safety net’) against the risk of
an eventual potential future decline in the level of Australian content being broadcast. Furthermore,
the quotas currently apply only to the main channel broadcast by a commercial operator. While the
ABC is not subject to specific programming quotas it is required by its Charter obligations to
broadcast Australian programming and to take account of programming standards developed by the
broadcasting regulator. Multichannel services are not subject to the quota, nor are the SBS and
subscription television services which provide close substitute services. Potential substitutes such as
Video on Demand services and internet television services provided ‘outside of the broadcast
services bands’ are not subject to broadcasting regulation. Thus, even if they were effective in
influencing broadcasters’ behaviour, the quotas would fail one of the principal tests of efficient
regulation because they are inconsistently applied to close substitute services provided by
competitors. Consequently, abandonment of the transmission and documentaries quotas would be
likely to have little, if any, impact on the level of Australian content on commercial television, but
would increase efficiency by eliminating the related implementation, administration and monitoring
costs.
Several mechanisms are used to promote the supply of Australian drama. Although limited in its
capacity to promote high quality programs, the Australian drama quota imposed on commercial
broadcasters, is influencing the level of supply of Australian produced drama programs on
commercial television. Notwithstanding its efficiency weakness, the quota’s social benefits have
been assessed as being at least commensurate with its costs (Papandrea, 1997). In other words,

regulatory intervention to ensure the supply of Australian drama appears to be justified. While the
quota does not apply to subscription television, predominantly drama channels on subscription
television are subject to a regulatory financial obligation to invest an annual sum of not less than
10 per cent of their programming expenditure on the production of Australian drama. The ABC is
subject to previously mentioned charter obligations. Digital multichannels of commercial
broadcasters and other potentially competing services are not subject to specific Australian drama
requirements. More generally, Australian drama production is also supported by government
subsidies administered by Screen Australia (television production fund and assistance and funding
arrangements in support of Australian feature film production).
Of these mechanisms, the Australian drama quota is the most difficult to sustain in a converged
environment. The quota is applied only to the main channel of each commercial television operator.
Its extension to other delivery platforms would be difficult or impossible to implement particularly
in relation to internet sources of programming and has already proved inappropriate in the case of
subscription television. As audience preferences shift increasingly to consumption of alternative
services, the effectiveness of the instrument will progressively decline. To ensure continued
delivery of the associated social benefits, therefore, an alternative form of intervention will be
required.
One potential solution would be to replace the present quota arrangements with a subsidy for the
production of Australian television drama. A well-targeted subsidy would eliminate the distortions
inherent in the current disparate treatment of existing and emerging delivery platforms. The
replacement of the quota with a production subsidy scheme would enable better targeting of the
assistance to programs more likely to deliver the cultural objective of the regulation and more likely
to reflect audience preferences. Eligibility could be limited to specific programs, could be adjusted
to reflect production values and could be directed specifically to the type of programs with the
greatest cultural value. It could also be linked to market signals on viewer preferences. For example,
the subsidy could be paid to broadcasters when they purchase the rights to broadcast a program.
Alternatively, the subsidy could be paid to producers who can demonstrate commitment from a
broadcaster that the program will be put to air. This latter mechanism has been used in program
funding schemes in New Zealand and Canada. When combined with the likely higher audience
popularity for local drama, the improved cost competitiveness of Australian drama vis à vis imports
as a result of the production subsidy, would increase a station’s incentive to broadcast the programs.
A change from quotas to production subsidies would shift the cost of the regulation from the
broadcasters to the Government, unless it is accompanied by offsetting taxation. The current
arrangements are essentially an inefficient form of indirect taxation on broadcasters. Thus, their
replacement by a more direct tax mechanism could result in improved efficiency. While the current
licence fees arrangements continue to apply, for example, it would be relatively easy to increase the
rate at which the fees are levied to cover the cost of subsidising drama production via a central fund
similar to the current television production fund administered by Screen Australia. The rate increase
should be set at a level that did not increase the average cost currently incurred by stations to
comply with their drama quota obligations. A variant of this was used recently by the government to
implement a substantial rebate of licence fees ostensibly to assist operators with the funding of
Australian programming (Conroy, 2010).
Another possibility would be to extend a version of the current subscription television arrangements
to the multichannel free-to-air environment. All channels could be subjected to a requirement to
invest an appropriate proportion of their programming expenditure on the production of Australian
drama. The provision could be applied to both free-to-air and subscription television operators. It
could also be applied to Australian based ISPs supplying internet video content services to
Australian customers, but would be highly difficult to apply to overseas sources.
A third option would be the replacement of the current obligation of commercial operators to
broadcast drama with a commensurate increase in licence fees. The fees thus collected could be

A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN S MEDIA USE AND TIME CHOICES

A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN S MEDIA USE AND TIME CHOICES

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